OpenMetal Cloud Customer Success Story

Coder is a technology company that offers a solution to cloud-based development environments. They enable developers to use consistent, containerized environments, allowing them to write, test, and deploy code from any device, anywhere.

By moving development environments to the cloud, Coder addresses the “it works on my machine” issue that many development teams face, ensuring consistent, reproducible builds. This approach not only streamlines the development process but also enhances collaboration among developers, as they can access and share the same environment regardless of their physical location or the device they are using.

OpenMetal helped Coder find:

Cost-Effective Product Development
Seamless Integration with Development Tools
Scalable Resources for Testing
Data Security During Development
Consistent Development Experience

1. Demo
2. Use Cases
3. About Coder
4. The Vision
5. The Challenge
6. The Solution
7. Why Private Cloud?

Coder + OpenMetal: Seamless Dev Evolution

Experience the Future: Coder on OpenMetal – Where Cloud Development Meets Ultimate Flexibility.

Understanding the Integration

The demo initiates with a display of OpenMetal’s cloud environment where OpenStack is already pre-configured. This initial setup illustrates OpenMetal’s optimized approach to cloud preparation and its capability to seamlessly integrate with OpenStack.

As we progress, attention is directed towards the functionality of Coder’s user interface. The interface is a reflection of thoughtfully designed software, built with clear workflows to facilitate user tasks, and this demonstration emphasizes its capability to precisely execute operations.

Within this environment, Ben Potter demonstrates the process of leveraging Terraform, an infrastructure-as-code tool. Terraform plays a crucial role in this setup, functioning as a conduit that manages the orchestration between Coder and OpenStack, ensuring that instructions are effectively translated and executed.

In the subsequent step, Terraform interacts with OpenStack to carry out the task of provisioning a Virtual Machine (VM). It’s crucial to note that this VM is specifically tailored to integrate Visual Studio Code. This operation provides a practical illustration of how OpenStack, with its modular architecture, can be leveraged for specific, custom deployments.

To wrap up the technical walkthrough, Ben showcases the procedure to utilize Coder for accessing the Visual Studio Code instance. This instance, hosted on OpenStack, represents a real-world application of how development platforms can be connected to remote environments without compromising efficiency or functionality.

How Coder Transforms Your Development Workflow

Coder is a platform that streamlines the deployment of development environments across various infrastructures. With Coder, developers can set up workspaces on local machines, containerized platforms, or virtual machines. Utilizing Terraform, a user can define the configuration requirements of each environment, enabling rapid provisioning of new development spaces as needed.

Importantly, in-depth knowledge of Terraform isn’t a prerequisite — Coder includes a wealth of pre-built templates that simplify environment setup. Once deployed, Coder provides seamless access to popular Web IDEs, SSH, and an array of other development tools.

Moreover, Coder features robust user management capabilities. This allows entire development teams to log into a single Coder instance, where each member can effortlessly create and deploy identical workspaces. This uniformity ensures consistency and efficiency, facilitating a collaborative and productive development process.

Best of all, it’s open source. Try it out here: https://github.com/coder/coder or learn more on their website: https://coder.com/

About Coder: Your Workspace, Supercharged

Revolutionizing Development through Cloud-Based Environments

Founded in 2017, Coder has emerged as a transformative player in the software development landscape. At the heart of Coder’s innovative approach is its flagship product, Coder Enterprise, designed to streamline and modernize the way developers work.

Cloud-Driven Development

In a world where remote work and collaboration are becoming the norm, Coder has addressed a perennial challenge many development teams face: ensuring consistency across various local development environments.

By moving these environments to the cloud, Coder offers a solution that ensures every developer, regardless of their location or the device they’re using, has access to a consistent, containerized workspace. This eliminates the age-old problem of “it works on my machine,” ensuring that all team members are working in identical settings, which in turn reduces bugs and enhances collaboration.

Security and Accessibility

By leveraging the power of the cloud, Coder doesn’t just offer consistency; it also provides heightened security. Development environments are often vulnerable, with various dependencies and configurations that can be exploited.

With Coder’s cloud environments, there’s an added layer of protection, ensuring that the development work remains secure. Additionally, these cloud environments can be accessed from anywhere, providing unparalleled flexibility to developers.

Integration and Compatibility

Understanding the diverse toolsets that developers use, Coder has ensured that its platform seamlessly integrates with a variety of popular version control systems, identity providers, and other essential tools. This means teams can transition to Coder without having to overhaul their existing workflows drastically.

The Future of Development

With the increasing complexity of software projects and the growing need for collaboration across geographically dispersed teams, Coder’s solution is more relevant than ever. Their cloud-based approach signifies a shift in the development paradigm, emphasizing flexibility, consistency, and security.

In summary, Coder is not just offering a product; they’re pioneering a movement towards a more efficient, collaborative, and modern approach to software development.

Coder Workspace Platform

Real-World Scenarios

Scenario 1: Remote Development Enablement

Challenge: As a software company, you have a distributed team of developers across the globe who need to collaborate on the same project. The variation in local development environments leads to the “it works on my machine” syndrome, causing delays and frustrations.

How Coder Helps:

Coder allows you to set up cloud-based development environments that are consistent for every team member, regardless of their physical location.
Developers can access these environments through a web browser or SSH, enabling them to work from any device, including less powerful ones like Chromebooks or tablets.
The centralized environments ensure that everyone is working with the same set of tools and resources, which streamlines collaboration and reduces setup time.

Scenario 2: Enhancing Security for Sensitive Projects

Challenge: Your company handles sensitive data and needs to ensure that the source code and data do not reside on local machines, minimizing the risk of data breaches.

How Coder Helps:

With Coder, source code is centralized on secure, private servers or cloud services, which significantly reduces the risk of sensitive data being exposed on individual developers’ machines.
Central management of workspaces allows for stricter access controls and auditing capabilities.
Regular updates and patches can be applied uniformly, ensuring that all environments adhere to the latest security standards.

Scenario 3: Streamlining Onboarding and Environment Management

Challenge: New hires in your tech team are taking too long to onboard because they have to configure their development machines manually, which delays their productivity.

How Coder Helps:

Coder’s use of infrastructure as code via Terraform enables quick provisioning of development environments with predefined templates.
New developers can get started on actual coding tasks on their first day since their workspaces are pre-configured and ready to use.
Environment drift is minimized, as the same configurations are used across the board, making troubleshooting and support more straightforward.

In each scenario, Coder’s platform helps to centralize and standardize development workspaces, making them more accessible, secure, and efficient for teams and their members.

The Vision

At OpenMetal, we’ve always prioritized understanding and aligning with the objectives of our partners. With Coder, this synergy becomes evident through their well-defined goals for their development platform:

Cost Savings: Coder seeks to provide its users with optimal value. By utilizing our cost-effective infrastructure, they ensure developers gain maximum efficiency without compromising budget.
Security: Recognizing the importance of data protection, Coder aligns with our robust security protocols to offer a fortified environment for development.
Ease of Deploying OpenStack: Simplified processes are central to Coder’s approach. Our collaboration streamlined their deployment of OpenStack, reducing complexities and accelerating setup times.
Resource Availability: To eliminate potential developmental constraints, Coder harnesses our abundant resources, ensuring developers have access to essential tools whenever required.
Private Cloud Autonomy: Understanding the value of flexibility, Coder leverages our private cloud solutions, allowing their users a tailored environment with greater control.

In essence, our partnership with Coder is rooted in their vision to offer a superior, seamless, and efficient development experience, and we’re proud to support their journey.

The Challenge

OpenStack, with its dynamic cloud infrastructure capabilities, has presented enticing opportunities for organizations like Coder. However, the intricate landscape of deploying it initially posed challenges for Coder, which aimed for a seamless, efficient platform.

Manual Deployment
- Coder’s Challenge: Navigating the maze of interconnected services manually was both complex and time-intensive for Coder.
- OpenMetal’s Solution: Through automation and process optimization, OpenMetal eliminates these intricacies, ensuring swift and straightforward setups.
Packaged Distributions
- Coder’s Concern: The constraints of ready-to-deploy distributions limited Coder’s adaptability and raised concerns about unforeseen costs.
- OpenMetal’s Approach: By providing flexible configurations and clear cost structures, OpenMetal addresses these challenges head-on.
Customized Automation Tools
- Coder’s Hurdle: Keeping tools compatible across varying OpenStack releases was a continual task for Coder.
- OpenMetal’s Answer: With a suite of tailored automation tools, OpenMetal offers consistent compatibility, reducing the burden on teams like Coder’s.

While OpenStack’s potential is vast, navigating its deployment can be intricate. Coder faced these challenges firsthand. Yet, with OpenMetal’s solutions, these obstacles are transformed into stepping stones, allowing Coder and other organizations to fully harness OpenStack’s capabilities.

“OpenMetal has revolutionized our OpenStack experience, making deployment and management astonishingly seamless and user-friendly.”

Ben Potter, Head of Products @ Coder

The Solution

An OpenMetal Standard Cloud Core + Connected to Coder

OpenMetal provisioned Coder with our standard cloud configuration, fortified with the power of OpenStack. This configuration, a testament to our expertise, is one of our flagship deployments. It offers the flexibility to run up to 68 VMs, each endowed with 4GB RAM and 2vCPUs — a setup tailor-made for developer workspaces managing light workloads. For developers tackling more intensive tasks, the system seamlessly scales to support 34 VMs, each boasting 8GB RAM and 4vCPUs.

Following the successful cloud deployment, Coder’s team demonstrated their technical agility by crafting a specialized Terraform playbook. This tool was specifically designed to invoke resources within OpenStack, ensuring its smooth integration into the broader Coder ecosystem. The synergy was evident: while OpenMetal deftly managed the complexities of OpenStack deployment, Coder zeroed in on its core strength — seamless system integration.

Today, Coder’s OpenStack cloud serves as an invaluable asset, mirroring the varied experiences of their end-users. It stands as a robust platform for vetting novel functionalities and gauging their efficacy. The collaboration has not only met but surpassed expectations, prompting Coder to diversify and deepen their engagement with OpenStack-powered use-cases.

Why Choose Private Cloud?

In the evolving landscape of software development, the shift toward private cloud environments has become a strategic move for many organizations. Here’s why developing on a private cloud, like the one powered by OpenMetal, can be a game-changer for your development team:

Cost Savings

The first and foremost advantage of using a private cloud is cost efficiency. With a pay-as-you-go model, you only pay for the resources you use. This eliminates the financial burden of maintaining on-premises hardware, which can be both expensive and underutilized. OpenMetal’s infrastructure, with its competitive pricing, ensures that you’re getting the most out of every dollar spent.

Optimized Resource Allocation

Private clouds allow for more precise control over your resources. Unlike public clouds, where resources are shared among multiple tenants, a private cloud means dedicated resources for your development needs. This ensures that your workloads are not competing for resources, leading to better performance and stability. OpenMetal’s platform allows for easy scaling and management of resources, ensuring that your developers have what they need, when they need it.

Enhanced Security

When it comes to development, security is non-negotiable. Private clouds offer a more secure environment since your data is isolated from the public internet. OpenMetal takes this a step further by providing a secure, compliant, and private infrastructure that meets the stringent requirements of data-sensitive applications. This means you can develop and test in an environment that mirrors your production setup without compromising on security.

Compliance and Control

For industries regulated by strict data protection laws, private clouds offer a compliant solution. With OpenMetal, you have the assurance that your infrastructure adheres to industry standards, and you maintain control over the compliance and governance of your environments.

Customization and Flexibility

Private clouds provide the flexibility to customize your environment to your specific needs. Whether it’s custom networking configurations, specific hardware requirements, or unique storage needs, OpenMetal’s private cloud solutions are designed to be tailored to the precise demands of your development projects.

Choosing a private cloud for development isn’t just about following a trend; it’s about making a strategic decision that aligns with your organization’s need for cost efficiency, resource optimization, security, and flexibility. OpenMetal’s private cloud offerings empower you to leverage these benefits while keeping your focus on innovation and growth.

Continued Partnership

OpenMetal maintains a strong partnership with Coder’s product development team, collaborating to enhance their workloads and maximize the efficiency of their infrastructure.

Coder has indicated their intention to broaden their utilization of OpenStack. We eagerly anticipate and stand prepared for this next phase of collaboration.

We take care of the hardware and OpenStack so their team can focus on innovating and developing cutting-edge software solutions without the hassle of managing infrastructure.