Overview
In this article we will explore why you should consider tackling IaaS and PaaS together. Many organizations gave up on OpenStack during it’s hype phase, but in my view it is time to reconsider the IaaS strategy. Two main factors are really pushing a re-emergence of interest in OpenStack and that is containers and cloud.
Containers require very flexible, software-defined infrastructure and are changing the application landscape fast. Remember when we had the discussions about pets vs cattle? The issue with OpenStack during it’s hype phase was that the workloads simply didn’t exist within most organizations, but now containers are changing that, from a platform perspective. Containers need to be orchestrated and the industry has settled in on Kubernetes for that purpose. In order to run Kubernetes you need quite a lot of flexibility at scale on the infrastructure level. You must be able to provide solid Software Defined Networking, Compute, Storage, Load Balancing, DNS, Authentication, Orchestration, basically everything and do so at a click of the button. Yeah we can all do that, right.
If we think about IT, there are two types of personas. Those that feel IT is generic, 80% is good enough and for them, it is a light switch: on or off. This persona has no reason whatsoever to deal with IaaS and should just go to the public cloud, if not already there. In other words, OpenStack makes no sense. The other persona feel IT adds compelling value to their business and going beyond 80% provides them with distinct business advantages. Anyone can go to public cloud but if you can turn IT into a competitive advantage then there may actually be a purpose for it. Unfortunately with the way many organizations go about IT today, it is not really viable, unless something dramatic happens. This brings me back to OpenStack. It is the only way an organization can provide the capabilities a public cloud offers while also matching price, performance and providing a competitive advantage. If we cannot achieve the flexibility of public cloud, the consumption model, the cost effectiveness and provide compelling business advantage then we ought to just give up right?
I also find it interesting that some organizations, even those that started in the public cloud are starting to see value in build-your-own. Dropbox for example, originally started using AWS and S3. Over last few years they built their own object storage solution, one that provided more value and saved 75 million over two years. They also did so with a fairly small team. I certainly am not advocating for doing everything yourself, I am just saying that we need to make a decision, does IT provide compelling business value? Can you do it for your business, better than the generic level playing field known as public cloud? If so, you really ought to be looking into OpenStack and using momentum behind containers to bring about real change.
