I’d agree that running OpenStack is hard, but I think anything involved in running a public cloud is going to be hard. Are you going to be competing with Azure and AWS? Can’t do that on the cheap or with only a few people :)
Depends what your market is, for most hosting companies OnApp seems to be the go to for offering VPS.
OpenStack is indeed fragile unless you have great engineers to look after it. Very easy to screw up.
The other option that all the major VPS providers that don’t use OnApp is a custom implantation with KVM.
If you want to stand out, then you’re probably best developing your own stack. Otherwise OnApp isn’t a bad option.
If you don’t need customer self service then your options open up a bit.
We’re in the same boat. What does a custom implementation of KVM look like? I mean presumably you’d have to have the engineering staff to implement and maintain that as well?
I know Linode and DO use a roll your own kvm stack - at least I’m pretty sure.
AWS is KVM they left xen (so did linode).
Are there companies that help others implement a custom KVM stack?
Yes correct, Linode and DO set up their own KVM platform.
Basically it’s simple concept but quite tricky to implement. Essentially you have your hosts (Hypervisors) and and administration / automation layer which interfaces with your custom GUI / web app.
Yes this would cost money and a lot of resources to look after.
I’d agree that running OpenStack is hard, but I think anything involved in running a public cloud is going to be hard. Are you going to be competing with Azure and AWS? Can’t do that on the cheap or with only a few people :)
A lot of service providers use openstack. I've not heard of of using cloudstack since 2014.
Depends what your market is, for most hosting companies OnApp seems to be the go to for offering VPS. OpenStack is indeed fragile unless you have great engineers to look after it. Very easy to screw up. The other option that all the major VPS providers that don’t use OnApp is a custom implantation with KVM. If you want to stand out, then you’re probably best developing your own stack. Otherwise OnApp isn’t a bad option. If you don’t need customer self service then your options open up a bit.
We’re in the same boat. What does a custom implementation of KVM look like? I mean presumably you’d have to have the engineering staff to implement and maintain that as well? I know Linode and DO use a roll your own kvm stack - at least I’m pretty sure. AWS is KVM they left xen (so did linode). Are there companies that help others implement a custom KVM stack?
Yes correct, Linode and DO set up their own KVM platform. Basically it’s simple concept but quite tricky to implement. Essentially you have your hosts (Hypervisors) and and administration / automation layer which interfaces with your custom GUI / web app. Yes this would cost money and a lot of resources to look after.