Which Commercial and Open Source Software Do You Recommend for Private Clouds?

Comparing just the technonogies is like comparing apples and oranges. You should consider also what kind of workloads you will be deploying in your private cloud. If you plan to migrate legacy enterprise workloads to your private cloud, VMware vCloudSuite is undoubtedly best choice. If you you are going to use your private cloud for cloud native workloads, then you should consider OpenStack or AzureStack.

OpenStack is harder to setup and requires special expertise. If you don't have that in-house, it's best go for a turnkey solution like Ormuco or something similar. OpenStack is now quite mature and if your developers are using open source technologies, it's a good choice. OpenStack can be also complemented using Ceph based storage solution. They work very nicely together. I also like OpenStack's networking capabilities. There are quite a lot of Neutron plug-ins and drivers you can use. If you want to do cost chargeback/showback, you need some additional tools like CloudKitty. If you are utilizing containers, Docker and Kubernetes work nicely in OpenStack.

AzureStack is very new technology even if it's based on Azure. It comes as integrated system and you several vendors to choose from (DellEMC, HPE, Lenovo, Cisco, Huawei). AzureStack provides nearly indentical user experience to Azure. You can use same tools and interfaces with consistency over Azure and AzureStack. So if you have hybrid cloud needs, AzureStack is worth checking. We got our ArureStack in December and have found some bugs, so maturity leaves something to be desired. Microsoft's monthly updates are improving the situation, but be aware there are limitations. At the moment you can have only one region with one scale unit in your AzureStack cloud (you can have multiple clouds). Scale units come in three sizes 4, 8 and 12 nodes (=servers). AzureStack roadmap has also a 16 node scale unit and possibility to add second scale unit to a region. This should be possible by the end of June 2018. AzureStack IaaS funtionality is good, Paas is somewhat limited at the moment as is container support, but Microsoft is working on that.

Most of my experience is around Azure and Pivotal Cloud Foundry (PCF). If you're looking to create a Private Cloud environment I would very much encourage you to look at PCF. Cloud Foundry itself is an Open Source product and Pivotal is one of the main contributors; their particular flavor of Cloud Foundry includes a number of Enterprise features and PCF in general can be used to host both Linux and Windows workloads in a fully containerized environment.

The other potential benefit to PCF would be if you're wanting a Private cloud solution *now* with potential to move into a public cloud later, PCF can actually be run on top of Azure, AWS and even Google Cloud so, in effect, you can choose to pick up your private cloud, apps and all, and shift it into a public cloud later, either has a hybrid solution or DR option.

OpenStack: opensource and getting better day by day but at the moment not mature enough but that gap has been filling by the available vendors of this line.
OpenNebula; again opensource but more focused to be a Cloud Management Platform.
VMware: Most mature vendor in the cloud arena and very expensive as well.
vCloudSuite; again VMware product but hybrid cloud management platform it is.
Microsoft Azure; getting better and mature through time and also prevailing the market at a fast pace.

I have experience of VMware vCloud director PeaSoup is built on this technology stack.
I chose this over Open Source and strongly believe it was the right decision as open source continues to splinter.
We sell against Azure, not that its a bad choice, I just don't like the hidden charges

I'm experienced with Azure.
On the other hand there is a great platform, named Stratoscale that can leverage on-prem or hybrid cloud.

Following up for Jay on your question about the various technologies that can be utilized while creating a private cloud. We’ve made some comparisons across different providers in terms of pricing models, service offerings, and market value. The ones we’ve spoken on so far include: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Alibaba, IBM, and Oracle.

See below for blog posts that provide helpful information -

Comparison:

AWS vs Google Cloud Pricing
Google vs AWS (mostly high level)
Per-second billing
Alibaba and AWS
IBM and Oracle
Single CSP cost info:
Azure region pricing
M instance type
Costs are dropping dramatically

Jay himself has also answered questions related to this on Quora, see below for some of his posts -

What advantages does AWS have over Microsoft Azure & IBM Cloud (Bluemix)? What makes it so successful?
Why do so many companies choose AWS over Oracle?
Which is better, Amazon AWS Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
What is the cheapest cloud computing service?
Is Google Cloud as good as AWS?
Which cloud technology is best to choose among AWS, Azure, and Google?
Why is AWS cloud service more widely implemented by customers compared to Google Cloud service?
Who is the best cloud service provider?

I hope that was helpful! Thanks.

Hello.
We have some experience with AZURE, but we are working too (just beginning) with vCloud. It is important to consider the clouds orchestrator if you are going to "create" an ecosystem considering different cloud vendors, something that we are evaluating too.

We are not much in open stack offerings, so so not have much exposure of openstack. VMware vCloud is the best among all the private cloud offerings due to its wide acceptability. However MS Azure stack offerings are picking up in the market with aggression. Currently it has limitation in terms of compatibility and have offerings from few OEMs.
In my opinion currently best option is VMware vCloud, since skills are available in the industry.

…I meant to add this point: Private cloud may be a necessary evil, but unless you have regulatory or key security reasons for having a private cloud or a hybrid then why built your own. Think of it this way: If you have a private cloud you have ONE customer paying for the platform and the ongoing innovation to make it faster/more reliable/more secure/etc. if using a public cloud, they have thousands of clients who are paying them so they can do a much better job of investing in ongoing improvements and enhancements. Think hard before you go with a “built it vs. buy it” decision.

I have had experience in these and many other technologies, architectures, and platforms. The problem with your question is that you are confusing the three. Think of it differently:

1. Cloud is a platform. Think of it this way – you used to either install hardware at a customer (distributed platform) or host it in a data center (more standard ( SaaS). Cloud is a platform option that you can either make private, public or hybrid. The best option is if you can “outsource” the platform, support and ongoing innovation to someone like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.

2. Architecture is the most important aspect. Architectures change in “geological” time while technology changes in near real time these days. Your architecture should flexible and more of a way of organizing your tech stack and centers of excellence. For example, SOA (services orie]nted architecture) is a start. Then figure out what key capabilities your technology will need to support and provide and define the architecture nuances that will best enable these.

3. Technology is the programming languages, the presentation tools, the design tools, etc. There is a ton of innovation going on and that will continue to constantly improve languages, improve tools, etc. Beware of architectures that dictate or are highly biased towards specific technologies. That puts you in position in which if you require technology changes to keep current with or add additional scalability, functionality or to enable broader skill sets you essentially have to throw away your architecture and start over. BIG BANG (and this means huge disruption and huge cost).

Bottom line, one of the most important hires in an organization is a “non-religious” senior architect and/or consultants to understand your solutions and to help you make the right decisions on all three areas. People who are fanatic proponents of specific technologies and “magic architectures” (like OpenStack) are poison in your company. But an agnostic but experienced architect is a most vital asset.

It depends on your requirement and what we want to achieve? If an enterprise is exploring, considering open source and low cost options without any support (available through Forums), one can go with options like OpenStack, Eucalyptus, Open Nebula, etc. Support option is available with OpenStack and Eucalyptus and it may even cost less.

In case enterprise is open for commercial products which come with bundled support and a lot of other components which can be seamlessly added to increase the functionality, choose VMware, Microsoft Azure Stack, etc.

Read More:
pdfs.semanticscholar.org

Hello, I have many years experience in all of them.

OpenStack and Open Nebula are good but tend to fall behind in functionality when compared to the VMware Platform. In regards, to the public cloud AWS or Azure are both great. If a company is more open source centric ,AWS is the right choice. On the other hand, if the company is Microsoft focuse Azure would be the perfect choice.

PG &E has implemented private cloud using VMWare vRealize suit though CloudFoundry is being looked at for better capabilities. You should look at Pivital Cloud Foundry for your PAAS needs.

I find the study from Rightscale quite interesting to give hints on what people are doing with public/private and hybrid cloud: www.rightscale.com

In the end you need to be on top of the technology, and all platforms would do the basic requirements today. So pick the one you have the most skills with and that you feel you can debug most as failures will happen. Consider Hybrid cloud for anything that does not require to be private 100%, it will help benchmarking and keeping up to speed with the industry.

I’d ask this question first: how would your company specifically benefit from being responsible for selecting, installing, implementing, integrating, scaling, and supporting your own internal cloud with an open source technology stack? Vs. adopting an existing cloud IaaS offering where it’s already done, scalable, and not requiring your capital investment, but simply an ongoing operating expense? Do you have, or want to acquire, the know-how to implement an internal cloud? Or would it meet your needs to know there are service providers who can get you setup and running in a cloud quickly?

Companies like VMware have spent billions and years of working with customers to deliver IaaS platforms that work for most companies. Likewise, for companies with unique needs driving on-premise cloud capability, there are open source solutions they can adopt and implement to create a private cloud. Bottom line, for on-premise, “private” IaaS technologies, whether you choose public or private, it has to meet the business’ needs. Often that comes down to their unique business model, specific performance needs (usually based on very low latency or costly bandwidth requirements), or risk management.

Alternatively, you can select a cloud IaaS provider like Azure, Amazon Web Services where you can minimize the inputs and get to the outcome you need much faster – running systems serving your employees and customers -- without the ongoing financial and intellectual capital responsibility to own, grow, and manage it.

Last consideration is, the more you can standardize your IT, the easier and less expensive it is for you to have an IT service provider take over management of your systems and focus on the outcomes you need with KPI’s and SLA’s.

I have experience with all of the Private Cloud products you named except Nebula. All are good for specific business needs. A cloud’s job is to host a business software applications. It's the Applications that drive the choice in a cloud design. If the clients business is a good size, it highly probable that they will need more than one cloud. Called Hybrid Cloud. The other factor that comes into play is the clients IT staff capabilities to build and manage a cloud. This is a big need, with limited experienced engineers to go around. What the in-house team feels they may be able to handle, is certainly something to take into consideration. The VMware offering may be the easiest for many companies as IT is already familiar with VM virtualization. Same for the Azure stack from Microsoft. A Public Cloud offering should be considered when making this decision, as a lot of the heavy lifting is done for the customer. I do this kind of work with customers all the time. The answer as to which is best will be determined by first looking at your business, your software, and your staff. There is a lot to think about before making this decision. Most frequently I work with a customer that never thought about why they wanted to go to the cloud, but rather they looked at is as something they needed to accomplish, and chose a solution based on little or no thought as to what having their business in the cloud would deliver for the bottom line of the company.
Hope this helps.
If you have more questions, let me know.

A few years ago, I worked a Eucalyptus and KVM platform. At the time, there were some components that needed to be hunted down to complete the initial configuration. Time invested in getting past the startup paid off, however. The platform was stable and performed as expected -- although I didn't have any unique requirements beyond presentation of compute resource. I'm sure it has matured since the time i worked with it.

I would suggest taking a look at IBM offers Call ICP ( IBM Cloud Private ) which is agnostic and offers a wide range of functionalities.

I have not had experience working with open source service cloud stacks yet, but in my last assignment we did work on an Azure platform and partly on Amazon S3 platform. Amazon S3 offered a much wider spectrum of Infra support, Azure had just couple of limitations. But I am sure over time (last 2 years) these would have been overcome by Microsoft.
We operated a large stack of Unix and Windows boxes and limited set of DB services on these cloud Infra.

I have not had experience working with open source service cloud stacks yet, but in my last assignment, we did work on an Azure platform and partly on Amazon S3 platform. Amazon S3 offered a much wider spectrum of Infra support, Azure had just a couple of limitations. But I am sure over time (last 2 years) these would have been overcome by Microsoft.

We operated a large stack of Unix and Windows boxes and limited set of DB services on these cloud Infra.

Hello,

I have experience in VMware VRealize cloud suits . As I am couple of project this tool. vRealize tools are having a good GUI.
vRealize suits contains vRA - VRealize Automation tool which is use to automate the cloud service , IAAS provisioning , PAAS, .
Its also have vRO to automate the flow via orchestrator.
Loginsight to manage the logs of the environment and endpoints.
VOps and VRB also good to manage operations and business requirements.

I would recommend VRealize suit for a private and hybrids cloud solutions

Hi,
Azure is a public cloud. I have an experience with Openstack (Rackspace Private Cloud) and AWS.
Openstack is an open source which will require high technical skills.

Hello,
I have the experience of deploying custom OpenStack and Proxmox clouds.

I am experienced with OpenStack, AWS, and Azure.
We had our private cloud on OpenStack during my Ph.D. studies on Cloud resources management and I use AWS (as a public Cloud) for my last 2 research papers. I also used Azure for couples of projects. But we had to switch because we were experiencing some downtime with Azure that was degrading the performance of the applications.
I hope I answered your question!