There is a lot of hype about cloud and future of cloud computing. But, is it possible to derive concrete trends of cloud computing? The answer is but obvious a “NO”. Of course, we do have some predictions about the future of cloud computing. Technology is a whole new world and it is always successful in superseding our expectations.
Different service providers have different views on the future of cloud computing. Some believe that on the path of public cloud, hybrid and private clouds are just a stepping stone. Security, job protection and compliance are the organization’s concerns giving rise to the wide acceptance and adoption of private and especially hybrid cloud environments. As per industry analyst IDC, percentage of organizations deploying Hybrid cloud environment is more than 65% before the end of 2017.
While talking about hybrid cloud environments, people are hoping good things. But, there are chances that things are less organized. In hybrid clouds, transfer of data takes place between private and public clouds; however the uncertain state of WAN communications becomes a problem. Choosing the appropriate private cloud technology is one more issue with hybrid cloud deployment. Many enterprises deploy software in the hybrid environment like OpenStack which acts core private cloud software. OpenStack is situated on top of a hypervisor and comprises of complex suite of models that carry out the activity of provisioning and orchestrating the cloud. It is an open source project and most of the big shot companies like Dell, HP, Google, IBM etc. are intensely involved.
Challenges associated with VMware and OpenStack integration
Most of the VMware users have pondered upon using current virtual server pool for the matter of creating a private cloud which has the ability to communicate with the public cloud. As large investments are associated in VMware licenses, processes and training, many organizations consider private cloud as an alternative to VMware as discouraging. But if we talk about hybrid cloud design, it made life a bit difficult due to lack of precision from VMware.
The issue here is not running OpenStack on VMware virtualized servers. Though, it is necessary to be careful while talking about specific part of VMware. As of now, we are referring ESXi hypervisor. With higher-level VMware technology some interface and overlaps issues are faced. It includes vCenter and vSphere matching certain OpenStack functions.
Whereas another integration issue is connecting local storage which is VMware vSphere –controlled with Swift object store of OpenStack. VMware doesn't have a direct corresponding to Swift as it is block IO-oriented.
VMware vs. OpenStack in the Private Cloud Environment
VMware began as a virtualization suite for data center whereas OpenStack started as cloud technology. As VMware and OpenStack belong to two varied architecture generations, having an uninterrupted evaluation between them is challenging. Though it is a short list, some services of OpenStack align with services of VMware. From 30+ modules which are accepted for the OpenStack project list, only four have a through comparison to VMware which are Glance for image management, Neutron for networking, Horizon dashboard module and Nova for compute.
With VMware’s vCloud strategy it is challenging to have a comparison between the two technologies. If we talk about the comparison between VMware cloud and OpenStack, vCloud is way behind OpenStack as OpenStack has a huge scope of features displayed. Many believe that this is due to the delayed acceptance of the cloud by VMware as an enterprise reality, putting the company in a verge upon situation.
Cost makes OpenStack vs. VMware private cloud debate much hotter. The ESXi hypervisor of VMware is free of cost but for the rest of the code consumers are required to pay licensing fees. A rapid growth of server farms taking place over the next decade, several CIO’s prefer low cost solutions and this underlying principle is taking many companies to OpenStack. Nonetheless, OpenStack can host greater support costs which are similar of VMware as well. Eventually, the path of OpenStack is preferred as it is less expensive. Some enterprises also have an option of deploying whitebox commodity hardware to minimize costs. For such enterprises, OpenStack will be more preferable as VMware deploys their own list of agreed hardware configurations.
There are other factors in consideration as well.
It has been just three years for OpenStack to come up and is still evolving. It has a stable core; however, it is still immature to compete with the quality standards set by VMware. Several OpenStack features are still in its phase of early development. OpenStack is more sort of a cloud “Lego” that means new modules and items are going to be accessorial over time that is from now possibly even 30 years. VMware vCloud is additionally new and, in many ways, less mature than alternative technologies. To match to OpenStack, VMware requires many features. Terremark and AT&T are partners of VMware offering hybrid cloud solutions. However, as VMware made a late entry in the market, many consider that it encounters a steep learning curve. With VMware public cloud proficiencies vCloud uses internal hypervisor systems. That means a really, provider-agnostic and open VMware solution is destined a long way in future.
Lately, VMware has released its own OpenStack distribution. Named as VMware Integrated OpenStack is a software that manages OpenStack in vSphere and vCenter environments which is available since March. Since, it has been released recently; it is too early to give a judgment regarding the efficacy of this approach. An extra layer of indirectness is introduced which might affect the performance. It is quite complex and stores those expensive licenses in abode.
OpenStack is trying to grab a place in the organizations even among those companies that are quite addicted to VMware Kool-Aid since years. Several organizations have started getting accustomed with OpenStack and it is no longer valid to give concrete opinions that VMware is the healthier solution.