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We I think the problem was that "setting their goals lower" would have not given them what they wanted (self-service, autoscale, etc). If they had just built VM

by slyall 11y ago

We I think the problem was that "setting their goals lower" would have not given them what they wanted (self-service, autoscale, etc). If they had just built VMware say then they would have not been able to keep up with companies that did go with AWS. As for load balancing I'd believe they couldn't get it working within Openstack. We're trying to deploy OpenStack at work and the the number of things that don't quite work are a pain.

vidarh 11y ago
Self service and auto-scale is almost trivial. In a typical setup I'll be sliding a new server into a rack, plugging in power and network, powering it up and have it auto-boot to a suitable Linux distro. Then I'll leave the data centre. Trigger a provisioning script, and install libvirtd+kvm, or a suitable container technology (e.g. in the timeframe they were working on this, openvz or lxc were both perfectly fine alternatives for a single-tenant system). Now you need a scheduling system: Split each server into N units of type M, add it to an inventory, and add a small API to reserve or release one of them and trigger a kvm/openvz etc. install. Both components here (bootstrap script + resource allocation) can be small. The most recent bootstrap script I wrote was 60 lines. For resource allocation, you can go insanely complex (in which case you should probably consider AWS or installing OpenStack or similar after all), or very, very simple. I've run off the shelf solutions for it, and I've written my own in a couple of hundred lines - it very much depends on your needs for a specific platform. What almost nobody needs, is the complexity of an AWS-level platform when setting up a single-tenant cloud where you know and control the requirements. Public cloud providers need the complexity because they need to be able to support a vast number of different customer requirements. When you don't have that issue, a ton of complexity falls away. > then they would have not been able to keep up with companies that did go with AWS. They're a media company, not a cloud hosting provider. They need to be able to support the functionality they need internally, nothing more. > As for load balancing I'd believe they couldn't get it working within Openstack. I'm not surprised. Which raises the question of why the picked Openstack in the first place. Clearly it was not evaluated very well.

by slyall 11y ago

vidarh 11y ago

Self service and auto-scale is almost trivial. In a typical setup I'll be sliding a new server into a rack, plugging in power and network, powering it up and have it auto-boot to a suitable Linux distro. Then I'll leave the data centre. Trigger a provisioning script, and install libvirtd+kvm, or a suitable container technology (e.g. in the timeframe they were working on this, openvz or lxc were both perfectly fine alternatives for a single-tenant system). Now you need a scheduling system: Split each server into N units of type M, add it to an inventory, and add a small API to reserve or release one of them and trigger a kvm/openvz etc. install. Both components here (bootstrap script + resource allocation) can be small. The most recent bootstrap script I wrote was 60 lines. For resource allocation, you can go insanely complex (in which case you should probably consider AWS or installing OpenStack or similar after all), or very, very simple. I've run off the shelf solutions for it, and I've written my own in a couple of hundred lines - it very much depends on your needs for a specific platform. What almost nobody needs, is the complexity of an AWS-level platform when setting up a single-tenant cloud where you know and control the requirements. Public cloud providers need the complexity because they need to be able to support a vast number of different customer requirements. When you don't have that issue, a ton of complexity falls away. > then they would have not been able to keep up with companies that did go with AWS. They're a media company, not a cloud hosting provider. They need to be able to support the functionality they need internally, nothing more. > As for load balancing I'd believe they couldn't get it working within Openstack. I'm not surprised. Which raises the question of why the picked Openstack in the first place. Clearly it was not evaluated very well.