The Price increase and the changes in conditions that many VMware customers are experiencing after Broadcom bought it have caused a lot of discomfort among them, and a trickle of users leaving in search of better conditions and prices. There are also companies that have not yet stopped being VMware customers, but are already looking for alternatives for when their contracts expire. Among them, there are a fairly well located to welcome them. It is about OpenStackand project dedicated to cloud infrastructure managementwhich is also one of the largest open source projects in the world.
OpenStack is a project started in 2010 by NASA and RackSpace that has just released its 30th version, which they called Dalmatian. From its birth until now it has experienced all kinds of situations, but for several years now it has found its stability and its place thanks to the telecommunications sector. Its implementation in companies and projects in the sector allowed the project to achieve stability to grow and improve, in a period in which some of its sponsors withdrew their support, or reduced it.
Today, the ecosystem generated around OpenStack, the platform and the OpenInfra Foundation, which supports them, are more than strong enough to accommodate former VMware customers, who have already begun to nurture their base. of users quickly.
At the beginning of the year, the OpenInfra Foundation did not believe that OpenStack was going to experience as notable growth as the one they are experiencing as a result of the disenchantment of VMware customers. It is also a developing situation, since the trickle of new users from the new Broadcom began several months ago, and it has no signs of stopping in the short or medium term.
More facilities in migrating to OpenStack
Among these new users there are many who have come to the project through providers that help companies in the deployment and management of OpenStack. These migrations, furthermore, are not as complex as they were in the past, and although for many companies the step does not only consist of a simple change of platform, thanks to the new tools available, migrating virtual machines directly from VMware to OpenStack only takes seconds.
Of course, several of the tasks to be carried out are somewhat more complete. One of them is the adjustment and configuration of the infrastructure, in addition to getting operations teams up to speed with a new management paradigm. That is, they are trained to use other tools and processes other than those they are used to using in VMware.
It is also not common for companies to move all their processes from one platform to another quickly and in one go. They have their reasons for this, such as the need to carefully plan the changes, and depending on the company, having everything controlled and planned can take several months. Not only because of the differences between technologies, but because in many cases the cloud infrastructure is one of the key elements of the company.
In some real cases, as the OpenInfra Foundation has stated, what companies do is use OpenStack for all the new projects they start, even if their finance team is negotiating a final extension of the contract with VMware for the old ones. This may mean that the wave of growth that OpenStack is experiencing will last several years, as companies incorporate their projects.
Feature parity with VMware in many scenarios
Regarding its characteristics, OpenStack has in many cases the same functions as VMwareand currently It is a system known for its stability. In addition, the latest versions of the platform have focused, among other things, on strengthening it even further. They have also improved support for AI and high-performance computing workloads, among other new features.
The launch of Dalmatian also means the addition of new functions for the reservation of GPU instances, more security updates and support for vTPMs (Trusted Platform Modules), among other things. On the other hand, OpenStack, which releases new features every six months, is already at the point where it can react to new requests from its users at a more agile pace than ever.
The revitalization of OpenStack has led to a growth in the market for specialists in the platform, since companies that provide service to OpenStack clients, seeing how interest in the platform increases and how it adds clients, have to allocate more resources and talent to it .
For those responsible for the project, it is all due to the anger of VMware customers over what Broadcom is doing with prices and the uncertainty about its future. While discontent rises with Broadcom’s new policies for VMware, OpenStack continues to fish in troubled waters.
