Cloud-Native Infrastructure as a Service Empowers Companies On Their Open-Source Private Cloud Journey

Cloud Native Iaas Offers Cost Effective Private Cloud Computing

TL; DR: OpenMetal helps organizations migrate from costly public cloud infrastructure to cost-effective private cloud services with better performance and resource allocation. Its Infrastructure as a Service solutions offer ease of use, enable teams to use all their resources, and deploy within 45 seconds. We spoke with Todd Robinson, President of OpenMetal, about the service’s open-source technology, advancements in private cloud, and latest innovations.

Back in the day — 2010 for me — I used a variety of tools to store my files and pictures, from thumb drives to storage websites to old-fashioned photo albums. But when the cloud came along, it blew all those mediums out the water. It allowed me to store and access my files from anywhere, which I still do to this day.

While I tried to wrap my head around the rise of the cloud, businesses were having similar experiences. The cloud had changed everything. Adopting it gave companies a kind of flexibility and scalability with their computing resources that most haven’t seen before.

But with all good things comes a downside. Once the wonder subsided and the dust settled, reality came crashing down. Many businesses began to realize that their public cloud models were becoming unsustainable and especially harmful to their bottom line.

“Public cloud is a great way to get started, get your software and APIs running, and test out the cloud. But when you start to hit scale, that ease of automation and that on demand that the typical public cloud offers can get expensive,” said Todd Robinson, President of OpenMetal.

OpenMetal logo
OpenMetal offers cloud-native IaaS solutions for businesses seeking cost-effective and efficient hosting.

OpenMetal provides a path forward for small to large organizations seeking to offload expensive and ineffective public cloud infrastructure. OpenMetal offers hosted private cloud solutions that help businesses save money, simplify hardware management, and leverage their resources to the fullest.

Its Infrastructure as a Service solutions offer all the capabilities of the cloud with the cost-effectiveness of bare metal servers. Another highlight is its OpenStack service, which makes the challenging open-source technology much more accessible to users.

Delivering Open-Source Clouds in 45 Seconds

Todd told us one of OpenMetal’s greatest accomplishments was making open-source cloud technology more accessible for smaller organizations and providers. Getting OpenStack up and running can be extremely challenging, but OpenMetal offers the fastest path to the technology.

“We were excited to be able to make this open source tech accessible again. A lot of companies and individuals couldn’t get a hold of it. It was too complicated and risky to try to spin up this type of technology, and we eliminated that with our private cloud,” said Todd.

OpenMetal takes all the hardware and networking configuration and overlays OpenStack and Ceph storage on top to create its on-demand private cloud offering. Better yet, the company can spin up these big open-source clouds in 45 seconds and make modifications companies need on top of the standard deployment.

a screenshot of OpenMetal homepage
OpenMetal can get you and your systems up and running in as little as 45 seconds.

“Providing this on-demand private cloud was the first real market differentiator for us. Deploying it in under a minute was by far the most definitive technological advancement that we have. And we accomplished that a few years back,” said Todd.

Offering quick deployment has set OpenMetal apart from its hosted private cloud competitors. Todd told us this advancement has also helped accelerate the adoption of hosted OpenStack private cloud models.

OpenMetal essentially eliminated slow startup times and pain points associated with running OpenStack with its offering, making it easier for teams to use and deploy open-source private cloud technology.

Hosted private cloud models, such as OpenMetal, also allow teams to avoid risk, simplify management, and spend less on resource usage.

OpenMetal’s managed private cloud empowers teams to take on their workloads and develop projects without worrying about setting up or managing hardware.

In Between Colocation and Public Cloud

Although some people may define the cloud as a location, Todd wants people to think of it as a method of managing workloads. That’s the fundamental OpenMetal lives by.

“You want a straightforward way of managing infrastructure so that you can rapidly supply that and empower your teams to just do it directly. So whatever the different departments are, you can make sure the stuff is running. But it needs to be easy for your teams to handle,” said Todd.

To be cloud native, you must use cloud-first approaches and APIs to get resources. Using cloud-native infrastructure, such as OpenMetal, can help simplify the management part of the process, allowing you to scale and operate in an efficient way.

But cost is often a major barrier for companies in their search for the right cloud infrastructure setup. High public cloud pricing has even driven many companies back to bare metal servers. Staying cloud native has its advantages, however, and companies can still leverage them at the right cost with OpenMetal.

“OpenMetal sits in this space where it’s both a competitor to colocation and a competitor to the big clouds. So we’re not charging by VM or by each volume sliced up by five gigs of storage, etc. When we bill, we bill at the fundamental hardware level,” said Todd.

Billing at the fundamental layer of the hardware allows OpenMetal to offer more cost-effective cloud solutions. OpenMetal provides OpenStack, Ceph storage, and cloud-native APIs at fixed costs, enabling you to modify the way you need to for less.

“You stay cloud native, but you have the infrastructure and the cost control of what you would have inside of a colocation. But in our case, also without the complexity of contracting a colo provider and getting the hardware, network, and the connectivity set up,” said Todd.

OpenMetal is the ideal balance between colocation and public cloud providers. It offers users better pricing while giving them the on-demand scaling and computing power of the cloud they always wanted.

Allowing Users to Allocate All Of Their Resources

Todd told us the building blocks of private clouds tend to be large servers. As it happens, these large servers also have an economy of scale themselves.

“If you mix a bunch of VMs on top of a server, the larger the server is, the more likely those VMs are going to follow a usage pattern that allows the underlying server and cloud software to smartly manage the used resources of those VMs,” said Todd.

An important part of the business model for public cloud providers is that statistically customers only use, over time, about 30% of the CPU resources in their VMs. Knowing this, those providers design their cloud services to recapture unused resources and sell them to another user for profit.

“In the private cloud, when the resources are unused inside of a VM, they’re returned to your cloud for you to put to use in another VM,” said Todd.

In the public cloud world, buyers of the VMs still must select a VM with higher CPU available as that VM does need to occasionally spike to the upper limit. With a private cloud teams still do this, but with the safety net that if they are off, their private cloud will help them efficiently use their resources to the fullest extent. So you don’t have to be as precise on your resource allocation. You can use all your hardware resources, not just the virtual ones.

“All you’ve got to do is watch the macro hardware utilization and make sure you’re using it enough. You also get to essentially run additional VMs at no additional charge because your cloud is going to smartly allocate resources out to your VMs,” said Todd.

Private AI Clusters Accessible for Every Kind of User

OpenMetal has also joined the AI race. The team will be releasing private AI clusters soon.

“We have private AI clusters that can both be used for development, or we can hand you the whole cluster with a whole bunch of GPUs and you go to town. It’s exciting and a little nerve wracking because GPUs are pretty hard to get and expensive,” said Todd.

Todd said these AI clusters will be important because they’ll empower small users to build functional private AI systems. Not only will it allow developers to run their production workloads, but it will also allow them to do so in a more cost-effective and accessible way.

The private AI clusters will give users the capabilities to develop private/open-source systems with security and control over their data and finances.

“We are very excited to be able to empower open-source developers to more cost effectively get their ideas into real life. I’m very excited about the AI clusters because it’s important in the long run to the open-source world and it’s a great product,” said Todd.