VEXXHOST: Providing Users Worldwide with Cloud Hosting and Consulting Services Powered by Open-Source Technology

TL; DR: VEXXHOST is a Canadian provider of OpenStack-powered public and private cloud solutions and consulting. The company, formed in 2006, now serves a range of customers, from SMBs to governments and enterprises, across more than 150 countries. Today, VEXXHOST team members use their years of experience to deliver the tailored infrastructure management solutions clients need to focus on their core business missions, rather than on the intricacies of hosting.

Canada-based VEXXHOST got a tentative start in 2006, when the company first dipped its toe in the hosting industry. Like many providers, VEXXHOST began adding a range of services to its smorgasbord-like product menu — from shared hosting to virtual private servers and beyond.

But as the consumer appetite for cloud-based services and hosting continued to expand, VEXXHOST team members made the decision to elevate their product selection to the cloud. Once there, the company began exploring the landscape, which was rich with open-source tools for cloud management.

“Early consumer interest incentivized us to invest more in cloud services,” said Hind Naser, Business Development Director at VEXXHOST. “Soon after, we adopted OpenStack in 2011 as the base for our public and private cloud services. Since then, there has been no looking back. We have continued to add more cloud-based solutions to our list of services, and we now have clients all over North America, Europe, and even Asia.”

Today, open-source values are deeply rooted in the company’s solutions, forming a foundation that connects all offerings. VEXXHOST’s ultimate vision is to offer businesses increased freedom through the power of open-source, avoiding license feeds and vendor lock-ins.

In addition to serving as frequent contributors to and users of the OpenStack community, VEXXHOST is working to attend, organize, and sponsor open-source community events. To that end, the company is a member of several open-source communities, including the OpenStack Foundation, Linux Foundation, Ceph Foundation, and the CNCF.

Finally, as part of the company’s belief in the power of choice, the VEXXHOST team uses its years of experience to offer customers a variety of cloud infrastructure solutions and multiple managed hosting plans that ensure a hassle-free process.

VEXXHOST strives to provide affordable yet innovative cloud services that are secure, high-quality, and offer top performance. To do so, the company only uses enterprise-grade hardware and certified solutions, and has a team of experts positioned worldwide for 24/7 monitoring.

The two datacenters that VEXXHOST uses (one in California and one in Montreal) both implement strict regulations, and the company continuously offers the latest product upgrades, searches for new innovative tools, and provides management of such tools as a service.

Both datacenters are SSAE 16 facilities that undergo yearly SOC 2 audits. Security staff are on-site around the clock, and HD cameras monitor all datacenter locations every second of every day.

“We are committed to providing the best possible customer experience and service to our clients and continually improving offerings as per the latest industry trends,” Hind said. “Our features are often centered on performance enhancement. We feel all cloud users, big and small, are looking for efficiency in the current business climate. So, we carry out updates to enable optimized cloud consumption by all.”

As a product of this ongoing innovation, VEXXHOST features a wide variety of solutions, from a private cloud offering with three different deployment models and a public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform to OpenStack consulting, Kubernetes enablement, and managed Zuul.

To reduce costs and increase efficiency, VEXXHOST leverages open-source technologies such as OpenStack — one of the fastest-growing open-source solutions on the globe for creating public, private, and hybrid cloud services.

OpenStack offers numerous benefits to its user community. For example, there are no licensing fees, which helps users reduce cloud costs, and no vendor lock-in, making it possible for users to leverage open standards without worrying about compatibility issues.

The open-source cloud computing infrastructure is developed in six-month cycles, promoting secure, efficient, and bug-free work. The community meets twice a year to discuss developments and milestones. What’s more, when using OpenStack through VEXXHOST, the private cloud looks and feels like a public cloud. This makes it possible for users to create ideal hybrid cloud environments.

Of course, the company believes in giving back to the open-source movement that supports its businesses.

“My personal favorite aspect of VEXXHOST is the fact that we are upstream contributors to OpenStack,” Hind said. “We have been providing OpenStack services for nine years now; that’s only a year short of OpenStack’s entire time on the market.”

VEXXHOST is also certified in OpenStack and Kubernetes, which Hind said is critical to the company’s success. “Our customers are able to utilize certified solutions and benefit from the latest timely updates,” she said.

The rise in the popularity of Kubernetes over the years impacted VEXXHOST significantly. The company was always well-aware of the open-source tool and its orchestration capabilities. But, at first, team members had apprehensions that the technology may not be robust enough to meet VEXXHOST’s standards.

“But with time, the project matured in more ways than one,” Hind said. “Now, Kubernetes is a game-changer for container orchestration and cluster management — so much so that we adopted it as a base of an operator that we are currently building.”

Moreover, Kubernetes is now a mainstream solution at VEXXHOST. The company’s Kubernetes Enablement offering, for example, makes VEXXHOSTS’s certified Kubernetes service accessible through on-demand access compatible with both bare metal and virtual machines. And, because it’s a fully managed service, public and private cloud clients don’t have to stress about onerous deployment issues.

As the cloud computing market becomes increasingly competitive, VEXXHOST works to maintain an edge by zeroing in on client needs. This means delivering enterprise-grade, fully managed solutions based on unique business requirements and strategic goals.

“We steer clear of a one-size-fits-all approach, providing flexible solutions based on customer requirements,” Hind said. “Also, our cloud deployments are fast and effective. We can have a fully functional and tested cloud up and running in very little time.”

VEXXHOST team members are proud of their positive client relationships, unparalleled support, and dedication to each customer. “We are highly invested in our clients’ experiences, no matter the size of their cloud infrastructure,” Hind said. “It is with this goal that we are able to offer them personalized service.”

Of course, the company also maintains highly competitive pricing and continuously optimizes its cloud infrastructure for high performance. Downtime is also an important consideration, and the VEXXHOST team conducts live migrations to avoid disrupting the business operations of its users.

Hind told us VEXXHOST believes in dogfooding, or eating your own dog food — a concept that essentially means that an organization uses its own product. Dogfooding serves as a testimonial to product efficiency and as a way for an organization to test real-world usage.

“We use the same products that we deliver to our users,” she said. “Take our Managed Zuul offering, for example; we use Zuul as a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) tool in our DevOps cycle. In fact, the tool was primarily tested against our cloud for its efficiency. This methodology ensures that we maintain a high standard when it comes to product and service delivery.”

The VEXXHOST team is a highly valued, close-knit group in and out of the office. The company champions a strong team dynamic, and team members love celebrating their achievements together.

“We are a young and vibrant community that is still growing and always on the lookout for great talent,” Hind said. “We have employees from all over the world working on-premise and remotely. Our team consists of culturally diverse members spanning across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.”

As for what’s on the horizon, VEXXHOST will remain mindful of customer interests when conceptualizing and delivering a full lineup of updates.

“The most exciting announcement that we are working toward is that our public cloud will soon run all OpenStack projects, including the latest release, Ussuri,” Hind said. “There are many great features of this update, and we are thrilled that our users will be able to take advantage of it in no time.”