Next week I will be attending the Red Hat Summit 2016 in San Francisco, along with a number of my Cisco colleagues. I am looking forward to discussing with attendees and Cisco partners the latest cloud trends and specifically their interest in OpenStack, associated use cases and their thoughts about Open Source development in general.

The OpenStack community open sources everything, including market research. And as a marketer I always wonder what motivates organizations to adopt new technologies.

Source: OPENSTACK USER SURVEY, April 2016, OpenStack.org

The need to increase standardization, vendor lock-in avoidance, the ability to accelerate time to value and innovate while increasing operational efficiencies rank high in the list of top business drivers based on the latest OpenStack User Survey. These considerations are well aligned with what we hear from our customers as well.

Our role as a vendor is to contribute to the OpenStack community while trying to address some of the challenges organizations face in consuming OpenStack-based cloud services. And that brings us to the solutions we will discuss at this event. Ultimately, it boils down to choice. Our customers must be free to choose the optimal cloud consumption model for each application. In other words, to support a continuum of traditional, cloud enabled and cloud native applications, you need a continuum of cloud consumption models to match your requirements.

That is why at the event -during our breakout sessions and our booth presentations -we will discuss  how you can build OpenStack-based Private clouds with Cisco UCS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, or consume OpenStack as a service with Cisco Metapod. Two very different consumption models depending on your needs and preferences.

Cisco working in conjunction with Red Hat, and Intel offers a Cisco Validated Design (CVD) that provides proven guidelines and tested configurations to simplify and accelerate the deployment and operation of an OpenStack cloud environment. Deploying this integrated solution gives you a reliable, highly secure, and supported OpenStack cloud environment that is ideal for building your enterprise private cloud and delivering cloud applications and services. You can customize your Openstack environment, deploy RHEL OSP on Cisco UCS and retain total control over your IT environment and location of your data.

Conversely, if you prefer to have Cisco operate your OpenStack environment and offer it as a service, that is exactly what Cisco Metapod can do. With Cisco Metapod, you still own your IT infrastructure assets, you determine where your data and applications are located (e.g., in your data center). However, Cisco will deliver 'OpenStack as a Service'. It is important to observe that this is not your traditional managed services delivery model. In fact, this a pretty unique consumption model that allows us to deliver as a service your OpenStack cloud while operating it remotely for you. Obviously, this is appealing when you want to limit the risk associated with your OpenStack deployments or you want to focus on your applications and your cloud services versus figuring out how to manage OpenStack yourself.

And if you are not sure where to get started, take a quick survey with the Cisco BCA Adoption Report, and receive your personalized cloud adoption summary (enabled by IDC) ... and ... if you happen to be at the Red Hat Summit next week don't forget to visit our Cisco Booth and bring your questions!

Additional Resources:

Cisco OpenStack Website