Can you DIY Openstack?
Have you thought about doing a DIY Openstack?
Openstack is a sliver of a large stack of software you are running. The Linux kernel is a key component. Followed by 10's of thousands of other components, such as KVM, and more. It's important all of these key components are tested, and verified to work, and certified to work on the hardware your running.
You may have fantastic Linux people on your team, but the issue is, do your have fantastic kernel people? fantastic linux driver people? fantastic kvm people? fantastic python people? This is a short list of the specialties you need.
So to support the whole stack you need:
- Hardware certification and drivers.
- Linux kernel and Operating System
- Openstack
- Certified Guest Operating System
You ask, how hard can it be? Look at a example:
Customer Example: A large telecommunications customer running Red Hat? Enterprise Linux? OpenStack? encountered a performance issue within Open vSwitch.
The underlying issue was with the kernel's network stack.
First, Redhat fixed the network issue in the upstream kernel and backported this fix into the Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Triaging this issue required the deep technical knowledge of kernel network engineering and OpenStack Neutron developers, not to mention skilled staff in front-line support.
It's a great example of where having only Python skills to write the management and orchestration layer isn’t enough to support a stack.
So it's far better to engage a company that build's Openstack solutions constantly, to get your OpenStack up and running reliably today.