support

OpenStack, Lock-In, Support Costs, and Open Source Free Lunches

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Since I posted my missive about OpenStack not being our savior from lock-in or support costs I’ve had a number of comments and discussions about it. The discussions generally start from the point of view that I’m wrong. Let’s take a look at a few of these. Also, it might seem like I’m picking on Randy Bias and Greg Ferro a little here but Randy seems like a good guy, and Greg is a friend, so there’s no animosity. Just point/counterpoint. TL;DR version: OpenStack is cool but isn’t some magic tech that prints money, open source doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay someone to support a service built on it, customized open source and custom solutions using open source don’t …

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OpenStack Isn’t Our Savior from Lock-In or Support Costs

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There is an attitude among some now that OpenStack is, or at least will be, our savior from vendor lock-in in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud space, as well as something that will help corporations save a lot of money in licensing fees from VMware. While I see the potential I think there’s more to the picture. To start with, OpenStack will lock you in just the same as a commercial offering, even though it’ll be “open.” If you want to move from OpenStack to another solution to another there will still be a bunch of hassle to move virtual machines and applications, just the same as if you wanted to move between VMware and Hyper-V, or to a public cloud offering. OpenStack …

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Rackspace's Terrible Maintenance Plan

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Update, 3/21/12: please read the comments, too — we got a good response from one of Rackspace’s folks. I got a note today from Rackspace, where I have two virtual servers in their Rackspace Cloud. It was opened in the form of a support ticket, waiting for input from me, but with the text of the support ticket labeled as if I entered it, which was weird. As part of our ongoing effort to provide you with the best Cloud Servers service possible, we routinely perform maintenance and upgrades of our underlying systems. The majority of these are performed non-disruptively, however maintenances sometimes arise that impact Cloud Servers instances. At this time, a Cloud Servers host update is required that …

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