cloud spectator onapp openstack comparison

1

Implementing and Running

Your Own Cloud Service OnApp VS. OpenStack

Overview of Cloud Management Platforms Simply put, CMPs deliver an environment for providers and their respective customers. Customers can provision, monitor and manage virtual

machines. They allow the service provider a means of metering usage and billing customers, as well as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC),

allowing administrators to control user permissions and resource limits. Most CMPs provide a multi-cloud architecture that enables service

providers to deploy public, private, hybrid and other types of clouds. All clouds and tasks are managed from one all-inclusive control panel.

Key Considerations in Selecting a Cloud Management Platform Ease of Use An easy-to-use platform allows service providers to be up and

running quickly, while an intuitive control panel provides all of the

tools that they need to be successful. This results in fewer

headaches and quick deployments, leaving more time to improve

and maintain other services and operations. Moreover, decreasing

time to market can significantly improve a service’s market share.

Features Competing with well-established services is not easy. Providing

customers with easy-to-use features fundamentally improves the

attractiveness of the service. With more options and more

functionality, a robust feature offering gives providers the flexibility

to design services that appeal to a wide variety of customers.

Reliability & Security These two considerations are essential. It is crucial for any Cloud

Management Platform to minimize downtime and keep the

customers’ and the company’s information safe. Automated failover

and hot migration keep services up and running despite unforeseen

issues, while VM firewalls and antisniff software keep sensitive

information safe.

Automation Improving profit margins is a process, hindered significantly by time-

consuming administrative tasks. Automating provisioning (customer

self-service), VM management, cloud maintenance and billing can

decrease the number of employees required to run your business.

The result is a high level of efficiency and a smooth environment.

Basic features that a Cloud Management Platform should have: VM provisioning and management (start, stop, reboot and clone)

A customizable management dashboard with the ability to be rebranded

A customer user-interface

The ability to scale both vertically and horizontally

Real-time usage metering

Library of image templates

Multi-language support

API

Easy integration with billing, monitoring systems

Role-based access control

Failover

Pricing model flexibility (utility basis, plan basis,

packages, etc.)

Cloud Management Platforms (CMPs) currently focus on two markets: enterprise businesses and service providers. The following analysis will concentrate on implementation and use for service providers.

2

Cloud Spectator | Implementing and Running Your own Cloud Service

Getting to Know OnApp The OnApp Cloud was designed by former service providers with a

unique goal in particular: to create a platform tailored specifically for

providers, highlighting their direct needs and concerns as the

building blocks for creating the product. As a result, OnApp provides

a quick and easy-to-use, turnkey solution for many uses and users.

The solution can be deployed quickly, and with little support

intervention. OnApp’s clients typically praise their platform’s

flexibility, as it does not impose specific provisioning or inflexible

billing models. User permissions/limits are granular, allowing for

high levels of customization. Customers are also offered access to

many different cloud services (public, private, hybrid, VPS). Pricing

structures are not restrictive, and can be fully customized to suit the

needs of the customer. These pricing models include hourly,

monthly, and tiered packages, and can also be modified with

performance requirements and specified availability zones.

OnApp has many other features, such as Content Delivery

Networks (CDNs), Anycast DNS capabilities and a tremendously

popular iPad/iPhone application to supplement their CMP solution.

OnApp’s Federated Cloud is one of the most fascinating things

about its service and will be detailed later on. Their implementation,

business model, and 24/7 technical support show a clear

commitment to help their customers be efficient and successful.

OnApp provides comprehensive support, with a 15-minute SLA

(average is an impressive 4 minutes). More importantly, OnApp

support is provided at no additional cost. The free support includes

implementation and support for significant upgrades; customers

typically upgrade 2-3 times per year. OnApp’s pricing model is

simple, transparent and all-inclusive. This goes back to OnApp

being designed from a service provider perspective, by former

service providers.

Out of the box, OnApp Cloud is a broad and extensive service with everything you will need to get started quickly. The Cloud solution tracks usage of any resource your customers need, including RAM, vCPUs, IOPS, IPs, primary disk and backup disk. It allows you to set different prices and pricing structures for those resources and even calculates billing values accordingly, all while storing customer payments. This is all part of a customizable and intuitive control panel. OnApp's cloud platform appeals to a wide range of service providers. Launched in mid-2010, OnApp Cloud has since been deployed by hundreds of service providers, including VPS.NET, GMO, TDC and Peer1 Hosting.

Getting to Know OpenStack OpenStack, originally a project by NASA, became a cloud

computing movement in 2010 when several companies including

Rackspace, AMD, Intel, Dell, and Cisco became involved.

OpenStack is free, open source cloud management software

released under the Apache 2.0 License.

OpenStack has gained significant momentum through the backing

of 150+ companies that are contributing to the project. It is meant to

be highly customizable and configurable with the ability to provide

different networking (VLAN, Flat, FlatDHCP) and storage (AOE, IET

iSCSI, LVM volume RBD, Sheepdog, Solaris iSCSI HP SAN)

options. OpenStack Compute strives to be both hardware and

hypervisor agnostic. OpenStack is not seen as an easy, turnkey

platform; it requires a high level of configuration and understanding

because of the many components that must be stitched together.

Out of the box, OpenStack does not include many of the basic

features of most CMPs. OpenStack is best suited for

knowledgeable, tech-savvy providers and operators that want to

take the time to customize and configure their own solution. To that

note, OpenStack welcomes the integration of customized tools,

whether it is third party applications or customers writing/integrating

their own software.

OpenStack’s recent Essex release focused on making the platform

more stable and easier to use. After its Diablo release, many early

adopters reported a considerable amount of bugs and instability.

OpenStack Compute (code-named Nova) was integrated with

Dashboard (self-service portal) and Identity (authentication system)

in the Essex release. The other components of OpenStack besides

Nova, Dashboard (code-named Horizon) and Identity (Keystone)

are: Image Service (Glance) and Object Storage (Swift).

Some analysts consider OpenStack’s code immature, while others

point to its configurability and flexibility as the reason for the code

being the way it is. OpenStack is targeted at service providers with

large amounts of resources at their disposal: a significant amount of

capital and most importantly, technical expertise. In any case, time-

to-market and costs are currently major concerns with OpenStack.

3


Out-of-the-Box Features The following chart shows the features that each solution comes with before any customization or integration. OpenStack is hardly relevant in this

comparison because it provides only the bare bones. OpenStack emphasizes creativity and creation from scratch, while OnApp provides a strong

feature offering out of the box.

On

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EASE OF USE Implement in 1-2 Days ✓ x

Integrated Load Balancing ✓ x User-Friendly Control Panel ✓ x

Intelligent Deployment of VMs ✓ x Customer Self-Provisioning ✓ x Pre-Built Billing Integration ✓ x

Image Library ✓ ✓ Amazon EC2 API Support x ✓

Diskless Boot for Hypervisors ✓* x Usage Metering Presentation ✓ x

FLEXIBILITY Hypervisors Supported 3** 7

Multi-Cloud Environment ✓ x

Vertical Autoscaling ✓ x

Clone VMs ✓ ✓

Language Files ✓ ✓

Object Storage x ✓

Block Storage ✓ x

Utility and Plan-Based Billing ✓ x

CUSTOMIZABILITY Open-Source x ✓

Customizable Control Panel with Branding ✓ ✓

Open API ✓ ✓

SECURITY & RELIABILITY Firewall Configuration ✓ ✓

Role-Based Access Control ✓ ✓

VM Backup ✓ ✓

Automatic VM Failover ✓ x

Track and Limit Resource Utilization ✓ ✓

SUPPORT Free Implementation Support ✓ x

Free Tech Support ✓ x *Full functionality coming in OnApp Cloud v3 – rolling out in July.

**VMware will be supported in July.

4


Additional Services Available from OnApp

Cloud Federation, CDN and DNS: OnApp’s federated cloud concept is one of the most impressive aspects of its platform. OnApp sees its cloud platform as a common 'hub' for service providers that takes care of core aspects of the cloud service (provisioning, billing, failover, scaling, UI, permissions and so on), while enabling providers to add value to end users with specific applications, services, pricing models and support. Providers using the platform are connected by a global marketplace where they may act in the role of buyer, seller, or both. Buyers on the federated marketplace can expand their cloud services by purchasing capacity and other services from other members of the federation. This enables providers to compete in markets they would otherwise not be able to reach, and is particularly significant for smaller players, who can use the federation to globalize their offering. If a provider is located in the US and wants to sell infrastructure in Japan, they can obtain unused infrastructure in Japan through OnApp’s Marketplace and be able to provide cloud services to clients in Japan in just a couple of minutes. This sort of “re-seller” mentality encourages expansion and marketability. Sellers on the marketplace can monetize their unused infrastructure and capitalize on their specialisms (for example, in applications or specific industries) by selling to other providers through the marketplace. OnApp acts as a broker in these relationships to make the process of federation simple and transparent for all participants. OnApp’s CDN platform is the first example of this federated model at work. Service providers can use OnApp CDN to monetize unused infrastructure, and to extend their cloud presence globally through OnApp's federated CDN marketplace. This offers a way for providers to create new service areas and revenue streams without additional capital expenditure on infrastructure. OnApp CDN currently has more than 80 locations available for providers to subscribe to, on demand, and appears to still be growing. OnApp’s CDN uses a global Anycast DNS service that OnApp hosts at datacenters around the world. This service is responsible for routing end user content requests to the CDN's most appropriate point of presence for delivering that content, based on the user's location and the availability of each location in the CDN. An interesting benefit of this for providers using OnApp Cloud is that they can also use this capability to manage DNS for their hosting clients. These tools are available through the OnApp Control Panel at no additional cost.

Storage: OnApp’s storage offering, currently in beta, integrates with OnApp Cloud and provides fast, reliable and, most of all, affordable enterprise-class storage at no additional cost. OnApp’s solution solves common problems in the industry: lack of scalability and performance for low-cost SANs, as well as the complexity and lack of reliability of open source offerings. Built on commodity hardware, OnApp’s Storage product provides levels of scalability and efficiency that are difficult to find in today’s market. The modular design of this offering allows providers to add additional storage capacity without having to rebuild the whole SAN. Also, no centralized disk management system means no single point of failure, signaling reliability. OnApp’s Smart Disk Technology makes your SAN a smart, self-managing unit, capable of making decisions about data synchronization, load balancing, and moving content around efficiently.

Providers using the OnApp platform are connected by a global marketplace where they may act in the role of buyer, seller, or both.

Buyers on the federated marketplace can expand their cloud services by purchasing capacity and other services from other members of the federation. This enables providers to compete in markets they would otherwise not be able to reach, and is particularly significant for smaller players, who can use the federation to globalize their offering.

OnApp’s solution solves common problems in the industry: lack of scalability and performance for low-cost SANs, as well as the complexity and lack of reliability of open source offerings.

5


Implementing Cloud Management Platforms

Minimum Required Hardware

OnApp OpenStack 1 x OnApp Controller Server

8GB RAM (16GB+ Recommended)

Dual or Quad Core 2Ghz+

100GB RAID 1

2 x 1GB NIC

Cloud Controller Node

12GB RAM

64-bit x86 CPU (32-bit will work)

30GB (SATA, SAS or SSD)

1 x 1GB NIC (2 recommended)

2 x Hypervisors

8GB+ RAM

Quad Core 2Ghz+

30GB HD (SSD recommended)

3 x 1GB NIC (4 recommended)

Compute Nodes

32GB RAM (2GB OK for test)

64-bit x86 CPU (must be same architecture as controller)

30GB SATA

2 x 1GB NIC

1 x Data Store

1TB block storage

iSCSI, AoE or Fiber – it can even be on a shared SAN

Data Store: could be included in Controller Node

2TB RAID 1

1 x Backup Store

2TB+ NAS

Alternatively, a large HD can be used on the Controller Server

Backup Store not Included in Requirements

Required Software

OnApp OpenStack Platform: OnApp Cloud

OS: CentOS 5

Hypervisor: Xen, KVM or VMWare VSPP 3.0

Billing Software

Platform: OpenStack

OS: OpenStack is available for all major Linux distributions.

Hypervisor: XCP, XenServer, KVM, ESX, ESXi, LXC, QEMU

LDAP

Open Source Monitoring Software

Metering & Billing Software

Implementation Time Frame

OnApp OpenStack 1 to 2 days

1 Week for out-of-the-box implementation using Crowbar

(very limited functionality)

2 - 6 months for a complete solution with the basic features listed on page 1 (timeframe depends on complexity of implementation)

6


Total Cost of Ownership in 3 Years For more information, please see TCO Methodology on page 8.

48 Cores, 1 Cloud Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

OnApp OpenStack OnApp OpenStack OnApp OpenStack

CMP License $6,960 - $6,960 - $6,960 -

Open LDAP - - - - - -

Open Monitoring - - - - - -

Metering & Billing $2,000 $14,000 $2,000 $7,000 $2,000 $7,000

Implementation Support - $150,000 - - - -

Technical Support - $60,000 - $60,000 - $60,000

Upgrade Support - $90,000 - $90,000 - $90,000

Total: $8,960 $314,000 $8,960 $157,000 $8,960 $157,000

OnApp Total: $26,880

OpenStack Total: $628,000

200 Cores, 1 Cloud Year 1 Year 2 Year 3


CMP License $25,200 - $25,200 - $25,200 -

Open LDAP - - - - - -





Upgrades - $120,000 - $120,000 - $120,000

Total: $28,200 $397,000 $28,200 $190,000 $28,200 $190,000



504 Cores, 2 Clouds Year 1 Year 2 Year 3


CMP License $55,622 - $55,622 - $55,622 -

Open LDAP - - - - - -





Upgrades - $150,000 - $150,000 - $150,000

Total: $60,622 $488,000 $60,622 $231,000 $60,622 $231,000



1,000 Cores, 3 Clouds Year 1 Year 2 Year 3


CMP License (20% discount) $87,360 - $87,360 - $87,360 -

Open LDAP - - - - - -





Upgrades - $210,000 - $210,000 - $210,000

Total: $95,360 $666,000 $95,360 $309,000 $95,360 $309,000


OpenStack Total: $1,284,000

10,000 Cores, 20 Clouds Year 1 Year 2 Year 3


CMP License (30% discount) $602,280 - $602,280 - $602,280 -

Open LDAP - - - - - -





Upgrades - $300,000 - $300,000 - $300,000

Total: $610,280 $1,153,000 $610,280 $646,000 $610,280 $646,000

OnApp Total: $1,830,840

OpenStack Total: $2,445,000

7


Conclusion

OnApp is the best choice for providers because it delivers an all-in-one solution with features such as flexible user management, metering calculations, billing flexibility, autoscaling and load balancing.

OnApp was built specifically for the service provider market, and it shows. OnApp is the best choice for providers because it delivers an all-in-one solution with features such as flexible user management, metering calculations, billing flexibility, autoscaling and load balancing. The feature offering does not complicate running a provider business, however, because of OnApp’s focus on ease of use. OnApp is best suited for service providers looking to get to market quickly, control their costs and see a return on investment as soon as possible. OnApp’s strengths also lie in the area of price, ease of use and speed to market. As the TCO analysis shows, OnApp is the less expensive choice for most deployments. OnApp gives its customers every chance to be successful through its different services like the OnApp Marketplace and its free support. OnApp’s new storage functionality provides another potential revenue stream without any additional cost. Implementing OnApp is easy and fast; you can have your business running within one to two days. OnApp’s support team also helps you through the implementation process to make sure everything is smooth, at no additional cost. OnApp is a well-tested and mature solution that has been implemented by many reputable service providers. Maintaining a high level of service and profitability is much easier with OnApp.

As the OpenStack movement matures, implementation costs may come down, different flavors of OpenStack may be brought to market, and more open source software that helps build out functionality

may materialize. OnApp Cloud and OpenStack are very different from each other, and thus, cater to different markets. OpenStack is more favorable for service providers looking to initiate extremely large deployments with a 100% customizable solution. This is not to say OnApp isn’t highly customizable because it is, but OpenStack has the advantage of being an open source solution so anything is possible. OpenStack is very basic in nature, allowing for this extensive configuration, but at the cost of a much longer and more involved deployment process, sacrificing time and resources. OpenStack is seen as production ready by some and not even close by others; opinions on OpenStack are highly variable. It seems that this product is a much better fit for enterprises than service providers. Out of the box, OpenStack is essentially a private cloud that can be implemented using Dell’s Crowbar for about $9,000-$10,000. OpenStack can be deployed on any type of hardware, using almost any type of hypervisor. As previously mentioned, implementing and running OpenStack for service providers is much more complicated, leading to high costs for implementation and support. As the OpenStack movement matures, implementation costs may come down, different flavors of OpenStack may be brought to market, and more open source software that helps build out functionality may materialize. In its current state, OpenStack makes more sense for enterprises than service providers, while OnApp operates as a complete and comprehensive solution built specifically for service providers.

In its current state, OpenStack makes more sense for enterprises than service providers, while OnApp operates as a complete and comprehensive solution built specifically for service providers.

8


TCO Methodology The following will outline the assumptions, methods and strategies used in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) measurements for OnApp and OpenStack. It should be noted that the

following core assumptions played a critical role in the overall calculation.

1. Hardware costs are equal 2. Estimates are calculated on the basis of what would be needed for a full service provider solution 3. Estimates assume there is no in-house expertise on OpenStack and all support is outsourced 4. Only 1 controller 5. Only nodes are scaled up 6. No cost for operating systems or hypervisors

OnApp

CMP License

The cost of the CMP license is highly variable, initiating incentives for larger deployments. OnApp prices for deployments above 200 cores are based on a two year

committed deal. Additionally, customers with large deployments (over 1,000 cores) are assumed to be “resellers” and are provided a discount. These discounts increase

with the size of the deployment.

Metering & Billing

Since OnApp’s platform already provides metering, third party billing software is the only additional component needed for full service capabilities. Cost for this software

was calculated by using the pricing structure of one of OnApp’s partners, which includes a base rate and a variable rate that is based on the number of customers

invoiced. There is an option that allows the provider to pay a high base rate with no variable rate, which becomes more economical with a large amount of customers. For

the TCO calculation, we assumed 4 VMs per core and 2 VMs per customer.

OnApp’s implementation, technical support and upgrades are free, which is the biggest reason why OnApp’s TCO is much more attractive. The total price estimates for

OnApp are represented dually by the CMP license and billing software license.

OpenStack

CMP License

OpenStack is open-source software, and doesn’t require the purchase of a license. This is an important distinction.

Open LDAP & Open Monitoring

Since there are currently open source software offerings for these capabilities, no costs were assumed.

Metering & Billing

Research of leading providers for OpenStack metering and billing software has shown that an additional charge is necessary for the installation of an OpenStack billing

system, leading to an inflated initial rate. Beyond the implementation after the first year, the billing rate is dually conceived: a fixed base along with a variable rate that

factors in a percentage of the provider’s revenue. Any increases in revenue result in a higher price. The assumptions used in this calculation include an 80% usage of

capacity (leaving 20% for reserve), presumed by average resource pricing from the cloud industry according to Cloud Spectator’s Pricing Report.

Implementation Support

With no in-house OpenStack expertise, significant implementation charges are required in the first year, a direct result of the basic nature of OpenStack. These costs are

for turning OpenStack into a complete solution for service providers that can rival OnApp’s offering. Through research of leading companies providing OpenStack

implementation support, we concluded that as OpenStack deployments increase in size, complexity also increases. As a result, implementation costs are higher with large

deployments to supplement the technical complexity. These costs are exclusive to the first year of the deployment. OpenStack requires an extensive amount of

configuration and time to create a complete solution for service providers, which is the reason for the high implementation costs.

Technical Support

Market research shows that OpenStack support is typically billed at a fixed rate up to a certain amount of resources, and increases with larger deployment sizes.

Upgrades

OpenStack produces two new versions every year. This analysis assumes that providers upgrade after every new version OpenStack releases. Research of companies providing OpenStack upgrade support has led to the assumption that pricing for upgrades is about 30% of the original implementation cost per upgrade (60% per year). The Essex release provides an upgrade path for the next version of OpenStack (Folsom), which decreases costs because a provider would not have to start clean with a new version. Upgrades can still be very expensive because of the amount of labor involved – time frames can be anywhere from one week to three months. Although these costs are extremely expensive in the analysis, the estimates are conservative.

cloud spectator onapp openstack comparison

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