Is OpenStack “better”

I’ve never been a big fan of trying to pick which technology is better.  A few years ago, it seemed to be a debate whether Linux or Microsoft Windows was “better.”  I was never interested in these opinion-based debates, rather, I like to use the best fit.
In the private cloud space, VMware seems to have the bigger market share.  I saw a recent reference on Twitter that compared VMware and OpenStack like this: If you have money, use VMware; if you have time, use OpenStack.
Now, nothing is that simple, because most organizations have a limited amount of money, and they also have to consider that OpenStack can have integration challenges since it’s not as polished.  It can be quite costly when something isn’t done right from the start, and considering that it might be beneficial to have a Python programmer help with any integrations, time isn’t the only factor you need to consider before implementing an OpenStack-based private cloud.
It’s honestly hard to imagine OpenStack becoming a major player in the public cloud arena against the likes of Microsoft, Amazon or Google, for example.
Industry convergence
Just like Hadoop, quite a few companies were maybe too excited to launch their own distribution.  As reality set in, we saw one recent big partnership between Intel and Cloudera.
There was also a relatively big acquisition by Red Hat (of eNovance), so there may be other shake-ups including an acquisition of RackSpace (one of the original project founders).
Resources
Make no mistake, if you think OpenStack is easy to grasp, you’re not wrong. But mastering it can be a challenge.
After all that, if you’re still with me, Pluralsight is launching an introductory course to help you along with your learning experience.  There’s nothing like having an experienced professional lead you through your training, and using their own insight to help you succeed.
A very interesting resource that was announced at the Atlanta summit is a new publication called Superuser.  It’s definitely worth checking out to supplement your learning experience.
With the next release, Juno, planned for mid-October, OpenStack continues to move forward.  With most technologies, any hint of slowing down in updates can be a sign of weakness, but this doesn’t appear to be a problem with OpenStack. Only time will tell if it’s here to stay.