OpenStack’s potential in the enterprise is being held back by an acute skills shortage, causing numerous organizations to fail in their efforts at deploying the open-source cloud software stack, according to a new survey.

Linux vendor SUSE LLC’s survey on OpenStack adoption trends found that more than eighty percent of enterprises are either planning to, or have already, implemented OpenStack as a cloud computing solution within their organizations. But although that’s a promising number, more than half of all organizations that have tried to deploy OpenStack say they’ve failed to do so due to a lack of skills.

The enthusiasm for OpenStack is clear for all to see. Some 96 percent of companies said they “believe there are business advantages to implementing an open source private cloud,” SUSE reported. It also said there’s clear enthusiasm for the kinds of private clouds that OpenStack enables, with ninety percent of businesses reporting they’ve already deployed at least one private cloud.

“We believe the overall findings speak very positively about the level of trust and confidence that enterprises have in OpenStack,” said Ralf Flaxa, SUSE vice president of engineering.

Despite this, some 65 percent of businesses say they’ve faced difficulties in deploying OpenStack, with half admitting that their efforts had failed completely.

This contrast between ‘a will and way’ can be blamed on three things, SUSE says.

Firstly, some 44 percent of firms said they planned to deploy OpenStack by themselves. SUSE argues that doing so would clearly be a dangerous undertaking for any business that doesn’t possess the skills to do so properly, with the implication being that it would be safer to adopt a commercial version of OpenStack.

Second, most companies report being worried about vendor lock-in, which perhaps explains why so many are so eager to do it themselves.

Third, some 86 percent of companies stated that there simply aren’t enough skilled engineers on the labor market to be able to adopt OpenStack with full confidence.

And so that pretty much sums up OpenStack’s major problem. Everybody wants a piece of it, but few have the first clue how to go about getting it.

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