The number of OpenStack companies continues to grow, but software still has some operational challenges to work through. Aaron Delp, director of technology solutions for SolidFire, Inc., a storage company headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, said that companies are still figuring out how to operate and upgrade the software easily.

“We’ve got some interesting startups coming into the OpenStack space, which shows that there is some innovation going on, but the challenges remain,” Delp told John Furrier, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team.

The necessary next step

Delp said that OpenStack was the “necessary next step” with cloud-native applications, yet many are left wondering what cloud native really means, especially for the enterprise.

“They want to maintain the legacy systems, but at the same time they have to build a new infrastructure,” said Delp. “And they might as well build it the new way. But that has to happen over time, and there has to be a smart business reason.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OpenStack Day Seattle.

Photo by SiliconANGLE