OpenStack’s open-source cloud computing platform has major cost advantages over public cloud providers. But enterprises that deploy workloads in OpenStack soon discover why public clouds can charge customers to manage the technical elements on their behalf. Pulling together all the components of an OpenStack cloud by themselves can be a headache for enterprises, according to Eric Kessels (pictured, left), chief technology officer at Fairbanks NV.

“In the beginning, they don’t worry about backups, they don’t worry about quality of service. Then they get into production, and then they get problems with performance,” Kessels said. Based in the Netherlands, Fairbanks has developed services to take the hassles out of OpenStack for its customers.

Kessels joined Carlos Carrero (pictured, right), senior principal product manager at Veritas Technologies LLC, during an interview with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Veritas Vision conference in Las Vegas. (* Disclosure below.)

Add cloud, subtract cost

“They really identified the issues that customers have with OpenStack,” Carrero said.

 Quality of service, backup and other OpenStack weaknesses required a targeted solution, which Fairbanks eventually found in Veritas’ HyperScale. HyperScale for OpenStack is software-defined storage specifically for OpenStack clouds. Fairbanks collaborated with Veritas to fortify OpenStack with HyperScale storage and backup technology. The result is an enterprise-class OpenStack private cloud that Fairbanks can implement for customers in about two weeks.

Of course, spinning up cloud infrastructure with, say, Amazon Web Services Inc. can be done in well under two weeks. However, “In a multicloud environment, you still have to have something in-house,” Carrero said. A private cloud built with OpenStack can be a flexible and extremely cost-effective option, he added.

Compared to VMware Inc. virtual machines, OpenStack cloud computing is quicker and allows developers greater self-service abilities, according to Kessels. And the cost of operating an OpenStack cloud can be one-third to half as expensive as VMware virtual environments, he added.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Veritas Vision 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Veritas Vision 2017. Neither Veritas Technologies LLC nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE