If you’re in the market for the best private cloud hosting services, you probably know that countless options exist. To help you narrow down your list, we’re going to compare three of the best.
OpenStack Private Cloud
We’ll start with OpenStack’s private cloud service because it is booming in popularity. This has a lot to do with what it has to offer, of course, but it’s had plenty of help from a cozy relationship with Google and the fact that NASA uses it.
Nonetheless, like we said, there are other reasons to love OpenStack. As the name suggests, it’s open source. This means it’s constantly evolving and, thus, is a service you can expect to gain more and more from as time goes on.
It also doesn’t hurt that such a robust platform is also completely free to use. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll still have to pay to train your staff how to properly use it.
OpenStack is extremely versatile, too. You can use it with Microsoft’s Hyper-V, VMware’s ESXi or Citrix Xen, though most companies use it with KVM, another open source option.
A growing number of vendors are also taking advantage of OpenStack APIs, which will surely encourage further adoption.
Finally, OpenStack is extremely easy to implement. It’s focused solely on cloud services, which means there’s less complexity when it comes to installation.
Platform9 OpenStack Private Cloud
One example of a platform that is leveraging what OpenStack brings to the table is Platform9. Their private cloud service doesn’t reside onsite and uses the OpenStack service model, so you can manage your cloud from an external one.
Although this might seem odd for a private cloud solution, remember that your data is still being kept inside the datacenter. It’s just that the management piece resides in an external location.
As a hosted solution, you don’t have to worry about installing or upgrading software. Platform9 takes care of all patches and upgrades.
While it’s not free, you pay by the month and have no capital costs to begin using the Platform9 OpenStack private cloud.
Apache CloudStack Private Cloud
This solution makes the list for the diverse range of hypervisors it supports, from Microsoft, VMwar, KVM and Citrix. If your company puts a premium on a hearty management interface, image deployment and usage metering, you should strongly consider Apache CloudStack private cloud because it comes with CloudStack but without the hypervisor.
Another notable feature is that this option provides everything you need under the same open source umbrella. This is something that separates it from OpenStack in a major way.
It’s also a very economical route despite the fact that it includes so many popular features like active directory and storage tiering.
Microsoft Private Cloud
No list of private cloud options would be complete without highlighting what Microsoft has to offer. Although the software giant was a bit late to this particular party, it has done a good job of making up for lost time.
Their private cloud software is a piece of their larger System Center 2012 RS application. This robust solution offers a number of products under the same umbrella. That list includes Data Protection Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager and Endpoint protection.
Microsoft put an emphasis on its private cloud service focusing on the application lifecycle and combining it with monitoring and automation features. Coupling that with the straightforward capability of creating self-service portals built out of mature IIS features means that the installation process is much simpler than you might expect. Utilizing the .NET framework allows for additional troubleshooting and extensions, as well.
Hopefully, you’ve found the above list helpful when thinking about your potential private cloud services. We’d recommend all three, which means you simply have to decide which one will be best for your specific needs.