Platform9 recently announced a vSphere Integration product. If you haven’t heard of Platform9 before, they offer OpenStack-as-a-Service for management of private cloud installations. Platform9 manages the OpenStack platform and you manage your virtualized infrastructure. You don’t have to know or keep up with the inner workings of OpenStack to have a working platform. This new product announcement expands the platform from the KVM hypervisor to the vSphere hypervisor.
OpenStack is a very complicated platform. Gaining the knowledge needed to design, setup, and maintain an OpenStack system is time and effort not spent on fulfilling your business goals. As the platform grows, more time and effort is required to stay current and upgrade your implementation. The use of an externally managed system saves you that time and effort and that can be put directly toward your business goals.
Disclaimer: Platform9 provided me with an extended free trial account for the purposes of this article.
How does it work?
Platform9 deploys an OpenStack controller just for you. They install, monitor, troubleshoot, and upgrade it for you. With vSphere integration, a local VM, called a vSphere Gateway Appliance (VGA), deployed in your vSphere environment communicates with your vCenter server and Platform9’s hosted controller, eliminating the need for a VPN or other private communication channel between the controller and vCenter.
rnelson0 