Scenario: You work for a Service Provider that wants to start offering Public Cloud services. However, your company has no Public Cloud expertise. What is the best way to provide these services with the minimum risk?
Here is what I came up with:
- Vendor Partnerships (eg. VMware, Cisco, EMC) – the vendor works with you to design, implement, test and operate your public cloud. The vendor will provide support, training and professional services to you (some risk, high upfront cost, medium implementation time).
- OpenStack / OpenCompute / OpenDaylight with a System Integrator / Vendor (eg. Redhat) – the vendor / integrator works with you to provide the CHEAPEST public cloud offering, but you are responsible for supporting it (high risk, low upfront cost, medium/long implementation time).
- Public Cloud Reseller/Partner (eg. VMware vCloud Air, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Engine, RackSpace, etc.) – you partner with the big boys and become a reseller of public cloud services. Part of the deal is knowledge transfer and skill development (least risk, pay an upfront fee for infrastructure and licencing and take a percentage of revenue, shortest implementation time).
- Acquire a small Public Cloud company – use their know-how and resources to launch your offering. The onus is on you to validate that their public cloud architecture meets your business requirements and will scale (some risk, high upfront cost to buy the company and additional infrastructure for your expected growth, shorter implementation time).
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