Contributed article by Randy Bias of Cloudscaling

These Aren’t the 2014 OpenStack Predictions You’re Looking For

I hate how seriously people take these things.  

Prediction pieces are ALWAYS wrong at some level, and often they're wrong in important ways that mislead the reader about the true nature of the issues driving an industry.

Still, they're fun, and it's in that spirit that I cautiously offer four predictions for OpenStack in 2014. If you're easily offended or believe that raw OpenStack is without blemish, then these aren't the 2014 predictions you're looking for.

Consume them entirely at your own risk.

OpenStack Cracks the Enterprise Code

You've read the gripes, predictions and punditry on this one already, and as I've pointed out elsewhere, 2013 was essentially YEAR ONE for OpenStack.

In most cases, enterprises consume open source software in the safe, reliable packaging of products supported by reliable vendors and established ecosystems. They don't download raw code from a Git repo and have at it. The risks are too high, the time to value is too long, and the technical debt inherited by the enterprise IT team can be enormous.

In a recent Google Hangout with Hitachi Data Systems, I talked about this with Boris Renski of Mirantis. We agreed that 2014 would be the year of OpenStack enterprise adoption. Mirantis, one of the leaders in OpenStack deployments, should know what they are talking about. As for Cloudscaling, we definitely see this in our sales pipeline.

Our experience in the marketplace is that adoption is happening, but in pockets, with wide varieties of difference between active buyers (service providers and web app companies) and those kicking the tires (traditional enterprise buyers).

We think we'll see some significant shifts in 2014 in terms of enterprise adoption and I predict the following:

• A major Fortune 10 business will make a big bet on OpenStack.

• VMware will re-engage more fully with the OpenStack ecosystem.

• OpenStack deployment figures as seen in the bi-annual user survey will continue to double every six months, resulting in ~1,200 deployments (600 in production) by EOY 2014.

RedHat Achieves Favored Distro Status

This might be a giveaway prediction, as Red Hat clearly has the momentum. It's theirs to lose.

DIY OpenStack Loses Favor

The broad market - not just enterprises - will recognize the need for something beyond DIY OpenStack and simple OpenStack installers (aka "distributions"). They'll gravitate toward fully baked OpenStack products and back away from the temptation to roll their own cloud from raw OpenStack code.

"Hybrid First" is the Default Enterprise Cloud Strategy

We will see a realization that a hybrid-first cloud strategy is critical to enterprise adoption and success. That's because enterprises want the ability to leverage their private cloud, loaded with predictable base workloads, against the agility and variable cost structure of public clouds. Because those two clouds must have compatible architectures and cost magnitudes to achieve economic and technical success, AWS and GCE will be the preferred public clouds and OpenStack will have a clear advantage on the private side.

But that's a separate post.

All of this puts more pressure on digging into what "hybrid cloud" actually means and how to enabled it in the OpenStack ecosystem. In 2014, we'll see less abuse of the term and more agreement about how to make it a reality for the enterprise.

##