Think big, start small and grow fast with OpenStack

Think big, start small and grow fast. This often quoted mantra fits perfectly with how to be successful with any new business venture or project. It’s also a great formula for how to get the best results from an OpenStack private cloud.

Thinking big is important. In today’s fast moving business climate, everyone is looking for better ways to leverage their IT to cope with the competitive and market challenges they face. We’re all looking to adapt and transform our business, become more agile and innovative.  And don’t forget we’re also working to strict budget limitations.

It’s no surprise that OpenStack software has become so popular.  It’s a great tool to help achieve all of this.  But let’s inject a note of caution. Delivering agility and innovation and getting the best from an OpenStack private cloud investment requires some pretty fundamental and radical changes to how we do things – to our business culture and processes. Starting small and growing fast is a great way to get around these issues.  A smaller initial project with a good business case and clearly defined objectives is important.  Delivering that project successfully and proving its business value will build confidence. Get this step right and you’re more likely to be able to grow fast.

BMW is an excellent example of thinking big, starting small and growing fast with OpenStack.  A recently published Intel Solution Brief outlines BMW’s “think big” strategy. Looking to remain competitive, BMW recognized the importance of improving customer experience and engagement.  They needed a nimble IT environment to support agile application development and self-service provisioning.

Rather than a proprietary solution, BMW wanted an open source private cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution to maximize choice and flexibility. They also wanted an OpenStack distribution that gave them stability and supportability, along and a strong vendor relationship. SUSE OpenStack Cloud ticked all the boxes.

BMW were already using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in their data centers as “best of breed” Linux for business-critical virtualized workloads. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is also the ideal choice as the foundation for any OpenStack cloud platform and SUSE OpenStack Cloud takes full advantage of its rock solid, enterprise-grade capabilities.

BMW’s approach to starting small was to “act like a start-up”, with the intention of growing and evolving their private cloud in line with internal customer demand. They started with carefully defined bite-sized projects, proving the value of the new OpenStack environment on each project and finding the right balance between the need for short-term agility and the long term need for processes along the way. Interest in their OpenStack cloud escalated quickly, as developers, testers and project leaders came to realize the agility and scalability available to them. The number of projects using BMW’s OpenStack platform has grown 7x over just 12 months – definitely a “grow fast” trajectory.

Why not help your business “think big, start small and grow fast” with OpenStack?

Click here to see “what’s driving private cloud adoption.”

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