OpenStack TCO higher than VMware, Microsoft, Red Hat because of 'premium-priced' talent

OpenStack distributions may cost less per VM hour, but a lack of engineers may mean a higher overall total cost of ownership

The total cost of ownership of OpenStack distributions is higher than commercial private cloud solutions from the likes of VMware, Red Hat and Microsoft, analysis by 451 Research has suggested.

451 Research's Cloud Price Index examined the cost of cloud computing for end users, including public and private cloud-pricing models and analysis of the total cost of ownership (TCO).

It found that commercial software that competes with OpenStack may have total cost of ownership advantages over OpenStack due to the high cost and low supply of OpenStack-proficient engineers.

It suggested that despite OpenStack distributions costing less per virtual machine (VM) hour than small scale enterprise clouds offered by VMware, Microsoft and Red Hat - about $0.08 per VM hour compared to $0.10 per VM hour - other factors meant that OpenStack could prove more costly in the long term.

For a typical OpenStack deployment, buyers could hire three per cent more engineers to support a commercial cloud environment, and still have a lower cost of ownership compared to an OpenStack distribution, 451 Research's analysis found.

"Finding an OpenStack engineer is a tough and expensive task that is impacting today's cloud-buying decisions," said Dr Owen Rogers, a senior analyst at 451 Research.

"Commercial offerings, OpenStack distributions and managed services all have their strengths and weaknesses, but the important factors are features, enterprise readiness and the availability of specialists who understand how to keep a deployment operational.

"Buyers need to balance all of these aspects with a long-term strategic view - as well as TCO - to determine the best course of action for their needs," he added.

Rogers believes that, as OpenStack matures, there will be an increasing availability of skilled engineering staff and, in-turn, buyers can expect the TCO of deploying OpenStack to improve.