Seven best open-source cloud platforms for the enterprise
Cloud computing is the perfect solution for the current IT culture expected to be in high demand for a while.
Cloud platforms bring several advantages to the companies that develop and deploy applications. Compared to the standard on-premise platforms, cloud ones don’t require taking care of server space, development environments, security, software updates, hardware maintenance, and long-term investments. Instead, they provide everything developers need, from hosted development environments and database tools, to complete application management capabilities and access to essential resources for building, deploying, and launching software applications.
The next question is why choose an open-source cloud platform. The most significant advantages are the cost, flexibility, and freedom to choose from a wide range of frameworks, tools, and services.
Let’s take a closer look at the top open-sourced platforms for the enterprise available today.
1. Cloud Foundry
Cloud Foundry is designed to offer fast application development and deployment through a highly scalable architecture and DevOps-friendly workflows. It supports multiple programming languages such as Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, Go, etc. It could be deployed at various cloud infrastructures, or you could even choose to host it yourself on your OpenStack server.
2. WSO2
If you are working with many internal and external APIs, WSO2 is the best fit for you. Thanks to its API Manager, which can handle the entire API lifecycle, WSO2 provides compliance with most requirements, including versioning, API documentation, and SSL offloading. The deployment is straightforward, giving many options to control the flow of the API. It also offers an auto-recovery feature in case an endpoint suspension occurs.
3. Cloudify
Cloudify is designed with developers in mind and aims to make deploying new, simple applications easier. That’s how Cloudify describes the Opensource Platform: “By using recipes to model the application, Cloudify allows users to automate the deployment and management of any existing application stack. In addition, it gives the user a much higher degree of control over the application stack itself – you’re not restricted to a specific version of a web server of a specific load balancer implementation.”
4. Tsuru
Tsuru is a Platform-as-a-Service product from Globo.com, the second-largest commercial TV network worldwide. This Docker-based open-source multi-provisioner platform is capable of orchestrating and running applications in a production environment. Tsuru supports most web applications, so long as they can run on Linux. It allows using various data stores, including SQL or NoSQL databases, or in-memory alternatives, such as Memcached or Redis.
5. OpenShift
OpenShift is a Kubernetes-based platform that allows developers to develop quickly, host, and scale applications in a cloud environment. A flexible and fast installer and extensive API support allow the platform to expand according to developers’ needs. Another advantage of the platform is having its own Git repo.
6. Apache Stratos
This open-source PaaS solution supports many cloud infrastructures and can be beneficial in multiple ways. It allows proper resource utilization, provides adequate scalability measures with load balancing, can easily migrate from one cloud infrastructure to another, and use various metrics to predict future load.
7. Flynn
Flynn is designed to run anything that can run on Linux, not just stateless web apps. It comes with highly available database appliances, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MongoDB. As Flynn creators state, its goal is “to free everyone from operating software, that is all the tasks humans currently do to run server-side applications. A modular structure is that distinguishes Flynn from competitors.
Hopefully, this information will help you choose the platform that is the best fit for your needs.