Public Cloud Infrastructure Planning
This interactive guide synthesizes comprehensive reports on cloud infrastructure into an actionable framework. Navigate the key pillars of cloud strategy—from defining objectives and choosing an architectural path to implementing universal best practices for security, cost, and operations. Start here to build a resilient, compliant, and cost-effective cloud foundation.
Strategic Alignment
Align technology with business goals to ensure cloud adoption delivers measurable value.
Architectural Choice
Understand the trade-offs between proprietary hyperscalers and open-source platforms.
Operational Excellence
Implement robust frameworks for security, compliance, and cost optimization (FinOps).
1. Core Strategy: The Foundation
A successful cloud journey begins long before any technology is deployed. It starts with a strategic framework that aligns your cloud initiatives with measurable business outcomes. This phase transforms cloud adoption from a mere IT project into a powerful business enabler.
Define Your Mission
Clearly articulate why you are moving to the cloud. What are the specific, measurable business goals? Answering this prevents "cloud sprawl" and ensures every investment has a purpose.
Assess Your "As-Is"
Conduct a thorough audit of your current infrastructure, application dependencies, and security posture. This understanding is critical for a realistic and effective migration plan.
Plan Proactively
Proactive planning allows you to build for scale, manage costs predictably, and maintain continuous compliance, mitigating risks like budget overruns and security failures before they happen.
2. Architectural Crossroads
Your first major technical decision is choosing the foundational platform. This choice pits the vast, integrated ecosystems of proprietary hyperscalers against the control, transparency, and open standards of platforms like OpenStack. Each path has distinct advantages and trade-offs.
The Hyperscaler Path
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
This path offers an immense, ever-expanding portfolio of tightly integrated services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and a massive global footprint. It's the dominant choice for organizations prioritizing breadth of services and a vast partner ecosystem.
- ✓Vast Service Portfolio: Hundreds of integrated services beyond basic IaaS.
- ✓Massive Scale & Ecosystem: Global reach and a huge network of third-party tools and partners.
- ✗Vendor Lock-in Risk: Deep integration with proprietary services can make future migrations complex and costly.
The OpenStack Path
e.g., VEXXHOST
This path prioritizes open-source principles, offering greater control over the underlying infrastructure and freedom from vendor lock-in. It's a strategic choice for those valuing transparency, customization, and API consistency.
- ✓Avoids Vendor Lock-in: Open standards provide greater flexibility for workload migration.
- ✓Control & Transparency: Granular control over the IaaS layer and visibility into the stack.
- ✗Niche Market & Focused Portfolio: A smaller ecosystem and a more IaaS-centric service offering compared to hyperscalers.
3. OpenStack Deep Dive: A Closer Look
For organizations where open-source principles, data sovereignty, and avoiding vendor lock-in are paramount, OpenStack-powered public clouds like VEXXHOST offer a compelling alternative. This section explores the key features, pricing models, and core components of this specialized market segment.
Vendor Spotlight: VEXXHOST
Open Source
Avoid vendor lock-in with a fully open-source stack based on OpenStack and certified Kubernetes.
Pay-as-you-go
Minutely billing model provides financial flexibility without long-term contracts.
Performance
Access to dedicated, non-oversold GPU and CPU resources for consistent high performance.
Data Residency
Canadian data center aligns with EU privacy standards, addressing GDPR and other compliance needs.
VEXXHOST offers tiered pricing for different workloads. The chart below shows the starting monthly cost for various instance types.
VEXXHOST's public cloud is built on a comprehensive suite of OpenStack projects. Explore some of the core components:
4. Universal Principles: Security, Compliance & FinOps
Regardless of your chosen platform, operational excellence hinges on a set of universal principles. This involves a shared responsibility for security, adherence to compliance standards, and a disciplined approach to cost management (FinOps).
Shared Responsibility Model
Provider's Responsibility
(Security OF the Cloud)
The provider secures the physical data centers, hardware, networking, and the virtualization layer (hypervisor).
Your Responsibility
(Security IN the Cloud)
You are responsible for securing your data, applications, identity & access management, OS, and network configurations.
Key Compliance Frameworks
Click a standard to understand its core focus. Merely using a "compliant" provider is not enough; you must implement your own controls.
FinOps: Key Cost Saving Strategies
FinOps brings financial accountability to cloud spend. Below are potential savings from common strategies.
5. Reference Architectures & Patterns
Apply proven, vendor-agnostic design patterns to solve common architectural challenges. These patterns are essential for building resilient, performant, and cost-effective distributed systems on any cloud platform.