Apache CloudStack vs. Rackspace Fabric

CloudStack is well suited if you want to keep the costs low and still need a reliable and robust tool to cloud virtualization orchestration. The end user interface is friendly so users can find and use functionalities quickly. Also, the newer version allows you to integrate CloudStack with external authentication using SAML for single sign-on. It can be less appropriate for an administrator that does not want to do a lot of interventions using a command line or that does not use the Linux operating system.

Incentivized

In the case of our non working hours, this service is excellent. Since the service auto creates a support ticket for the Rackspace team in case of a service being down, the support team can work on a support ticket and fix the issue for us. This is all automated and we don't even need to be involved most of times.

Incentivized

• New functionalities
• Fixing bugs
• Private and public clouds

• Immediate email notifications: In case a service is down on our servers, we get immediate email notifications via rackspace cloud monitoring service. This helps us to know about the issues and we get in contact with support team to get it resolved.
• Configuration on specific services: We can configure this monitoring on specific services. So for example if i don't want to get notified if MySQL concurrent users limit reached, then I do not need to configure this monitoring for MySQL. I can just use it whenever needed for defined services.
• Group emails and technical contacts emails: The monitoring service can send email alerts to a number of email addresses. Primarily the ones who are added as a technical contact. It helps all people get notified about any issue.
• Auto ticket management: Rackspace automatically creates a support ticket when a service is down and is notified by their monitoring service.

Incentivized

• Maintenance tools
• Less command line interventions
• Server logs not so friendly
• Upgrades are not so straightforward
• The graphical interface performance in big environments can get a little bit slow

Incentivized

• It would be nice if there were more templates so that beginners could easily create complex monitors
• I seemed to stumble upon the cloud monitoring service after having Rackspace for a while

Incentivized

The University, my first large implementation, had a big issue with 149 small data centers spread on São Paulo State, this data centers costs to university were very high, the consolidation idea in two data centers were awesome, but were worried with the management, so we adopted ACS to management of all 576 physical hosts. Now a days the university is delivering IaaS for all staff, students, teachers and researchers, they are using these resources to delivery services to their clients and have a great results in research area

I've used Google/Amazons web services. They both make it easy to accidentally incur bills for things you didn't know were billable (or forgot about). Rackspace makes it extremely clear and doesn't lure you in with so many free trials that try to lock you in at a later time

Incentivized

• Minimal impact at migration from the earlier solution used (Citrix CloudPortal), once both solutions have a common kernel.
• Reduction to 0 with payment of software license.

• I have overpaid in the past for services I didn't need
• The steepish learning curve might slow things down at first
• I have learned a lot using Rackspace Cloud Monitoring!

Incentivized