Digital Pacific: Bare metal is here to stay

With chief executive Andrew Koloadin

What technology underpins your hybrid cloud or hosting strategy?

OpenStack, VMware and AWS.

When did your company first get involved in this area?

The first time I heard the word ‘cloud’ was in Las Vegas was about 10 years ago, but we started getting involved around five or six years ago.

What are your credentials in hybrid cloud and hosting?

We’ve got OpenStack, AWS and VMware‑certified engineers.

How has public cloud changed the game or influenced your model?

For me, it went from the VPS generation to the public cloud. I know people who are still worried about the public cloud as well, but it is changing the game. We’re in-flight so it’s an interesting landscape.

Heard about any cool developments in the hybrid cloud or hosting space recently?

One thing I like about OpenStack is a product called Ironic for bare metal provisioning. The good thing about Ironic is that it allows you to move your workloads between bare metal or dedicated environments and the cloud. I like that they’ve decided to keep dedicated support for bare metal because personally, I don’t think that will ever go.

Can you tell us about a recent hybrid cloud or hosting deployment you have done?

There are certain rules around PCI compliance. We have a customer that isn’t allowed to host with AWS or any US‑owned company

What is driving customers to hybrid cloud or hosting?

I think it depends on the application; not everything fits in the cloud. We’re all about giving customers what they want rather than forcing them down any one particular path.

Hybrid cloud is…?

I believe a mix of bare metal, the cloud and different cloud providers.