Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes vs. VMware Salt

Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes is highly scalable and very easy to manage Infrastructure as-a Service (IaaS) platform. It has a built-in Mirantis Kubernetes Engine which is best optimized for bare metal hosts for the best performance. Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes is easy to use virtualized Infrastructure as-a Service (IaaS) platform for both cloud-native applications and traditional applications reliability.

Incentivized

Managing heterogeneous environments of large numbers of nodes, especially nodes which may need sudden changes (security updates, for instance), or frequent replacement, is a strength for Saltstack. Simplicity is not a strength for Saltstack. In a homogenous environment (all CentOS 7, for example, with no Debian or Windows) I might recommend using Ansible instead - it is less flexible and granular, but simpler to configure.

Incentivized

• Can be deployed and run on bare metal on premises clouds
• Is highly reliable and highly scalable
• One of the good performance private cloud IAAS platforms available around

Incentivized

• A superb remote execution framework! SaltStack allows us to easily program numerous functions on top of it. For example, we developed a fast parallel asynchronous deployment tool that handles all software deployment, including interdependent service management.
• Configuration management is now easy. We take advantage of this to automate (in tandem with AWS tools) the stand-up of all servers and services. It is also relatively easy to create new configuration management states for software not yet supported by the community (e.g. Grafana).
• Flexibility. Numerous small utilities have been built which simply wrap around SaltStack to allow tedious tasks to become easy.

Incentivized

• Mirantis OpenStack managed services are expensive. Very expensive for a start-up.
• I'd personally like to see a little more under the hood details in the status pages.
• Mirantis could also benefit heavily from a free "light" version that start-ups could use to run their own cloud. Maybe coupled with advertising or some sort of surveys.

Incentivized

• Managing network hardware should be more native and easy
• SaltStack should buffer jobs and, when a client returns, make sure it is executed proberly
• SaltStack should provide basic pillar and states structures to help get newbies started

Incentivized

We haven't had to spend a lot of time talking to support, and we've only had one issue, which, when dealing with other vendors is actually not that bad of an experience.

Mirantis is a managed service. If you're looking for that type of support, infra management, and to relieve yourself of the burden then they are a great option. If you're looking to build your own cloud and save as much money as possible then running openStack yourself is your best option. I would say in the category of OpenStack managed services Mirantis is ahead of Ubuntu (who uses JuJu to manage everything) but behind Rackspace

Incentivized

I've used shell scripts over ssh, custom in-house deployment tools, Chef, and SaltStack. I've evaluated Ansible, but I was never happy with performance over SSH. Chef's loose configuration data model and lack of philosophy and conventions around use makes it difficult for a team to share responsibility for configuration code. Needing to use additional tools to do orchestration for cross-host/agent dependency relationships made me look for more. SaltStack, while not as mature when I first tried it, impressed me with its speed and elegant design

Incentivized

• Mirantis did help our business figure out if openstack was right for us.
• Using Mirantis I felt a bit cheated on understanding the deep technical knowledge of how openstack works. But that being said that is probably a value add more than a detractor for most people.
• Using Mirantis was considerably cheaper than AWS.

Incentivized

• SaltStack has reduced the time it takes to deploy new machines for us 10-fold.
• It is much easier for us to maintain compliance with industry standards with SaltStack.
• No negative impacts!

Incentivized