MaaS vs OpenStack

Overview

OpenStack

Stacks790

Followers1.2K

Votes138

MaaS

Stacks9

Followers14

Votes1

MaaS vs OpenStack: What are the differences?

MaaS, or Metal as a Service, is a provisioning service that enables the management of physical servers. On the other hand, OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform that allows the creation and management of virtual machines and other resources. While both MaaS and OpenStack offer solutions in the realm of infrastructure management, there are several key differences between the two.

Scalability: MaaS focuses on managing physical servers and is better suited for organizations that need to scale their infrastructure by adding or removing physical machines. In contrast, OpenStack focuses on managing virtual machines and offers greater scalability in terms of creating and managing a large number of virtual resources.
Networking Support: OpenStack provides comprehensive networking capabilities with its Neutron module, offering features such as virtual routers, load balancers, and firewall services. MaaS, on the other hand, is primarily focused on server management and does not provide advanced networking features.
Hardware Control: With MaaS, administrators have more granular control over the physical hardware, allowing them to perform tasks such as remote power cycling and firmware updates. OpenStack, being a virtualization platform, does not offer the same level of hardware control.
Integration with Bare Metal and Cloud: MaaS is designed to integrate well with physical servers, providing a bridge between bare metal and cloud environments. It allows for the provisioning and management of both physical and virtual resources. OpenStack, on the other hand, is purely focused on virtualization and does not offer built-in support for bare metal provisioning.
Complexity and Flexibility: OpenStack is a more complex platform that offers a wide range of services and capabilities, making it suitable for large-scale deployments. MaaS, on the other hand, is simpler and more focused, providing a streamlined solution for managing physical servers.
Community and Ecosystem: OpenStack has a large and vibrant community with a wide range of contributors, making it a well-established and supported platform. MaaS, although also backed by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, does not have the same level of community and ecosystem.

In Summary, MaaS focuses on managing physical servers with granular hardware control and integration with bare metal, whereas OpenStack is a comprehensive cloud computing platform with advanced networking support, scalability for virtual resources, and a larger community and ecosystem.

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Detailed Comparison

OpenStack	MaaS
OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.	MAAS (Metal as a Service) offers cloud style provisioning for physical servers. It is open source and free to use, with commercial support available from Canonical.
Compute;Storage;Networking;Dashboard;Shared Services	-
Statistics
Stacks 790	Stacks 9
Followers 1.2K	Followers 14
Votes 138	Votes 1
Pros & Cons
Pros 60 Private cloud 39 Avoid vendor lock-in 23 Flexible in use 7 Industry leader 5 Robust architecture	Pros 1 Hardware Automation

What are some alternatives to OpenStack, MaaS?

Apache CloudStack

CloudStack is open source software designed to deploy and manage large networks of virtual machines, as a highly available, highly scalable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud computing platform.

VirtKick

Software as a service platform for hosting providers.

OpenNebula

It provides a simple but feature-rich and flexible solution for the comprehensive management of virtualized data centers to enable on-premise enterprise clouds in existing infrastructures. It can be primarily used as a virtualization tool to manage your virtual infrastructure in the data-center or cluster, which is usually referred as Private Cloud. It supports Hybrid Cloud to combine local infrastructure with public cloud-based infrastructure, enabling highly scalable hosting environments.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is open source software for building private, AWS-compatible IT, QA, and developer clouds. It makes it easy to deliver cloud computing, just like AWS, from within your data center.

Ubicloud

It is an open, free, and portable cloud. Think of it as an open alternative to cloud providers, like what Linux is to proprietary operating systems. It provides IaaS cloud features on bare metal providers, such as Hetzner, OVH, and AWS Bare Metal.

Related Comparisons

MaaS vs OpenStack: What are the differences?

Scalability: MaaS focuses on managing physical servers and is better suited for organizations that need to scale their infrastructure by adding or removing physical machines. In contrast, OpenStack focuses on managing virtual machines and offers greater scalability in terms of creating and managing a large number of virtual resources.
Networking Support: OpenStack provides comprehensive networking capabilities with its Neutron module, offering features such as virtual routers, load balancers, and firewall services. MaaS, on the other hand, is primarily focused on server management and does not provide advanced networking features.
Hardware Control: With MaaS, administrators have more granular control over the physical hardware, allowing them to perform tasks such as remote power cycling and firmware updates. OpenStack, being a virtualization platform, does not offer the same level of hardware control.
Integration with Bare Metal and Cloud: MaaS is designed to integrate well with physical servers, providing a bridge between bare metal and cloud environments. It allows for the provisioning and management of both physical and virtual resources. OpenStack, on the other hand, is purely focused on virtualization and does not offer built-in support for bare metal provisioning.
Complexity and Flexibility: OpenStack is a more complex platform that offers a wide range of services and capabilities, making it suitable for large-scale deployments. MaaS, on the other hand, is simpler and more focused, providing a streamlined solution for managing physical servers.
Community and Ecosystem: OpenStack has a large and vibrant community with a wide range of contributors, making it a well-established and supported platform. MaaS, although also backed by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, does not have the same level of community and ecosystem.

MaaS vs OpenStack

Overview