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Looking for a partner to launch public cloud services
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Looking for a partner to launch public cloud services

Hello all,

I hope this post is allowed. If not, just delete it no hard feelings.

As the title says, I'm looking for someone to built and expand a hosting company. I want to offer cloud hosting services based on Openstack, CEPH and other components.

Right now I'm already hosting for private customers, I have around 200 clients already but it's child's play. It's all built on OVH dedicated servers with Virtualizor and WHMCS but I really want to go more pro. I want to built my own public cloud both for companies and individuals.

I want customers to be able to buy resources, like a Public IP, a CPU, memory etc and built their own IaaS with the components they purchased. I also want to provide stuff like VPNaaS, FWaaS, Kubernites, block storage and more. Everything should be redundant and fully automated (OVH-ish but with great support:P).

I already have a data center here in Belgium/Antwerp with hardware installed and I do have a /24 RIPE which is active and a 1 gbit flat-fee internet line (which can easily be upgraded if needed). I got 3x Dell 730xD servers with PCIe NVMe storage in them to serve as a CEPH storage cluster. I still need the monitor nodes but they are ordered and on their way.

I also have 2x AMD Epyc Rome 24-core HP servers to serve as virtualization hosts (openstack nova). Everything is connected with 2x40 gbit redundant LACP Infiniband RDMA, so performance should be pretty amazing.

Now the main issue I'm having is time, I'm always short of it so I can't do this alone. So I'm looking for someone who's a highly skilled Linux administrator with deep knowledge of Openstack, CEPH, networking, storage etc. who always had a dream to built their own public cloud company but lack the (financial) resources to do so. I know there's a lot of knowledge here so this seems the perfect place to look for someone.

It doesn't really matter where you are from (I'm in Belgium) as long as your English language is about the same level as mine and you have enough time to work on this project. I mean this is not something you can do a couple of nights a week or once every weekend in your spare time. I need a truly dedicated individual who like me doesn't need a corona virus to be locked down at home behind his computer.

This is obv. a non-paying job for now. I'm offering all the required resources. I'm still investing and there will be no profits only losses but of course the goal is to become profitable in the long run. If we do you just become shareholder/partner/associate or whatever and take part in the profits made.

Also if you do apply I will test your knowledge. I'll let you built an openstack and ceph cluster within a virtual environment so I know you have what it takes. So if you lack the skills please don't apply.

If you're interested message me or sent your resume to [email protected]

Thanks for reading!

Comments

  • Should be allowed, I don't see why not. I'd probably suggest not going into specific hardware details, just an overview of what you have in general and save the details for serious parties you're talking to (you're not trying to be acquired or sell assets). Also, it sounds like your title is not so much to "launch" as to "develop" the public cloud services. That might change the target audience a bit from someone who has money but no skills that just wanted to launch a developed product, but you need someone with skills moreso than money (but also having money wouldn't hurt, though).

    Lastly, someone needs to be the business side of the operation, so working on a business plan will illuminate you on acquiring customers and cash flow and how long it'll take before you can live on real food instead of ramen. So many times my colleagues and I have come up with fun, interesting ideas that we wouldn't mind working on, only to crunch the numbers realize how much work went into getting paid (or not getting paid in many cases). Then stick with the nicer paying work with less risk.

    You need to seek out someone who is passionate about openstack and already deep in it to go all in with you. I don't know, is there an openstack forum? What's the equivalent of VMWare's VMUG (VM User Group, I know VMUG has regular meet ups in large cities) for open stack?

    p.s. friendly heads up, sed -i s/built/build/g for correct future tense.

  • All due respect, one engineer will get you nothing - you need teams of engineers even for a MVP. You need a development team, support team, and operations team at a minimum. Developers are much tougher market than your average B2C, so you need to iterate fast and minimise bugs.

    There is a reason why the existing competitors have so many on staff - you can't just set this up once and expect it to run forever. The software is a constantly moving goalpost. If it was that easy, DigitalOcean/AWS/GCP etc wouldn't have such large development teams working on these products all-day-long.

  • @danielhm said:
    All due respect, one engineer will get you nothing - you need teams of engineers even for a MVP. You need a development team, support team, and operations team at a minimum. Developers are much tougher market than your average B2C, so you need to iterate fast and minimise bugs.

    There is a reason why the existing competitors have so many on staff - you can't just set this up once and expect it to run forever. The software is a constantly moving goalpost. If it was that easy, DigitalOcean/AWS/GCP etc wouldn't have such large development teams working on these products all-day-long.

    I don't agree. You have to start somewhere. Besides I'm not looking to replace or compete with AWS or Azure. I just want to put together existing (open source) technology and start basic. I won't develop anything. You can't start a company and immediately hire a 20 people staff of engineers and developers.

    What you are saying is what everybody's saying, don't do it it's too complex plus you won't be able to compete blabla. Well if you won't try you'll never know right?

    No offense you have the right to your opinion I'm just not going to listen to it :smile:

  • @TimboJones said:
    Should be allowed, I don't see why not. I'd probably suggest not going into specific hardware details, just an overview of what you have in general and save the details for serious parties you're talking to (you're not trying to be acquired or sell assets). Also, it sounds like your title is not so much to "launch" as to "develop" the public cloud services. That might change the target audience a bit from someone who has money but no skills that just wanted to launch a developed product, but you need someone with skills moreso than money (but also having money wouldn't hurt, though).

    Lastly, someone needs to be the business side of the operation, so working on a business plan will illuminate you on acquiring customers and cash flow and how long it'll take before you can live on real food instead of ramen. So many times my colleagues and I have come up with fun, interesting ideas that we wouldn't mind working on, only to crunch the numbers realize how much work went into getting paid (or not getting paid in many cases). Then stick with the nicer paying work with less risk.

    You need to seek out someone who is passionate about openstack and already deep in it to go all in with you. I don't know, is there an openstack forum? What's the equivalent of VMWare's VMUG (VM User Group, I know VMUG has regular meet ups in large cities) for open stack?

    p.s. friendly heads up, sed -i s/built/build/g for correct future tense.

    I will be at the business end for sure but I want to do technical stuff as well, I just can't handle it alone. Finding clients is not a problem, there's so much demand right now for public cloud services especially with the corona virus. And there's almost no local competitors here, everybody has to go to Azure/AWS/OVH which a lot of companies don't want to do.

    Plus there's hardly any risk. I'm still a contractor payed by the hour, I have the time and funds to put this together at my own pace, I don't need immediate income from this. I rather built something solid now then to put clients on something that isn't finished yet.

  • @marvel said:

    I just want to put together existing (open source) technology and start basic. I won't develop anything.

    It's not that simple (if it was, why don't you do it yourself?). The wiring is everything.

    I can easily build you a public cloud in a few hours. Will it run? Yes. Will it be easy to hack, take down, and result in loss of client data? Doubly yes.

    What you are saying is what everybody's saying, don't do it it's too complex plus you won't be able to compete blabla. Well if you won't try you'll never know right?

    Nice try building a strawman argument.

    At no point did I say it was too complex. I said you won't success trying to find a random free engineer to build this for you.

    You can't start a company and immediately hire a 20 people staff of engineers and developers.

    That's literally how most technical startups begin. They start with a small team of engineers - nobody tries to start a brand new public cloud by getting an engineer to work for free. However these are founding engineers, so they usually know what they are doing to build a product like this.

    Finding clients is not a problem, there's so much demand right now for public cloud services especially with the corona virus

    How are you going to build something better than DigitalOcean, AWS etc? Given you have said "I want customers to be able to buy resources, like a Public IP, a CPU, memory etc and built their own IaaS with the components they purchased." you aren't really building anything unique.

    Have you ever had developers as a customer-base? They're totally different to your average "I need a Wordpress website" customer-base.

    Plus there's hardly any risk

    Then go and get a bank loan and hire a team.

    No offense you have the right to your opinion I'm just not going to listen to it :smile:

    That is your right. Feel free to ignore anyone who tries to give you advice.

    Please, prove me wrong. Go out and get yourself an engineer who is capable of building you an amazing public cloud - and will work for just equity.

  • For any partnership - I'd recommend a good lawyer at the start and a firm understanding of boundaries of work, time expectations (from both parties), equity distribution, equity dilution of the the lifetime of the project, decision making boundaries, who pays what expenses, who can authorize new expenses. What is the expense forecast for the next 12 months, who is responsible for these expenses. When is profitability forecasted and on what basis do you forecast it. Once a product/service ships who is responsible for the day to day operations and what will the compensation be. If you don't carve it up at the start - you are going to have issues on the backend

  • jsgjsg Member, Resident Benchmarker

    Openstack, Ceph, Kubernetes, etc? You'll have to make a decision: either a me-too operation, maybe a little nicer than others -or- a unique operation that is not based on all the trends of the year. For the former you'll need one or two smart and well experienced technicians or even engineers plus a bunch of normal level technicians. For the latter you'll need a couple of highly intelligent, well trained (preferably uni) engineers with good general expertise and a very high level of specific expertise in one or two fields, plus a bunch of technicians - and loads of money.

    The latter obviously is far more attractive, but the former might be actually feasible without tons of money.

    Side note: your hardware choice would keep me away from helping you. I'm sorry but that sounds like a typical enterprise choice. Plus you mentioned 40 Gb/s but not the switches you have in mind.

    Nevertheless I wish you good luck, honestly.

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