FishOS Cloud: 50% Lower Costs

SARDINA SYSTEMS and GRASS-MERKUR

A Strong Partnership

FishOS from Sardina Systems is a cloud management platform based on OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Ceph that has been providing reliable cloud infrastructure to customers in the financial sector, the public sector, and research across four continents since 2014.

As an official reseller, we at GRASS-MERKUR rely on HAN-CLOUD—which is built on this very technology—and thereby offer companies a European, vendor-independent alternative to VMware and the major U.S. hyperscalers. The “Cloud Project of the Year” award at the 2024 DCS Awards demonstrates just how well this partnership is working.

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Background

When the infrastructure can no longer keep pace

In 2022, our eight-node Nutanix system reached its limits, both in terms of cost efficiency and growth capacity. On top of that, the manufacturer had announced that it would be discontinuing the OpenStack drivers.

We needed a production-ready cloud platform that could be deployed quickly and offered multi-tenant, isolated environments to meet different customer requirements.

It also needed to be scalable and cost-effective, and align with our open-source focus and OpenStack experience.

An illustration of a cloud in a data center.

Our Areas of Expertise

Cloud Services for Sovereign, European IT Infrastructures
Colocation and high-availability data center services at the ISO 27001-certified data center in Hanover
Managed Services for Stable, Streamlined IT Operations
Consulting for infrastructure and digital transformation

Your Added Value

FishOS from Our Own Production Environment: We Provide Advice Based on Real-World Experience
Experience transitioning from proprietary virtualization to OpenStack
Data center, cloud, and operations—all from a single source
Secure hosting in Germany with full control over your data

A man and a woman working together as a team.

Solution

A Seamless Platform: FishOS Integrated Solution

Together with Sardina Systems, we have rebuilt our cloud using the FishOS Integrated Solution. It provides software and hardware in a single package, eliminating the need for separate tenders and accelerating deployment.

FishOS includes OpenStack, Kubernetes, and Ceph, along with an ML-enabled workload manager and a health manager for ongoing operations. The hardware is provided by Vespertec, including logistics, customs clearance, and technical support.

The result is a cluster with 81 nodes running on OpenStack Yoga and AlmaLinux 9. It is multi-tenant: Each customer operates in its own, isolated environment. We handled the software configuration ourselves, drawing on our extensive OpenStack experience.

To meet our strict network requirements, Sardina Systems conducted workshops on network design. We prepared the migration of our virtual machines using automated migration scripts.

Results

01 From High Cloud Costs to 50% Less

Without additional software licenses, costs remain predictable.

02 From Eight Nodes to More Than Four Times the Capacity

This leaves room for further business growth. In addition, the virtual machines run faster.

03 From Existing Hardware to 10–15% Lower Energy Consumption

Modern hardware reduces energy consumption at the Hanover data center.

04 From Discontinued OpenStack Drivers to an Open Platform

FishOS's open-source foundation replaces the drivers that were missing from the previous system. In addition, processes are simpler, and administrative overhead is reduced.

05 “Cloud Project of the Year”

The project won the 2024 DCS Awards in a public vote.