… unless you are ready to clarify what exactly do you mean by “DevOps”, I suggest you shut up don’t use that word at all.

The reason not to call a person “DevOps” is that DevOps seems to be a set of principles but not a person nor a job position. None of the amorphous definitions say it’s a person or position so don’t call DevOps anyone please.

Here is why I don’t recommend using this term at all:

1. There is no exact definition. I’ve asked several people from in the industry and none of them could define the term precisely.
2. Some people think that using specific tools is being DevOps. Some don’t. I don’t. Specific tools can not be used all the time as situations are different.
3. Wikipedia has a description which I’m not sure can be used as a definition because some people would agree and some won’t.
4. New Relic guys write “First, let’s just say there is no definitive answer.” in the article What is DevOps?.
5. Automation seems to be one of the principles. Does it mean that an unsuspecting person that automates processes is now suddenly practicing DevOps? Are we just naming existing practices with a new fancy term now?

If you read the news you get the impression that OpenStack is the answer to anything (along with Docker but that’s for another post). I would like to balance this hype a bit. This post is my personal opinion.

tl;dr – TCO much higher than expected

When I first started working with OpenStack few years ago numerous issues caused me to mentally summarize “Not ready for production, re-visit in a year or two”. Unfortunately this still stands in 2016.

If you are considering OpenStack for your private cloud, think twice. Here are some examples of what I experienced few years back till now with two different clients that use OpenStack.

1. Using API is a suffer
   1. API is inconsistent between components like Nova and Neutron so you will have more code.
   2. Neutron documentation for Python client is ridiculous: create network and list networks. That’s all. This is in contrast to the counterpart Nova documentation which is OK.
2. Few years ago I have edited instance types (“flavors”) using the web UI. Somehow it screwed up all the types. Unfortunately I don’t know if there was an open issue for that.
3. About a year ago we had production system workaround with a line of bash that would do internal ping within the message bus that OpenStack uses. Without this it would randomly get stuck and not respond to any management commands (create/delete instance for example). If I remember correctly this bug was fixed in Juno or Kilo, unfortunately I can’t find it.

Be sure to visit the bugs lists before your decision.