A Practical Guide of OpenStack Plan for Indonesian Teams

Across Indonesia, many engineering teams are stuck in a cycle: weekend incidents, never-ending support tickets, and cloud bills that don’t reflect actual usage. Over time, environments that evolved organically—whether built on VMware, DIY OpenStack, or public cloud—have accumulated what’s known as day-2 debt: the long-term cost of running and maintaining complex, outdated infrastructure.

Upgrades feel risky. GPU availability is unreliable. Storage usage keeps climbing. Even basic system changes require scheduled maintenance, delaying innovation.

For teams still relying on older OpenStack versions, the problems worsen—API inconsistencies, outdated features, and custom scripts that make every change a potential hazard. DevOps wants better control but can’t afford to stop shipping.

Step One: Stabilize What’s Already Running

Most teams aren’t ready to completely overhaul their infrastructure. What they need is support to maintain the systems that are keeping operations alive—like patching gaps, outdated clusters, or missed upgrades.

In Indonesia, the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Law has raised the stakes even further. Maintaining detailed documentation, audit trails, and controlled change management is now essential—not optional.

Our Role: Keep Your Platform Running Smoothly

Whether you’re running OpenStack, Kubernetes, or a hybrid setup, we ensure your workloads stay online and your engineering team stays focused. This is critical in Indonesia, where skilled platform engineers are in short supply.

Our typical engagement starts like this:

Operational Triage:
We identify critical pain points—patching hypervisors and control-plane components, verifying backups, and creating baseline configs so you can prove what’s running and why.

Enhanced Observability:
We deploy Prometheus/Grafana for real-time metrics and set up centralized logging (using Loki or ELK) so problems are visible during incidents, not just after.

Risk Register:
We document immediate priorities (e.g., Keystone token expiry, Neutron agent flaps, snapshot issues), assign ownership, and set clear resolution timelines.

This process reduces noise and frees up resources for modernization efforts.

For Older OpenStack Environments

Legacy OpenStack environments often suffer from known problems like token bugs, fragile upgrades, and cluttered image libraries.

Here’s where we bring order and strategy:

We build a staging environment that mirrors production so real-world upgrades can be tested safely.

We implement blue/green upgrades for control-plane components and in-place updates for data-plane services like OVN and Galera—minimizing downtime and avoiding split-brain scenarios.

We set clear rollback procedures, but more importantly, we test thoroughly so rollbacks are rarely needed.

With AI adoption expected to contribute $366 billion to Indonesia’s GDP over the next decade, the push to modernize is urgent. But it shouldn’t require months of downtime or disrupt product delivery.

Next: Migrate to Atmosphere. No Disruption, No Nothing

Our recommended approach for Indonesian enterprises is to modernize gradually, starting small and avoiding risky “big-bang” migrations.

Here’s the pattern that works:

Deploy a parallel Atmosphere environment
We build a new OpenStack environment sized for a handful of pilot workloads. Using Infrastructure-as-Code (OpenStack-Helm + Ansible), the platform is reproducible and version-controlled from day one. If Kubernetes is key to your architecture, we integrate CNCF-certified clusters via Magnum/Cluster API with persistent volumes.

Migrate by workload type
Start with low-risk, stateless services—like web apps behind Octavia, CI runners, or analytics jobs. Once monitoring and backups are proven, move on to more critical, stateful services like Ceph, Cinder, or object storage.

Run both environments briefly
During cutover, operate both platforms side by side. Collect evidence—change tickets, performance metrics, backup logs—to support internal approvals and audit trails.

This dual-operations approach addresses two realities of the Indonesian market: tight timelines for digital projects and limited access to senior engineering talent.

Infrastructure Built with IaC, Audit-Ready from Day One

Our Atmosphere deployments are fully Infrastructure-as-Code. That means no proprietary tools, no hidden license fees, and no vendor lock-in. Everything—from dev to production—uses the same Helm charts, playbooks, and CI/CD pipelines.

To support compliance with the PDP Law, we also enable:

Stratometrics usage tracking at the project and tenant level—for internal chargeback and reporting.

Immutable image pins and Git-based config management—making every change reviewable, traceable, and reversible.

Cost Control Today and Tomorrow

Clients often ask if Atmosphere is cheaper than public cloud. The answer? It depends on your workloads and time horizon.

In Indonesia, many companies run steady-state services—like ERP, citizen portals, or data platforms. These benefit from custom VM flavors, optimized storage, and a balanced CapEx/OpEx model.

Typical savings (15–30%) come from:

Lower operational overhead

Fewer outages and escalations

Smarter defaults around quotas, idle resource cleanup, and backups

This isn’t about chasing the cheapest cloud—it's about long-term efficiency and reliability.

Why This Matters Right Now

Three major trends make this especially urgent for Indonesian teams:

Talent Shortage:
Skilled cloud and SRE engineers are scarce. A staged migration with managed services allows your team to focus on delivery while we handle operations.

Local Infrastructure Growth:
As data centers and AI investments increase, Indonesia is gaining better connectivity and lower latency options. Your architecture should be ready to benefit.

Regulatory Pressures:
The PDP Law is active. With our practices—IaC, clear usage logs, and hardened backups—audits become routine, not disruptive.

What Gets Built First?

Common early wins include:

Developer Platforms:
Self-service project spaces with quotas, TTL, and custom CI runners—great for proving control and cost visibility.

AI/Data Pipelines:
GPU-ready workloads, NVMe storage pools, and object storage to support Indonesia’s expanding AI ecosystem.

Public-Facing Portals:
Multi-AZ design with Octavia load balancing and detailed usage reports per business unit—for both performance and accountability.

Frequently Asked Questions (with Answers)

“Can we keep parts of our current setup?”
Absolutely. We often preserve your image catalog, network config, and security groups while modernizing the backend.

“Do we need to buy new hardware first?”
Not necessarily. We stabilize your existing environment first, and only recommend hardware changes if needed.

“Will this change how developers deploy?”
For the better. APIs stay familiar, but provisioning becomes faster and more reliable.

“How do we avoid another painful upgrade?”
By treating everything as code, testing in staging, and deploying in small, visible steps—with rollback options always ready.

“Are we locked into OpenStack?”
No. We use upstream OpenStack, Kubernetes, and storage backends like Ceph. You retain full control and flexibility.

If You're Not Ready to Migrate Yet...

Here’s how to start small:

Choose one problematic workload (e.g., GPU training or high-traffic web tier).

Let us stabilize it where it is—improve monitoring, apply quotas, manage storage.

Run a small pilot migration to Atmosphere during a quiet period. Measure results.

If it’s more stable, easier to manage, and cheaper to run—you move forward. If not, you still benefit from a cleaner, supported environment.

Whether you’re overwhelmed by today’s maintenance or planning for tomorrow’s flexibility, we can help you get there. Start with stabilization. Move to modernization—on your terms.

Ready to explore a health check or pilot plan? Btech is here to help.