Exalate Achieves Over 50% Reduction in Cloud Costs Through Partnership with whitesky.cloud
Strategic partnership enables hybrid cloud approach for cost optimization and scalability
whitesky.cloud partnered with Exalate to help reduce cloud infrastructure costs, leading to a successful reduction of over 50% in Exalate’s cloud platform expenses.
Strategic Partnership for Cloud Cost Optimization
In early 2023, whitesky.cloud approached Exalate with a proposition to help reduce their cloud infrastructure costs, offering an opportunity to leverage whitesky’s growing Kubernetes-as-a-service capabilities. This partnership presented Exalate with a chance to cut expenses while maintaining the flexibility and scalability required for their operations. By adopting a hybrid cloud approach, combining both Google Cloud for variable workloads and a private cloud for more consistent needs, Exalate was able to optimize performance and cost.
Phase 1: Adapting Exalate’s Platform for a New Cloud Environment
The collaboration began with adapting Exalate’s existing platform, which had been deployed on Google Cloud, to work with any Kubernetes cluster. Exalate’s original tooling was heavily integrated with proprietary Google Cloud APIs, so the first step was to transition these systems to work directly with Kubernetes. This enabled Exalate to take full advantage of whitesky’s infrastructure while retaining the platform’s original capabilities.
Phase 2: Transitioning to whitesky’s Infrastructure
Once the initial adjustments were made, Exalate migrated its staging and QA environments to the whitesky public cloud. This allowed Exalate to familiarize itself with the whitesky.cloud environment and validate its applications on a SUSE Rancher-based Kubernetes infrastructure. After this successful validation, Exalate expanded its commitment by transitioning its as-a-service customers to a dedicated private cloud hosted by whitesky.
Phase 3: Building Exalate’s Private Cloud
In addition to acquiring hardware, building a private cloud requires reliable data centers and connectivity partners. whitesky.cloud guided Exalate through this process. After evaluating several data centers, Exalate selected the Tier 4 Antwerp 2 facility operated by Datacenter United. Their hardware was sourced from S3S, a trusted hardware partner of whitesky.cloud for over 20 years.
Phase 4: Managing the Transition from Google Cloud
With Exalate’s contract with Google Cloud set to expire in late 2023, the timeline for transitioning to the private cloud was tight. To manage this transition, Exalate migrated the majority of its customers to whitesky’s public cloud locations in Belgium and the Netherlands, while some customers opted to stay on Google Cloud at a premium cost for continued service.
March 2024: Exalate’s Private Cloud Goes Live
By March 2024, Exalate’s private cloud was fully operational. After a two-month validation period, Exalate began migrating its customers from the whitesky public cloud to its new private cloud. Three months after launch, Exalate’s private cloud was running at full capacity, and additional hardware was ordered to support the expected growth in the coming weeks.
Looking Ahead
As both companies reflect on the success of this collaboration, they are excited about the next phase. With whitesky’s expertise and its robust technology, Exalate is well-positioned for future growth, ensuring that its platform remains scalable, secure, and efficient for the long term.