On Tuesday, February 25, we continued our TechDay series in a new city. This time, we hosted an exclusive event in Barcelona designed to help you simplify your migration journey. Our expert-led sessions guided attendees through the process of seamlessly transitioning their entire infrastructure, while also providing insights into the robust tools and services OpenNebula offers to ensure a smooth, hassle-free migration experience. Participants also had the opportunity to hear from OpenNebula users and partners who shared their real-world experiences and valuable insights into their successful migrations.

OpenNebula as a VMware Replacement

The TechDay began with an in-depth discussion on why OpenNebula is an ideal choice for organizations seeking an efficient and flexible alternative to VMware.

Michael Abdou, Customer Success Manager, explored the current industry landscape, highlighting how OpenNebula matches VMware functionalities. His presentation covered key enterprise features, including storage, networking, capacity planning, and backup management, demonstrating that migrating from VMware to OpenNebula doesn’t entail compromising on essential functionalities.

Following this discussion, Alberto Picón, Principal Technologist for Cloud-Edge Engineering, delivered a hands-on demonstration showcasing the simplicity and power of OpenNebula and its migration capabilities. This practical session provided attendees with a clearer understanding of OpenNebula’s seamless transition process. 

Real-World Use Cases

The event featured several OpenNebula users and partners who shared how they have leveraged OpenNebula to maximize flexibility, avoid vendor lock-in, and integrate cutting-edge technologies.

CaixaBank: Project Emerald

Ramon Martin, Security Innovation Project Manager at CaixaBank, presented its participation in the EMERALD project (Evidence Management for Continuous Certification as a Service in the Cloud), a European consortium aimed at automating and unifying security control management for cloud services. OpenNebula enables CaixaBank to maintain an agnostic and centralized management approach, regardless of the cloud provider they use. They demonstrated a pilot project currently being tested with OpenNebula, emphasizing how it allows them to remain vendor-independent and integrate external cloud providers seamlessly. Key benefits include avoiding CSP lock-in and ensuring governance over security and mobility controls.

i2CAT Foundation: Holoportation Project

Estela Carmona, Head of Innovation and Senior Research Engineer at i2CAT Foundation, presented their work on holoportation, a project that enables remote collaboration using camera systems and VR headsets. While primarily designed for remote work, holoportation also has applications in education, training, and healthcare. The project requires substantial network and computing resources, with extremely low latency to ensure real-time collaboration without video or image delays. OpenNebula plays a crucial role as the AI-based orchestrator of the holoportation process, utilizing OpenNebula Scheduler and OpenNebula AIOps to optimize resources, define policies, and enhance AI training capabilities.

CSUC: A Decade of OpenNebula Usage

Xavier Peralta Ramos, Unit Manager at CSUC, shared the organization’s decade-long journey with OpenNebula, emphasizing its evolution and continued reliability. A decade ago, alternatives like OpenStack were complex and resource-intensive, whereas OpenNebula stood out as an easy-to-use, lightweight solution. Over the years, the platform has expanded with new functionalities while preserving its simplicity, backed by a strong community and comprehensive documentation. CSUC noted that they have never experienced a critical failure and expressed confidence in continuing with OpenNebula for at least another decade.

Acisa: Smart City Infrastructure

Antonio Lalaguna, CTO of Acisa, presented the innovative Mobility Hub (M-Hub), a next-generation traffic controller that integrates Edge Computing capabilities to support advanced mobility services, such as Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility (CCAM) solutions and AI-based Edge applications. As part of this initiative, Acisa is contributing to the Horizon Europe COGNIT project, which explores connected mobility services for public transportation. This work aligns with SovereignEdge.EU, led by OpenNebula Systems, which aims to develop a decentralized and secure cloud and edge computing infrastructure. By enabling sovereign control over data and services in distributed environments, the project helps reduce reliance on non-European cloud providers.

Conclusion

OpenNebula TechDay Barcelona provided attendees with an in-depth understanding of how OpenNebula serves as a powerful VMware alternative, streamlines cloud migration, and enables innovation across industries. Through expert presentations, live demonstrations, and real-world case studies, the event reinforced OpenNebula’s position as a robust, flexible, and future-proof cloud management platform. Stay tuned for our next TechDay event as we continue to showcase OpenNebula’s capabilities and real-world impact.

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