Encore Technologies: Streamlining Data Center Operations with OpenNebula Automation

Encore Technologies, a U.S.-based enterprise Data Center provider, delivers a full portfolio of managed and professional IT services. With a strong focus on resilient, cost-effective infrastructure solutions, Encore Technologies supports customers in navigating complex cloud and virtualization landscapes.

As virtualization licensing models became increasingly complex and costly, they began searching for an alternative that would offer more control and flexibility—without compromising performance or support for critical workloads.

Faced with feedback from customers and rising internal costs, Encore evaluated eight different platforms—including Hyper-V, Proxmox, and XenServer—in early 2024. What stood out about OpenNebula was its transparent licensing model and strong feature set that allowed them to retain service quality while improving cost efficiency.

“Encore was ultimately drawn to OpenNebula due to its transparent licensing model and feature parity, allowing Encore to maintain service quality while controlling costs for both internal operations and customer offerings,” Bradley Bishop, DevOps Manager at Encore Technologies, remarks.

Encore’s migration strategy was one of precision and automation. Initially, using spare and development hardware, the team ran parallel tests on two platforms at a time to verify critical capabilities such as failover, Linux and Windows compatibility, and API integration. Once OpenNebula was chosen, they repurposed the testing hardware to create a new cluster for extended trials. Over six weeks, they deployed foundational applications, refined migration strategies, and validated automation workflows before committing to full-scale implementation.

“This was the most important step in the process,” Bishop continues. “It enabled the team to generate a fully automated migration strategy, as well as becoming comfortable and proficient enough with the product to run daily work activities and support migrations.”

By June 2025, all hardware was reprovisioned for the development environment, and migrations began—five days a week, seven hours a day—using StackStorm integrated with OpenNebula’s oneswap script. The team monitored, validated, and resolved any issues in real time, then applied the same process to the production environment.

The results speak for themselves: over 60% of environments were migrated before the end-of-year change freeze, with a 90% success rate. The remaining 40% is expected to be completed by the end of 2025, aside from a small legacy environment.

The transition to OpenNebula didn’t just streamline infrastructure—it also expanded the team’s technical capabilities. Working with KVM and Linux deepened their expertise and opened up new opportunities for service innovation.