SK Planet Chooses Metacloud for Its OpenStack-based Private Cloud Solution

Metacloud, Inc., a leader in deploying and operating OpenStack as a Service for some of the world’s largest companies, is pleased to announce a deal with SK Telecom subsidiary SK Planet. Established in October 2011, SK Planet is leading the revolution of online and mobile service platforms with its digital content, integrated commerce, and advertising and marketing businesses. Since its merger with SK Marketing & Company in February 2013, the new SK Planet has become a truly integrated service platform that encompasses both online and offline marketing channels.

SK Planet is not new to server virtualization. For years they have leveraged commercial software to get greater utilization from their hardware and increase efficiency within their organization. But as the business grew, the SK tech team began searching for a solution that would take them beyond simple virtualization. Something that would give them the agility and scalability of the public cloud, while reducing TCO.

They spent several months comparing the most popular open source cloud platforms available, including OpenStack, CloudStack, Eucalyptus, and OpenNebula. They ultimately concluded that OpenStack was a superior solution. Partly because of its greater capabilities, partly because it had the largest and most active community in the open cloud space, and partly because it had the financial backing of large and powerful vendors that supported the OpenStack foundation’s mission of protecting, empowering, and promoting the OpenStack community and software.

Kelly Jeong, VP of SK Planet said that once they chose OpenStack, it was easy to see that Metacloud was the best vendor to meet his company’s needs: “Metacloud’s network model and customized HA architecture appear to be more stable than any other OpenStack-based solution. Also I believe that Metacloud’s technical support and operation will reduce management costs significantly.”

Kelly Jeong said SK Planet is currently using its OpenStack-based cloud for service prototype, but that they plan to continue to invest more in the environment over time and expand the variety of workloads they place in the cloud.

"We love working with companies like SK Planet,” said Steve Curry, Metacloud co-founder and President. “They’ve got a really sophisticated leadership team that understands the opportunities cloud computing has to offer. And the members of their IT organization are total professionals. They knew what their end users wanted in a cloud solution, and they knew OpenStack was the platform that would best meet their requirements. All they needed was a team of OpenStack experts to deploy and manage that solution for them in the most efficient way possible.”

“We look forward to helping SK Planet deliver greater value to their customers and business partners in the future," said Sean Lynch, Metacloud co-founder and CEO. “They’re committed to becoming a leader in the ICT world and to leveraging technology wherever possible to make that happen. Metacloud OpenStack will absolutely give them the agility and cost advantage they’re looking for right now. And because the platform is continually evolving and adding features, the value they realize from it will consistently grow over time.”