--- title: "Software defined open infrastructures require architecture - Fairbanks" description: "Open source software is taking over the world, driven by – and at the same time driving – the innovations of cloud technology. Open infrastructures have become the biggest cloud solutions that companies use for their private cloud, as well as a solid base under most of the public clouds. But the only way organizations […]" url: "https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/software-defined-open-infrastructures-require-architecture/" language: "en" --- Blog # Software defined open infrastructures require architecture Technology July 20, 2020 Share this post [![Software defined open infrastructures require architecture](https://myclang.com/public/buro88/087b32cf197cd1f7f7865c664d803467/fairbanks_12325_2.png)](https://myclang.com/public/buro88/087b32cf197cd1f7f7865c664d803467/fairbanks%5F12325%5F2.png) **Open source software is taking over the world, driven by – and at the same time driving – the innovations of cloud technology. Open infrastructures have become the biggest cloud solutions that companies use for their private cloud, as well as a solid base under most of the public clouds. But the only way organizations can provide a consistent and measurable level of quality for their cloud, is by a solid design. And that is where we see that most problems arise.** Software solutions to create your own platforms Open infrastructures are almost by definition ‘software defined’. This firstly means that the solution is available as software code to run on generic hardware. But most of these software packages are not the actual solution itself: they are software to design and build the solution you think you need. With Ceph any organization can design and build a storage solution using Ceph software. Or ‘define’ a compute cloud using OpenStack or OKD. Or define a networking platform with Cumulus software. The only way to design a consistent level of quality of your cloud platform is to design by architectural principles. To prevent exclusions, favoritism and inconsistency and resolve any conflict between these principles. And for cloud platforms, the main principle is that platform customers are able to remain using workloads no matter what interruptions or developments in the infrastructure. **Implications of architectural principles** The main cloud principle has very important implications for the design and maintenance of your platform. Some of which are that your cloud should always be able to scale out or in, add innovations and the premise that during its lifetime, any component will fail. A well defined architecture enables innovation by integrating new features such as container platforms and charge back costs to users. An added benefit of a good architecture is that it will leverage all investments in your current platform, your team’s cloud platform knowledge, datacentre facilities and hardware as well as your users’ investments in deployment templates. At Fairbanks as well as 42on we have defined the most important architectural principles and technological rules to ensure the highest availability of any cloud services. These principles and rules have implications during all design processes and decisions. Flexibility, high availability, scalability, security, and performance of the cloud services are all mainly realized by eliminating single points of failure, design for component failures and maintenance of individual components. **Cloud values and Manifesto** In a reference to the Agile Manifesto, we formulated our ‘Cloud Manifesto’: We are uncovering better ways of developing software defined cloud architectures, by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value (amongst others): - Smaller components _over_ Larger components - Redundant components _over_ Singular components - Software solutions _over_ Hardware solutions - Open source solutions _over_ Proprietary solutions - Scaling out _over_ Scaling up - Orchestration _over_ Management - Keeping up with modern solutions _over_ Holding on to known but dated solutions That is, while there is definitely value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Deviating from these architectural principles and values, is off course possible due to very compelling business reasons. But before you do that, we explicitly advise you to do analyse the impact of those deviations and whether it really provides you with more business value. **Building Blocks** One of the implications of our cloud principles and values is that we use building blocks on different levels of the infrastructure, ranging from very generic to detailed and specific building blocks. At the highest level, these architectural building blocks represent functional components like cloud services, hardware components and software components. On lower levels they represent technical building blocks, such as clusters, pools, nodes and OSD’s. We combine these building blocks through defining their relationships, to comprise a stable environment. **Not abiding as main cause of failure** It is our experience that negative experiences with open infrastructures are mainly caused by deviation of these cloud architectural principles, values or their technical implications. Do you recognize and appreciate our technical design values or are your values the other way around? Do you want to know if your platform abides to this cloud architecture? Let us know and keep an eye on this blog as I will talk about these principles in the future in more detail. ![Michiel](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/media/uploads/2025/06/Michiel.jpeg?width=500 "Michiel") ## Want to know more about open source private cloud Let’s talk with Michiel Manten [Let's talk](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/contact/?subject=Software%20defined%20open%20infrastructures%20require%20architecture) Insights & resources ## Latest blogs & news [Insights & resources](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/insights-resources/) [KeynoteSustainable private cloud: how to balance energy, performance and business impact![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)Sustainable private cloud: how to balance energy, performance and business impactEvent](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/sustainable-private-cloud/) [BlogOpenStack Hibiscus is here: What’s new in the latest release![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)October 20, 2026OpenStack Hibiscus is here: What’s new in the latest releaseTechnology](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/openstack-hibiscus-is-here-whats-new-in-the-latest-release/) [KeynoteHow Kubernetes and Talos make OpenStack easier to upgrade, manage and scale![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)How Kubernetes and Talos make OpenStack easier to upgrade, manage and scaleEvent](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/how-kubernetes-and-talos-make-openstack-easier-to-upgrade-manage-and-scale/) [KeynoteFrom infrastructure complexity to cloud control: how to orchestrate your datacenter with software![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)From infrastructure complexity to cloud control: how to orchestrate your datacenter with softwareEvent](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/from-infrastructure-complexity-to-cloud-control-how-to-orchestrate-your-datacenter-with-software/) [BlogDigital autonomy: looking beyond the cloud![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)September 9, 2026Digital autonomy: looking beyond the cloudTechnology](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/digital-autonomy-looking-beyond-the-cloud/) [BlogUpgrading OpenStack: why containerization and Kubernetes are the answer![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)August 26, 2026Upgrading OpenStack: why containerization and Kubernetes are the answerTechnology](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/upgrading-openstack-containerization-kubernetes/) [BlogCloud infrastructure migration: what are your options and where do you start?![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)July 24, 2026Cloud infrastructure migration: what are your options and where do you start?Technology](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/cloud-infrastructure-migration-what-are-your-options-and-where-do-you-start/) [BlogFairbanks named as a representative vendor in the 2026 Gartner® Market Guide![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)July 21, 2026Fairbanks named as a representative vendor in the 2026 Gartner® Market Guide for cloud infrastructure sovereign solutionsTechnology](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/fairbanks-named-as-a-representative-vendor-in-the-2026-gartner-market-guide-for-cloud-infrastructure-sovereign-solutions/) [BlogMutable vs. immutable infrastructure![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)June 18, 2026Mutable vs. immutable infrastructure: What it means for your datacenterTechnology](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/mutable-vs-immutable-infrastructure-what-it-means-for-your-datacenter/) [BlogPress release![Post background](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/static/background_column.jpg)June 10, 2026Press releaseEvent](https://fairbanks-upgrade.ubo-dev.nl/press-release/) Newsletter