AppCat Now Standard on All APPUiO Managed OpenShift Clusters on Exoscale
27. Feb 2024
We’re excited to bring you a feature that has long been requested by our users. AppCat, the powerful application catalog and service marketplace, will now be included by default on all APPUiO Managed OpenShift clusters hosted on Exoscale.
This means that you can seamlessly access and utilize AppCat services without the need for any additional installations or configurations. With AppCat readily available on your APPUiO Managed OpenShift clusters, you can accelerate your application deployment, scale your services, and streamline your workflow without any friction.
Elevating Accessibility
Our aim has always been to make AppCat more accessible to our customers. While the services offered by AppCat have been available through the CLI and the OpenShift console, we recognized the need to simplify the process. Now, with AppCat pre-installed, you can access it with ease, reducing the time and effort required to get started.
Whether you are a seasoned developer or just starting your journey with OpenShift, this enhancement will help you out. It eliminates the barriers and complexities, ensuring that you can fully harness the power of AppCat right from the moment you start using APPUiO.
How to Get Started
Getting started with AppCat on APPUiO is easy. For existing users, you’ll find the catalog readily available on your OpenShift clusters hosted on Exoscale. If you’re new to APPUiO or AppCat, our Getting Started Guide provides a comprehensive walkthrough to help you explore the world of AppCat and get the most out of its services.
We’re excited about the possibilities this feature unlocks for you and look forward to your feedback as you explore its benefits.
Try it Today!
Experience the enhanced accessibility and convenience of AppCat on APPUiO Managed OpenShift clusters on Exoscale. If you have any questions or need assistance, our team is here to help.
Annie Talvasto
Annie Talvasto is Marketing and Public Relations Lead at VSHN.
Exciting news for our team and the Crossplane community! We’re thrilled to announce that VSHN is now one of the two official partners of Crossplane, as recognized on their community page, and the only one in EMEA.
Crossplane is an open-source project that has been transforming the way we think about cloud-native computing. It’s not just a tool; it’s a whole new approach to managing cloud resources, with a focus on infrastructure as code and Kubernetes.
Here at VSHN, we’ve been early adopters and advocates of Crossplane. Our journey with Crossplane has been incredible, filled with challenges, learning, and a lot of successes. Our team’s expertise in handling Crossplane in live environments has been acknowledged, and we’re proud to be a part of this vibrant community.
In particular, we are fond Crossplane users for our AppCat product, with which our customers can self-service themselves with databases, message brokers, and storage buckets. For one of our private customers in the telecommunications sector, we run and manage 1500 database clusters with Crossplane.
This partnership is not just a milestone for us but a testament to our commitment to the Crossplane project and the broader cloud-native ecosystem. We’re excited to continue contributing our knowledge and experience to help the Crossplane community grow.
As we embrace this new chapter, we’re looking forward to more collaborations, innovations, and of course, to help you take advantage of Crossplane for your own deployments and applications.
Tobias Brunner
Tobias Brunner is working since over 20 years in IT and more than 15 years with Internet technology. New technology has to be tried and written about.
Celebrating Collaboration and Innovation: VSHN at Red Hat Summit Connect Zurich 2024
29. Jan 2024
January 17th, 2024, was a remarkable day in the bustling city of Zurich, as it hosted the Red Hat Summit Connect Zürich 2024. VSHN AG, staying true to its commitment to fostering partnerships in the Cloud Native world, proudly participated as one of the Silver sponsors of this prestigious event.
The Red Hat Summit Connect in Zurich brought together enthusiasts, experts, and pioneers in the field of cloud computing and open-source technology. At VSHN, we understand the importance of such collaborations, and our participation in this event underscores our dedication to staying at the forefront of technological advancements. Partnering with Red Hat, a trailblazer in the industry, aligns perfectly with our ethos of embracing cutting-edge solutions for our clients.
The event was a melting pot of ideas and innovations, showcasing the latest trends and advancements in cloud technology. As a company passionate about Cloud Native, we at VSHN were excited to be part of an event that not only celebrates technological achievements but also looks forward to the future of the industry.
To share the essence of this event with our community, we have published a short video on our YouTube channel. This video captures the energy, the atmosphere, and the key announcements of the Summit. We invite you to experience the event through our lens, to feel the vibe, and to understand the impact of such gatherings in shaping the future of cloud computing.
We believe in the power of community and the strength of partnerships. Participating in the Red Hat Summit Connect was not just an opportunity for us to showcase our solutions but also a chance to learn, to connect, and to grow. As we continue our journey in the dynamic world of Cloud Native computing, we carry with us the insights and inspirations from this event, ready to implement and share them with our clients and partners.
And we’re also happy to be part of the Red Hat One event starting today in Vienna!
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
VSHN has a long commitment to the values and mission of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. This relationship stretches almost a decade back, and has had a few major milestones.
Our CMO, Annie Talvasto, is a world renowned CNCF Ambassador and speaker. She has just returned from Chicago, where she was one of the speakers at the last KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2023.
Finally, we have attended and even sponsored KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe in the past: 2017, 2019, and 2023.
Today, we are pleased (and thrilled!) to report that our co-founder and CTO, Tobias Brunner, has been selected by the conference co-chairs as a Program Committee Member for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2024 in the “Platform Engineering” track! As part of this new role, Tobias will be responsible for selecting the talks of the track, and coordinating with the event organizers.
We look forward to meeting you in Paris in March for a new edition of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe, and in particular, at the Platform Engineering track. See you there!
Adrian Kosmaczewski
Adrian Kosmaczewski is in charge of Developer Relations at VSHN. He is a software developer since 1996, a trainer, and a published author. Adrian holds a Master in Information Technology from the University of Liverpool.
Introducing gepardec-run: Your 24/7 Hassle-Free Application Management Solution, powered by VSHN
6. Oct 2023
Collaboration between Gepardec, VSHN, and Exoscale
We are excited to announce a collaboration that brings together the best of three worlds—Gepardec, VSHN, and Exoscale—to offer you a solution for hassle-free application management and operations: gepardec-run, powered by VSHN. This service is designed to change the way you manage and operate your containerized applications, giving you the peace of mind you deserve.
The Challenge: Your Applications, Our Expertise
You’ve invested in developing containerized individual software, and the concept of DevOps sounds promising. However, the operational aspect of DevOps can be a daunting task, one that developers often prefer to avoid. The round-the-clock responsibility can be taxing.
gepardec-run, powered by VSHN, transforms this scenario by providing professional 24/7 technical support for your applications and container platform, all bundled into one package. The best part? You don’t need to be an expert in OpenShift or Kubernetes.
The Hurdles We Help You Overcome
24/7 Application Availability: You must ensure your applications are available 24/7 to keep your operations running smoothly.
Lack of Internal Readiness: Your team might not be prepared for the 24/7 cloud operation, and acquiring the necessary expertise can be challenging.
Outdated CI/CID Environments: you may have outdated build and deployment environments which make cloud-native development difficult for you.
Lack of Knowledge: Navigating the complexities of container platforms can be overwhelming, making it difficult to make the right technology choices.
Cloud-Native Technology Landscape: The cloud-native technology landscape is vast and intricate, making it challenging to select the right tools.
Resource and Time Demands: Implementing and maintaining CI/CD, platform, and observability can be resource-intensive and time-consuming.
Our Services and Your Benefit: Hassle-Free Application Operation
gepardec-run, powered by VSHN, offers an array of services to tackle these challenges head-on:
24/7 Technical Operation: We take the responsibility of keeping your applications up and running on our Red Hat OpenShift platform, provided by VSHN.
Test Environments at your Fingertips: Access pre-configured environments quickly with a few clicks or automatically based on feature branches.
DevOps Environment Out-Of-The-Box: we provide a selection of state-of-the-art tools that work together seamlessly.
Collaborative DevOps: We join forces with your DEV team to enhance your application operations continually.
Predictable Costs: Say goodbye to budget surprises.
Compliance: The cooperation between Gepardec, VSHN, and Exoscale provides a reliable and secure data processing platform in the DACH region,
For more information on how gepardec-run can transform your application operations, visit gepardec-run.
We’re excited to embark on this journey with you, making application management simpler, more efficient, and hassle-free. Stay tuned for more updates and insights from Gepardec, VSHN, and Exoscale as we continue to innovate together.
Together, we run your applications, so you don’t have to.
VSHN provides professional 24/7 technical support for your applications and container platform, all bundled into one package. The best part? You don’t need to be an expert in OpenShift or Kubernetes. Trust VSHN to provide the expertise, guidance, and hands-on engineering needed to propel your online business forward. VSHN is committed to building customized full solutions to ensure your business runs reliably around the clock.
Exoscale provides a secure and scalable cloud infrastructure (data center, CPU, RAM, networking, storage) with robust data protection features, ensuring your data and applications are always safe and accessible. Exoscale’s data centers in multiple regions offer low-latency access to your applications and data, no matter where your users are located, ensuring a seamless experience.
Gepardec’s focus is on the development of enterprise-specific software solutions as well as consulting in the areas of cloud, integration, and automation. So that people use better software.
Annie Talvasto
Annie Talvasto is Marketing and Public Relations Lead at VSHN.
VSHN climbs 14 positions in the Computerworld 500 ranking in 2023!
20. Sep 2023
We’re delighted to discover that VSHN has once again improved its position on the Computerworld 500 Ranking. This list showcases the biggest IT companies in Switzerland since 1997.
This year, we’ve climbed from the 378th to the 364th position.
Get your copy of the 2023 Computerworld 500 ranking now!
Adrian Kosmaczewski
Adrian Kosmaczewski is in charge of Developer Relations at VSHN. He is a software developer since 1996, a trainer, and a published author. Adrian holds a Master in Information Technology from the University of Liverpool.
VSHN is Red Hat Premier CCSP Partner in Switzerland
23. Nov 2022
Zurich, 22.11.22 VSHN is Red Hat Premier CCSP Partner in Switzerland.
VSHN is very pleased to announce that we have been named a Red Hat Premier Business Partner in Switzerland as part of the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider (CCSP) program. This provides customers and independent software vendors (ISVs) with greater confidence in building their next-generation IT projects with Red Hat solutions. As a Red Hat Premier Business Partner, VSHN has demonstrated that we are a competent business partner with a significant focus on Red Hat-related projects. Red Hat Premier Business Partners are well trained and committed to working closely with Red Hat on business opportunities.
This recognition of VSHN as a Red Hat Premier Business Partner within the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider Program underscores its close collaboration with Red Hat and its partner ecosystem to provide impactful solutions and cloud services to organizations in the region.
Red Hat OpenShift helps support VSHN’s Kubernetes First Strategy and product portfolio. With VSHN AppOps, VSHN offers a best-matching hosting environment for applications by combining VSHN expertise and best practices with products like VSHN AppFlow, APPUiO Managed, APPUiO Cloud and services from the VSHN Application Catalog. With APPUiO Cloud, VSHN offers a first instant on, pay per use, self service and multi cloud product that follows the approach of Namespace-as-a-Service based on Red Hat OpenShift. APPUiO Cloud provides instant access to a shared, fully-managed, ready to use Red Hat OpenShift clusters in just a few minutes, so customers can more easily bring ideas into production by focusing on applications rather than setting up or managing clusters. APPUiO Cloud is designed for Cloud Native App Development, MVP, DevOps & CI/CD Pipelines, Machine Learning, Production App Hosting, Mobile App Backends and much more. Customers can try APPUiO Cloud for free and find more details are available here.
Cloud provider models have expanded beyond multi-tenant public clouds to include private cloud build-outs, Linux container-based infrastructure and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solutions, and the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider program was created to offer additional flexibility to help solution providers better meet customer needs for cloud-based Red Hat technologies. By using a Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider, customers and partners using custom-developed or third-party ISV applications certified to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other Red Hat solutions can have greater confidence that these applications will function as expected when using them on a public cloud or managed service provider.
Red Hat’s Certified Cloud and Service Provider designation is awarded to Red Hat partners following validation by Red Hat. Each provider must meet testing and certification requirements to demonstrate that they can deliver a scalable, supported and consistent environment with strong security features designed for enterprise cloud deployments. The globally-unified program provides customers, ISVs, and partners with the confidence that Red Hat product experts have validated a given solution so that implementations can begin with a solid foundation.
Supporting Quotes
Sandhya Prabhu, senior manager, Partner Ecosystem, Switzerland, Red Hat
“Red Hat’s partner ecosystem is a vital component in delivering powerful, flexible and open solutions to global enterprises. We’re pleased to work with VSHN as a Red Hat Premier Business Partner to offer customers and developers broad choice in the cloud and better enable users to build and deploy cloud-native applications.”
Markus Speth, CEO, VSHN – The DevOps Company
“We are very excited to announce that VSHN is one of the first Red Hat Premier Business Partners within the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider Program in Switzerland. On a worldwide scale, this puts us among a select group of Red Hat Premier Business Partners. With this recognition, VSHN demonstrates our strong collaboration with Red Hat and the Red Hat ecosystem to provide cloud solutions and services to our customers to make their lives easier.
Of course, we also would like to thank all our VSHNeers who helped us to achieve this new recognition through various certifications, accreditations and continued belief in Red Hat. We are looking forward to continuing our successful collaboration with Red Hat.”
VSHN is Switzerland’s leading partner for DevOps, Container & Kubernetes. VSHN (pronounced like “vision”) was founded with the intention to fundamentally shake up the hosting market. As a lean startup, we have focused on operating IT platforms through automation, agility and a continuous improvement process. Completely location-independent and without own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agile and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
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Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
In this year’s Top 500 of the strongest ICT companies in Switzerland, Computerworld again examines the Swiss IT industry, analyzes sales and developments, and provides a great deal of background information.
VSHN climbs on place 378
Once again, we made up places in this year’s edition of the Top 500. VSHN occupies the 378th place in the ranking this year. We are of course very happy about the renewed rise.
The Computerworld Top 500 has long since become the industry’s standard reference work, publishing the list of the 500 ICT companies with the highest revenues in Switzerland since 1997.
We have been awarded the kununu Top Company 2022 seal, placing us among the top 5% of the most popular companies on kununu.
This puts us among very few companies that meet all applicable requirements to receive this great award. A big thank you to all our VSHNeers for their honest comments and reviews.
What makes this award special is the fact that it is awarded on the basis of employee reviews and ratings on the company profile. The data-based and independent awarding of the seal ensures an authentic assessment of the company.
Our company embraces openness and transparency, has a flat hierarchy and is organized in Domains for which self-organized Teams are accountable for. This concept comes from Sociocracy 3.0 (S3) which isn’t an organization form nor a model, it’s a collection of principles and patterns we adapt to our needs where useful.
VSHN’s transparent and appreciative corporate culture, an agile organization and the opportunity to shape one’s work in a self-determined manner are, in our view, the basic prerequisites for this. If you want to learn more, have a look at our completely open and publicly available employee handbook. and our employee benefits.
kununu is Europe’s leading platform for employer reviews. The criteria for awarding the “Top Company” seal have been redefined and the criteria tightened in 2021 so that companies have to meet even higher and additional requirements than with the old seals. According to a survey by the consulting firm Employer Telling, kununu’s “Top Company” seal is the best-known employer seal among job seekers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since 2015, kununu has been awarding a seal of approval to companies that are rated particularly well by employees.
We are very proud and happy that VSHN is Top Company 2022! If you would like to join our team and also become a VSHNeer, go to our careers page.
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
Last year we announced our Kubernetes First Strategy, whereby we committed ourselves fully to developing solutions built around and upon Kubernetes and the whole spectrum of Cloud Native technologies. Since then, we have increased our investment in the Cloud Native ecosystem to an unprecedented level, surpassing the expectations of our customers and partners, positioning ourselves as the undisputable leader in the Swiss and DACH Kubernetes market.
APPUiO Cloud
Last year we announced APPUiO Cloud, a new platform built upon the strength and stability of the most comprehensive, secure, and complete Kubernetes-based application platform available today: Red Hat OpenShift 4. We released our first APPUiO Cloud region on cloudscale.ch in Kanton Aargau. Following customer demand, we quickly opened up a second APPUiO Cloud region on Exoscale, located in the Canton de Genève.
APPUiO Cloud is our entry-level product, a perfect fit for small agencies, ISVs, consultants, and agile teams looking for a ready-to-use OpenShift cluster, available within minutes, offering security, performance, and a pay-per-use model. Thanks to our strategic partnership with Isovalent and our choice of Cilium as the Cloud Native networking technology of choice for APPUiO Cloud, our roadmap looks brighter than ever, enabling future advanced networking features like APPUiO Cloud Multi-Zone Networking.
Visible Results
Our strategy has already brought tangible results. For example, we were thrilled to learn that the CNCF had selected our K8up backup operator as a sandbox project, placing a tremendous responsibility on our shoulders and validating our strategy in the Cloud Native market. We look forward to further developing K8up into the standard choice for Kubernetes backups in the future.
Continuing our work with Project Syn, our popular GitOps-based Kubernetes management toolkit, we released the Commodore Components Hub. It consists of a growing catalog of 72 components (at the time of this writing) also featuring third-party contributions and showing the strength of the Project Syn ecosystem.
We see that Kubernetes is getting a broader adoption every single day and we want our customers to benefit from it through our Kubernetes-First strategy.
Markus Speth, Co-CEO VSHN and CMO
One example where our Kubernetes-First strategy shines was how quick we were able to implement the APPUiO Cloud API, which is fully based on the Kubernetes API. I see the Kubernetes API being used for more and more automation tasks, and so will we use the Kubernetes API more and more.
Tobias Brunner, Co-CEO VSHN and Product Owner.
Our commitment to Kubernetes remains strong and decisive for our future. We look forward to working with our partners to empower Switzerland’s Open Source and Cloud-Native ecosystems and strengthen Switzerland’s position as a world-class innovation hub.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN is Switzerland’s leading partner for DevOps, Container & Kubernetes. VSHN (pronounced like “vision”) was founded to fundamentally shake up the hosting market. As a lean startup, we have focused on operating applications through automation, agility, and a continuous improvement process. Completely location-independent and without its own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle, agile and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
VSHN Quick Facts
49 employees
350 partners
Operating in 16 clouds
Founded 2014
100% self-owned
Winner Digital Economy Award 2019
VSHN is the link between business, software development, and IT operations. VSHN supports software developers in making applications automatically testable, deployable and scalable and operating them on any infrastructure. In addition to close and agile cooperation and consulting, we also take over responsibility for the stability of our services, including 24/7 support.
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
We’re thrilled to announce the general availability of the second zone of APPUiO Cloud: Exoscale – CH-GVA-2 0, located in the Canton de Genève and running on Exoscale! See the official announcement.
This zone joins the LPG 2 zone, located in Kanton Aargau and running on cloudscale.ch, already available in production since December 1st, 2021.
APPUiO Cloud is the heir to and a complete overhaul of our successful APPUiO Public PaaS (Platform as a Service) product in service since 2016.
APPUiO Cloud offers a complete yet simple “Namespace as a Service (NSaaS)” product, in a shared infrastructure.
Join the Community Discussions on GitHub and be notified of the latest APPUiO Cloud news!
Adrian Kosmaczewski
Adrian Kosmaczewski is in charge of Developer Relations at VSHN. He is a software developer since 1996, a trainer, and a published author. Adrian holds a Master in Information Technology from the University of Liverpool.
We are thrilled to announce that we agreed on a partnership with Isovalent. Isovalent created Cilium, the Enterprise-class eBPF-powered Networking, Observability, and Security software, which was contributed to the CNCF as an incubation-level project in 2021.
Who is Isovalent?
Isovalent builds open-source cloud-native networking software that solves networking, security, and observability for modern infrastructure. Isovalent Cilium Enterprise is the Enterprise Distribution maintained by the creators of Cilium & eBPF. We’re especially proud that one of the founders of Isovalent and lead developer of Cilium and eBPF has his home in Switzerland. Besides the US, the second headquarter of Isovalent is in Switzerland.
What is Cilium and eBPF?
Cilium is an Open Source software for enabling, securing, and observing network connectivity between container workloads in cloud native apps. It is fueled by eBPF, the revolutionary Linux Kernel technology. eBPF allows sandboxed programs to run in Kernel space. It is used to safely and efficiently extend the capabilities of the Kernel without requiring to change kernel source code or load kernel modules. This allows for fast and secure innovation.
Why VSHN and Isovalent?
Isovalent provides VSHN and its Container Platform APPUiO with expert support for stable operations, supported by the use of the hardened and Red Hat OpenShift-certified distribution of Cilium. This support is provided by the same developers who wrote Cilium, with a 30-minute response time; hotfixes for high priority incidents; and a regular, proactive review of customer metrics to identify potential concerns as soon as possible. All of these features makes Isovalent a premium partner for VSHN and APPUiO in this new phase.
Why VSHN and Cilium?
Cilium is a critical piece of the new APPUiO Cloud. It allows us to:
Provide advanced networking configurations, to help secure the multi-tenant environment.
Bring observability into the network layer, which would be otherwise hard (or downright impossible) because of the restricted nature of APPUiO Cloud.
Enhance network policies, with way more possibilities than those offered by Kubernetes or even OpenShift.
Implement Kubernetes LoadBalancer services with BGP, which makes it possible to offer this service on cloudscale.ch.
Future proofing our network technology, and to prepare for scalable cluster networking.
Prepare for more advanced security features, like syscall blocking, Service Mesh , and more.
Prepare for future advanced networking features, like APPUiO Cloud Multi-Zone Networking.
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
We are thrilled and honored to announce that K8up, the Kubernetes backup operator created by VSHN, has entered the CNCF Project Onboarding process!
We will now work together with the CNCF to complete the onboarding process, providing all the required information geared towards the transfer of the project stewardship to the CNCF.
During this phase, we at VSHN will continue our work, improving K8up with new features and possibilities. The GitHub project is the primary support for this work, and you’re very welcome to check our getting started guide and learn more about K8up.
Thanks to the CNCF for their vote of confidence in K8up! We know this project will be a great addition to the ever-growing world of Cloud Native projects, and we look forward to its future!
Tobias Brunner
Tobias Brunner is working since over 20 years in IT and more than 15 years with Internet technology. New technology has to be tried and written about.
The Computerworld Top 500 of the strongest ICT companies in Switzerland celebrates its anniversary in 2021 with the 25th edition. In this year’s Top 500 you will again find the complete ranking of the 500 largest ICT companies in Switzerland, the analysis of revenue and developments as well as a lot of background information.
VSHN climbs on place 384
Once again, we made up places in this year’s edition of the Top 500. VSHN ranks now in the 384th place this year. We are of course very happy about the rise, despite the pandemic.
The 2021 anniversary edition of the Computerworld Top 500 of the strongest ICT companies in Switzerland can be obtained directly from Computerworld.ch.
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
We are thrilled to announce APPUiO Cloud, the newest member of the APPUiO family.
What’s APPUiO Cloud?
APPUiO Cloud is the successor of our hugely successful APPUiO Public product, which we have been offering already since 2016. APPUiO Cloud is a complete and simple OpenShift-as-a-Service product, available on different infrastructure (IaaS) providers.
VSHN Top Ten Open Source Contributor in Switzerland
4. Aug 2021
Open Source is without any doubt one of the most important forces shaping the business of software in the 21st century. And Switzerland, after some hesitant first steps in the 2000’s, has now fully embraced it; many organizations are now contributing lots of code for the community, collaborating with one another, and helping shape an open future for our craft. And Open Source is undoubtedly a major factor contributing to Switzerland topping the UN innovation ranking for the past 10 years in a row.
For VSHN, Open Source is part of our culture. We release new projects and products continuously, and gladly collaborate with projects all over the country, providing pull requests, bugs reports, and feedback. We actively advocate for our customers to adopt Open Source as well; they can learn more about the Open Source advantage to their businesses in our website.
And our commitment pays off; we’ve been consistently figuring in the top ten of Swiss organizations contributing to Open Source. We are thrilled and proud to share the stage with such prestigious names as Camptocamp, CERN, Exoscale, Swisscom, the University of Bern, Zühlke and many others!
Our major contributions at this moment are:
Project Syn, our suite of tools to manage large numbers of Kubernetes clusters from a central location.
Commodore, one of the members of the Project Syn family, can be extended through components. The full component ecosystem is featured in our recently released Commodore Components Hub, including not only our own components, but also those created by third parties.
K8up, our Kubernetes backup operator, which recently released its version 1.0.
But there is more, so much more! Check out our GitHub profiles: VSHN, APPUiO, and Project Syn.
We are also contributing and sponsoring the Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation, CH Open, Parldigi, Opendata.ch and many more and we support the Swiss Open Source Study 2021.
Matthias Stürmer, head of the Research Center for Digital Sustainability of the University of Bern has placed VSHN in the 7th rank of the top Swiss contributors to Open Source, as reported by Swiss IT Magazine.
VSHN – The DevOps Company announces Kubernetes First strategy. While KubeCon & CloudNativeCon Europe 2021 is taking place, the leading partner for DevOps & container platforms in Switzerland is fully committing to Kubernetes.
VSHN – The DevOps Company gears up for ‘Kubernetes First’ strategy
VSHN is strategically focussing on Kubernetes services. With “Kubernetes First”, the company sets their product & solution strategy on Kubernetes to be at the forefront of technical innovation. This includes cloud native technologies and container platforms and culminates in VSHN’s own Open Source offerings ‘Project Syn’ to run and operate your application and a fleet of Kubernetes clusters as well as ‘K8up’, the Kubernetes backup operator. VSHN manages the infrastructure but does not own any servers or data centers with Kubernetes enabling to standardize both cloud and cloud native onprem.
VSHN is the First Swiss Kubernetes Certified Service Provider
To lay the foundation for Kubernetes First, VSHN has been awarded the first Swiss Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP) by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation already in 2019 and has deepened its partnerships with strategic software vendors, cloud providers and hyperscalers such as IBM/Red Hat, SUSE/Rancher, Upbound/Crossplane, GitLab, F5/NGINX, Amazon Web Services AWS, A1/Exoscale and Swisscom.
During KubeCon & CloudNativeCon Europe 2021, Tobias Brunner is holding a Lightning Talk at the Crossplane Community Day Europe on May 4th 2021.
In addition to the extended partnerships, VSHN is increasingly hiring and training Kubernetes experts and expanding its managed container platform offering APPUiO.ch in collaboration with Puzzle ITC and also expanding certifications such as ISO 27001, ISAE3402 Type 2 and vendor specific certifications. In total, investments sum-up to a six digit CHF amount for the expansion and development of Kubernetes services.
“Everything is becoming cloud and Kubernetes is the operating system of the cloud. The trick is to focus on what you do best in a highly competitive market and not trying to do everything yourself, such as operating your own data centers. There are already a vast amount of experts for this and we are the experts of running your Kubernetes platform on any cloud or in any data center, as your DevOps partner.”
Says Markus Speth, Co-CEO VSHN and CMO
“Intelligent processes, highly automated infrastructure and microservices are the future and this is what we offer with our Open Source managed service framework Project Syn (syn.tools). With Project Syn, we have laid the foundation for our future Managed Services on top of all Kubernetes platforms. With Crossplane as an integral part of Project Syn, we reach 100% automated self-service provisioning from within Kubernetes. “Run clusters as cattle”: everyone can run a fleet of Kubernetes clusters and contribute to the project. With Kubernetes First, we are focusing for the coming years and continue what we do best.”
Says Tobias Brunner, Co-CEO VSHN and Product Owner.
VSHN offers a DevOps workshop where VSHN experts analyze the current situation and tech stack of your application and offer best practice solutions to move, run and operate your application on Kubernetes in the future.
Existing customer solutions based on virtual machines will continue to be maintained and a migration to a Kubernetes-based solution will be part of the normal platform life-cycle.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN is Switzerland’s leading partner for DevOps, Container & Kubernetes. VSHN (pronounced like “vision”) was founded with the intention to fundamentally shake up the hosting market. As a lean startup, we have focused on operating applications through automation, agility and a continuous improvement process. Completely location-independent and without its own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle, agile and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
VSHN Quick Facts
42 employees
350 partners
Operating in 16 clouds
Founded 2014
100% self-owned
Winner Digital Economy Award 2019
VSHN is the link between business, software development, and IT operations. VSHN supports software developers in making applications automatically testable, deployable and scalable and operating them on any infrastructure. In addition to close and agile cooperation and consulting, we also take over responsibility for the stability of our services, including 24/7 support.
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
Success in OCRE tender: VSHN and Exoscale as cloud providers in catalog for European universities and research institutions
25. Mar 2021
PRESS RELEASE
Success for VSHN – The DevOps Company together with Swiss cloud provider Exoscale in OCRE tender for more than 10,000 research institutions.
VSHN and Exoscale now in catalog for European universities and research institutions as cloud providers.
Zürich/Lausanne, 25. März 2021 – Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen in 38 europäischen Ländern können ab sofort die Lösungen der Schweizer Firmen VSHN und Exoscale nutzen. Die Institute können die sicheren Cloud-Dienste der Unternehmen im Rahmen des Open Clouds for Research Environments (kurz OCRE-) EU-Projekts einsetzen. Insgesamt wurden 27 Angebote in den Katalog aufgenommen. Eines davon das gemeinsame Angebot von VSHN und Exoscale, das ab sofort verfügbar ist.
Das OCRE-Projekt zielt darauf ab, die Nutzung von Cloud-Computing durch die Forschungsgemeinschaft in und um Europa zu beschleunigen, indem es Forschungs- und Bildungseinrichtungen einsatzbereite Dienstleistungsvereinbarungen mit Cloud Providern bietet. Über 10.000 Forschungs- und Bildungseinrichtungen können die Cloud-Angebote über den Servicekatalog der European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) direkt nutzen. In 38 Ländern zählen die beiden Schweizer Unternehmen VSHN und Exoscale zu jenen Cloud-Anbietern, die die strenge Prüfung durch OCRE bestanden haben und die entsprechenden Dienste realisieren.
„Wir sind gemeinsam mit Exoscale ins Rennen gegangen, um diese sehr wichtige internationale Ausschreibung zu gewinnen. Diese Wahl hat sich als goldrichtig erwiesen: Damit zählen wir jetzt zu jenen Cloud-Anbietern, aus denen mehr als 10.000 Forschungseinrichtungen auswählen können“, freut sich Aarno Aukia, Partner & Verwaltungsrat VSHN. „Neben der DSGVO-konformen Infrastruktur von Exoscale war der gute, transparente Service mit einem persönlichen Ansprechpartner für Kunden ausschlaggebend.“
Aarno Aukia, Partner und Verwaltungsrat VSHN
„Als europäischer Anbieter erfüllt Exoscale auch strengste datenschutzrechtliche Ansprüche und fällt nicht – wie die großen Hyperscaler – unter den US Cloud Act“, erläutert Mathias Nöbauer, CEO Exoscale und Director Cloud A1 Digital. „Von Anfang an haben wir uns darauf konzentriert, eine zuverlässige und leistungsfähige Cloud-Plattform zu einem marktführendem Preis-/Leistungsverhältnis anzubieten. Und damit eine souveräne europäische Alternative zu bieten, vor allem wenn es um die Verarbeitung von sensiblen – zum Beispiel personenbezogenen – Daten geht. Gerade bei Universitäten und Forschungseinrichtungen handelt es sich nicht selten um äußerst sensible, schützenswerte Informationen.“ Exoscale betreibt je eine Zone in Zürich und in Genf, und vier weitere in der EU – in Frankfurt, München, Wien und Sofia.
Mathias Nöbauer, CEO Exoscale und Director Cloud A1 Digital
Durch den Rahmenvertrag zwischen OCRE und VSHN mit ihrem Partner Exoscale können Schweizer Bildungs- und Forschungseinrichtungen jetzt ohne zeit- und kostenaufwändiges Ausschreibungsverfahren die Exoscale-Plattform als eine von 27 Möglichkeiten nutzen und die gewünschten Dienste konsumieren. Dazu zählen neben dem neuen Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service (SKS) auch Compute, Object Storage, GPU Servers und Virtual Private Cloud.
Weitere Informationen
Weitergehende Informationen zu den offerierten Services, verfügbaren Regionen sowie Security & Compliance sind unter vshn.ch/ocre/ zu finden.
Über Exoscale und A1 Digital
Exoscale ist Teil von Akenes SA, einem 2011 gegründeten Privatunternehmen mit Hauptsitz in der Schweiz, das seit 2017 zur A1 Gruppe gehört und eine Tochtergesellschaft von A1 Digital International ist. Exoscale setzt auf schnelle und flexible Self-Service-Lösungen für Kunden. Es bietet europäischen Teams dank einer einfachen und intuitiven Web-Administrationsoberfläche eine stabile, hochskalierbare Infrastruktur und eine breite Palette an Dienstleistungen, um beim Aufbau von Cloud-Nativen Anwendungen sowie komplexen Projekten zu unterstützen. Mit Sitz in Lausanne, Schweiz, und Rechenzentren in der gesamten Schweiz, in Wien, in Frankfurt, München und in Sofia profitiert Exoscale von den Schweizer sowie europäischen Datenschutzbestimmungen und erfüllt damit alle Richtlinien der EU-DSGVO. Zu den aktuell größten Projekten, an welchen Exoscale aktuell beteiligt ist, gehört unter anderem GAIA-X. Mehr auf www.exoscale.com.
Über A1 Digital: A1 Digital macht die Digitalisierung nutzbar.
A1 Digital setzt mit Unternehmen Digitalisierungsprojekte um: Der Fokus liegt auf branchenspezifischen Anwendungen im Bereich Internet of Things (IoT) sowie auf cloudbasierten Produkten für den modernen Arbeitsplatz sowie Security Lösungen für Cloud und IoT. Mit skalierbaren Services ist A1 Digital zudem ein idealer Partner für digitale Projekte im Mittelstand. Als Teil der A1 Telekom Austria Gruppe und damit von América Móvil greift das Unternehmen auf die gewachsene Infrastruktur einer der weltweit größten Mobilfunkbetreiber zurück. Neben der Deutschlandzentrale in München verfügt A1 Digital über regionale Vertriebsorganisationen und bietet Cloud Lösungen über Rechenzentren in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz an.
Über VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN wurde mit der Absicht gegründet, den Hostingmarkt grundlegend aufzumischen. Als Lean Startup haben wir uns durch Automatisierung, Agilität und einen kontinuierlichen Verbesserungsprozess auf den Betrieb von IT-Plattformen konzentriert. Völlig standortunabhängig und ohne eigene Hardware betreiben wir umfangreiche Applikationen nach dem DevOps-Prinzip agil und 24/7 auf jeder Infrastruktur, damit sich Software-Entwickler auf ihr Business konzentrieren können und der IT-Betrieb entlastet wird. VSHN (ausgesprochen wie „Vision“) ist der führende Schweizer Partner für DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Rancher & 24/7 Cloud Operations. Erfahre mehr auf www.vshn.ch
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
We are thrilled to announce the general availability of K8up version 1.0!
New K8up Logo
K8up (pronounced /keɪtæpp/ or simply “ketchup”) is a Kubernetes Operator distributed via a Helm chart, compatible with OpenShift and plain Kubernetes. It allows cluster operators to backup PVCs; to perform on-demand backups; or to schedule regular backups. K8up is written in Go and is an Open Source project hosted at GitHub.
This new version is a full rewrite of the operator, based on the Operator SDK. This provided us with a more stable code base, with extended testing, paving the way for future improvements and new features.
Speaking about which; some of the new features in version 1.0 are:
Support for Kubernetes 1.20.
K8up status printed when using kubectl get or oc get.
Run multiple replicas of K8up for high availability.
Specify Pod resources (CPU, memory, etc.) from different levels.
New random schedules (e.g. @daily-random) to help distribute the load on the cluster.
VSHN appoints new Co-CEOs and Members of the Management
1. Feb 2021
VSHN – The DevOps Company – appoints two additional Members of the Management and appoints new General Managers.
Markus Speth (previously CMO) and Tobias Brunner (previously Head of Engineering) are now taking over as Co-CEO and form, together with Michèle Leibenzeder (Head of People Operations) and Manuela Banz (CFO) as well as Marco Fretz (Organizational Development) and Matthias Indermühle (Customer Projects), the new 6-person Management of VSHN. The founders Aarno Aukia (CTO) and Patrick Mathers (previously CEO) will in future focus on strategic development as Members of the Board in addition to their operational activities in growth and backoffice.
VSHN Management 2021 (Tobias Brunner, Markus Speth, Michèle Leibenzeder, Manuela Banz, Marco Fretz, Matthias Indermühle)VSHN Board 2021 (Patrick Mathers, Aarno Aukia, Bruce Mathers)
Zurich, February 1 2021
VSHN – The DevOps Company, the leading IT platform provider and expert in container, Kubernetes and managed services, is expanding its leadership team and realigning both its Management and Board.
CEO Patrick Mathers and CTO Aarno Aukia move from the Management to the Board and appoint Tobias Brunner and Markus Speth as new Co-CEOs. In addition, Michèle Leibenzeder and Manuela Banz join the Management. Marco Fretz and Matthias Indermühle complete the future Management of VSHN. With these appointments, VSHN is ushering in the next generation of the management and growth stage and is making itself fit for the future.
VSHN is a fast-growing Swiss technology company based in Zurich with an international customer base, winner of the Digital Economy Award, first Swiss Kubernetes Certified Service Provider and has been ranked in the top 10 fastest growing ICT companies two times in a row. With over 40 employees, VSHN manages more than 100,000 services for 350 different partners in various clouds and on-premises. VSHN counts Swiss banks and fintechs, telcos, large ecommerce retailers, the Swiss Federation and the Australian government among its customers and operates APPUiO.ch, one of the largest container platforms for customers on-premises and in the cloud.
VSHN is investing heavily in scalability through self-organizing, autonomous teams and is constantly developing the organizational structures required for this, for example with patterns from Sociocracy 3.0. The personnel changes in management and leadership represent the next logical step in growth and enable a better focus and division of work areas and responsibilities.
Both Patrick Mathers as previous CEO and Aarno Aukia as CTO will concentrate in the future on the strategic development of VSHN in the Board in addition to their operational activities and will therefore withdraw from the Management. The General Management will be taken over by two long-time VSHNeers in tandem as Co-CEO: Tobias Brunner and Markus Speth.
“Due to the growth of VSHN, this is a logical step. In the first few years, I was very close to the day-to-day business and was able to manage the financial aspects in particular well. However, the strategic development of VSHN is becoming more and more important. And since we have been able to recruit extremely competent people for the management and as Co-CEOs, I can face my new challenges with peace of mind and pleasure.”
Patrick Mathers
“Patrick and I have realized that we simply do not have enough time to take care of the future company strategy and strategic development. We are handing over the management to 6 extremely capable VSHNeers, three of whom have been with us since the founding. Tobias and Markus complement each other perfectly for the task as Co-CEO and both will positively develop the ‘VSHNaryness’ in our sense for many years.”
Aarno Aukia
“We are very pleased with this huge trust placed in us and gladly accept the task to jointly represent VSHN as Co-CEO in the future.”
Tobias Brunner and Markus Speth
“When I started at VSHN in the fall of 2014 as the very first employee, with no office and no (corporate) infrastructure at all, just my personal laptop at home, I would never, ever have predicted that VSHN would grow to over 40 VSHNeers in this short period of time. This is absolutely exciting. VSHN has always been an unconventional company in terms of how we are organized and how we operate – it’s part of our DNA. VSHNeers have always been involved in the decisions of the company. With the move to organize our company according to the principles of Sociocracy 3.0 (S3), we have further strengthened the involvement of every VSHNeer in the decision-making process. Together with Markus Speth, we will form a Co-CEO team, which I feel is a good thing to do things as a team rather than alone. Since I have known Markus for a very long time and we have worked together at various previous companies, we know how to work together. We will share this task and do our best to move VSHN forward and keep the momentum we have gained.”
Tobias Brunner
“I am very much looking forward to being the driving force behind VSHN as Co-CEO alongside Tobias, to be an important pillar in the further growth and to master future challenges. When I started as Chief Marketing Officer at VSHN in July 2018, I was no stranger to the VSHNeers as we already knew each other from various engagements and I knew the drive the people behind VSHN have. I am absolutely convinced of our strategic direction and especially of our team, the VSHNeers, who ultimately make the difference. We have a lot of ideas for the next chapters of VSHN, how we can take further growth paths and develop as an organization as a whole to focus even more on customers, partners and VSHNeers. Let’s tackle it together.”
Markus Speth
In addition, VSHN has appointed further Members to the Management: Manuela Banz as CFO and Michèle Leibenzeder, responsible for People Operations. Marco Fretz, who joined the Management in July 2020, continues to be responsible for organizational development and operations, and Matthias Indermühle, who has been a Member of the Management since the founding and who is responsible for customer projects, complete VSHNs Management.
Michèle Leibenzeder is a VSHNeer since the founding of VSHN and has single-handedly mastered the balance between the various areas of people, finance, events and purchasing as Office Manager until 2019. In 2019, VSHN had reached a size where it became necessary to split these areas to ensure the best possible coverage. For this reason, Michèle was appointed Head of PeopleOperations to be able to focus on the needs of our employees and to work towards achieving the North Star Goal “VSHNeers are the happiest employees”.
“I have never worked for a company as long as I have for VSHN. It’s probably because the company values match my values. VSHN gives us freedom and trust, values personal initiative and that you are constantly developing. At VSHN, no one is still doing the same job he or she was hired for after five years. That is super exciting and fulfilling for me. I am convinced that the success or failure of a business idea (and the business strategy derived from it by management) depends on one single factor: the people who implement it. VSHN draws the consequence from this realization that a seat for PeopleOperations is needed in the Management. This positions VSHN in the “war for talents” and further emphasizes the importance of people.”
Michèle Leibenzeder
Manuela Banz joined VSHN in 2019 and has taken over as Head of Accounting.
“I have been a VSHNeer for just over a year and thus am a part of this enterprise. I am all the more pleased that I have already been appointed to the Management team. I am honored to strengthen the Management and to be able to contribute my expertise in finance now to the Management team. I am convinced that this reorganization of the Management will enable us to master future challenges and continue to grow as a company.”
Manuela Banz
VSHN lays the foundation for further successful and healthy growth and has big plans for the future. As an open and transparent company, VSHN is committed to the open source idea, supports CH-Open, the Linux Foundation and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, among others, and publicly communicates Values, Beliefs and Goals in its handbook: https://handbook.vshn.ch/
Patrick Mathers and Aarno Aukia founded VSHN in 2014 because they saw a big gap between software developers and traditional hosting companies. As a Lean Startup, VSHN has focused on IT platform operations through automation, agility, and a continuous improvement process so that software developers can focus on their business and IT operations are relieved. Completely location-independent and without its own hardware, VSHN today operates applications according to the DevOps principle on any infrastructure or cloud in various countries worldwide.
Markus Speth
Markus is VSHN's CEO and one of the General Managers.
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