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.
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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
Marketing, Communications, People
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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
Marketing, Communications, People
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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
Marketing, Communications, People
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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
Marketing, Communications, People
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VSHN joins the GitLab Channel Partner Program to strengthen GitLab’s presence in Switzerland and beyond and help companies make the best out of their DevOps journey. Zurich, Switzerland, November 18 2020: VSHN – The DevOps Company today announced it has joined the partner program for GitLab, the single application for the DevOps lifecycle, as a Channel partner. This strategic relationship delivers a great benefit to both GitLab and VSHN and their partners respectively. “GitLab is excited to build a strategic relationship with VSHN,” said Michelle Hodges, vice president of global channels at GitLab. “VSHN’s expertise across DevOps, Managed Services and Kubernetes Operations is helping companies to focus on their core business and makes them a great fit for the GitLab Partner Program and enables us to work together to create high-value services for our mutual customers.” Listen to what GitLab’s CEO Sid Sijbrandij has to say about the partnership with VSHN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p31CN5SN3UM Thank you very much, Sid!
GitLab at VSHN
VSHN allows you to take on your DevOps journey with GitLab. GitLab is one of the core DevOps tools we use at VSHN and which we are utilizing at our partners to help them run their application. We have been using GitLab internally and for our customers and partners for a long time and can offer both GitLab licenses and Managed GitLab as a complete package as a managed service. Customers can benefit from our many years of experience with GitLab and building CI/CD pipelines. GitLab is available in 4 different subscriptions from Free to Ultimate, depending on your needs. You can learn more about GitLab plans and pricing here.
GitLab in Switzerland
GitLab is no stranger to Switzerland and has a strong presence in the Swiss financial services industry. As an example, UBS and GitLab have just recently signed a multi-year contract for a strategic collaboration. This complements UBS’s cloud journey, which is targeted at developing a market leading, dynamic development experience – with the ultimate goal to faster produce high quality solutions for clients, while increasing efficiency. As members of the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), UBS and GitLab address common industry challenges and drive innovation in the financial industry. We as VSHN think that such initiatives strengthen the Swiss FSI and workplace Switzerland. VSHN also works with several partners in the financial services area, for example acrevis bank, CreditGate24, esurance or neon.
Learn more
For more information, go to GitLab at VSHN and also join our upcoming Webinar on Improving collaboration & software delivery using GitLab CI and Kubernetes and the Switzerland GitLab Meetup Group.
About GitLab
GitLab is an open core company which develops software for the software development lifecycle used by more than 100,000 organizations, 30 million estimated registered users, and has an active community of more than 3000 contributors. GitLab openly shares more information than most companies and is public by default, meaning our projects, strategy, direction and metrics are discussed openly and can be found within our website. Our values are Collaboration, Results, Efficiency, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging , Iteration, and Transparency and these form our culture.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN is Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes and 24/7 cloud operations partner. VSHN 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 our own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agilely and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved. With APPUiO.ch we have created a container platform on which we can offer Managed Services as a PaaS solution on any infrastructure: public, dedicated, private and on-premises.
Markus Speth
Marketing, Communications, People
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“swiss hosting” was developed by swiss made software to create comparability and a reference to Swissness in the field of hosting & cloud. swiss hosting is a transparency label that guarantees data sovereignty, because in addition to the provider’s place of business, the cloud or data center and hardware must be in Switzerland and may not belong to any foreign company. swiss made software is the nationally and internationally recognized flagship for Swiss quality in software development. More than 650 companies have been awarded the label “swiss made software”. This corresponds to more than 12,000 employees in the core ICT industry in Switzerland.
Requirements of the swiss hosting label
The following criteria must be met in order to use the “swiss hosting” label:
Business location in Switzerland
Hosting in a Swiss data center. Data protection and data security must be subject to Swiss law.
Protection of the hosting environment against access from abroad
swiss hosting at VSHN: the customer decides
As a Swiss company with the option to host data exclusively in Swiss clouds & data centers, we are now the proud bearer of the “swiss hosting” label. We are clearly committed to Swissness and support the idea of “swiss hosting” to create comparability among the various hosting providers. Since VSHN itself does not operate any infrastructure or cloud, the “swiss hosting” label for VSHN is only valid in connection with a Swiss cloud or data center provider. With our APPUiO Public offering we can ensure swiss hosting because the platform is operated in the cloud of our friends at cloudscale.ch and the data is therefore hosted in a Swiss data center. Another example would be APPUiO Managed on Swisscom DCS. If customers choose a Swiss data location and the corresponding cloud or data center provider meets the criteria, the “swiss hosting” label can be guaranteed. For many of our Swiss customers, the Swissness and data location Switzerland is still an important factor. Especially for business critical applications and the processing of sensitive data, location and data sovereignty are of central importance. The “swiss hosting” label underlines this quality claim.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN (pronounced ˈvɪʒn like “vision”) is Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes and 24/7 cloud operations partner. VSHN 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 our own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agilely and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
Markus Speth
Marketing, Communications, People
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We’re very happy to announce Red Hat OpenShift 4 services on APPUiO!
The whole VSHN team has been working hard on making OpenShift 4 a reality for our customers. We are fully committed on the strategic importance of our Red Hat partnership and OpenShift as a main pillar of APPUiO and VSHN services.
OpenShift 4 on APPUiO beta program
To celebrate this milestone we’re happy to provide the community with time-limited OpenShift 4 test accounts, at no charge except for one thing: your feedback. If you are interested in testing OpenShift 4 on APPUiO, please sign up here for our beta program:
Do you want to shape the future of APPUiO Managed OpenShift 4? Send us your feedback! To make it easier, we use a feedback voting system, where you can easily join the discussion and vote for your preferred features and services.
History of OpenShift & VSHN
OpenShift has been and continues to be the strategic Kubernetes platform for VSHN. VSHN was founded in 2014 with the idea of not doing everything ourselves, but rather focus on what we do best: Specialize in operating and onboarding customers and don’t own hardware, servers or data centers is one of the main aspects of why we exist. This led to a strong focus on innovation & automation, PaaS & container technology with the belief of being cloud native & cloud neutral. Shortly after in 2015, we created the brand APPUiO in cooperation with Puzzle ITC, and started deploying the first OpenShift 3 beta releases. In close collaboration with Puzzle ITC and Red Hat we launched APPUiO.ch container platform in production in 2016. Why did we choose OpenShift? A couple of arguments why OpenShift is our “way to go”:
Multitenancy, RBAC, WebGUI, container based images, “best of both PaaS and CaaS”
Delivery model: open source, available & supports both cloud/hyperscalers and on-premises/CCSP-infrastructure
Red Hat: trusted brand, marketing generating demand, customers ask for Red Hat
Flexibility fits perfect to our strategy & managed service business
Perfect for our future growth and open source practice
OpenShift enabled us to enter the Enterprise market through:
Enabling DevSecOps through RBAC and other security-by-default
Enterprise supported Kubernetes
Embracing open standards, enabling infrastructure/cloud abstraction and mobility, enabling cloud-native (and not necessarily cloud-only)
So the foundation for VSHN and APPUiO was set up which led to a strong & healthy natural growth through focus on what we do best. In 2020, we are still open & transparent and are embracing Open Source & partnerships, are still owner-run and managed and are ISO27001 certified and ISAE3402 audited. VSHN is the first Swiss Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP) and VSHN is Red Hat Advanced Business Partner (CCSP). So after using OpenShift since 3.0 beta 1, today we are operating 50 clusters in 16 countries. From Zurich to Sydney, the USA and China, numerous happy customers trust us in the banking, financial services, insurance brokering, medical insurance, medical, governmental, and many other online business fields. Our customers embrace Enterprise Kubernetes features such as multi-tenancy, authentication, and security hardening, in combination with the “batteries included” approach to auxiliary services: container building, logging, and metrics. OpenShift 4 includes a lot more features complementing this offering, bringing lots of value to our customers.
A container platform changes the way we develop, deliver and operate software. APPUiO presents OpenShift 4 in a Techlab: a free half day training course.
Target audience
The OpenShift Techlab is for anyone who wants to understand how a containerized application can be deployed and run on OpenShift.
Zurich, June 23, 2020: VSHN is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Rancher Labs.
Who or what is Rancher?
Rancher Labs delivers open-source software that enables organizations to deploy and manage Kubernetes at scale, on any infrastructure across the data center, cloud, branch offices, and the network edge. With 30,000 active users and greater than 100 million downloads, its flagship product, Rancher, is the industry’s most widely adopted Kubernetes management platform. For additional information, visit www.rancher.com and follow @Rancher_Labs on Twitter. With Rancher, we are adding another Kubernetes distribution to our portfolio besides Red Hat OpenShift. An extensive article with many more details about Kubernetes can be found here and Sebastian Plattner from Puzzle explains in his blog post, how to build a Kubernetes Cluster with the help of Ansible and Rancher.
Why Rancher?
VSHNhas been working successfully with Rancher since 2018 and is now officially a Rancher Partner. With Managed Rancher, VSHN takes care of the setup, 24/7 operation, monitoring, backup and maintenance of a Rancher cluster. Hosted in a public cloud of your choice or on-premise in your own data center. We offer our Managed Rancher Services under the brand APPUiO. Tobias Brunner, Head of DevOps & Partner of VSHN – The DevOps Company said about the partnership:
„With the addition of Rancher, we are diversifying VSHN – The DevOps Company’s portfolio by adding another Kubernetes distribution and listening to both the market and our partners who have asked for Managed Rancher.”
Rancher Rodeo event 2020 in Zurich
VSHN and Rancher Labs have already had joint appearances, for example at the first official Rancher Rodeo Event in Zurich on February 19, 2020, where our VSHNeer Adrian was able to hold a talk: https://twitter.com/vshn_ch/status/1230057034772553731
About Rancher
Rancher was started in 2014 to create software that would simplify the lives of teams who were building applications using containers. The market was new, Docker had just been introduced and questions about how to manage, secure and orchestrate containers were pressing and exciting problems to solve. Within a year we introduced the first version of Rancher, an open-source software platform for teams innovating around containers. By 2016 we had adopted Kubernetes as an orchestrator and had thousands of teams using Rancher to run containers in production. As our community has grown, we haven’t stopped innovating. Rancher 2.0 became the first enterprise-grade platform for delivering Kubernetes as an enterprise service. Projects like K3s and submariner continue to push the Kubernetes community forward. All along we’ve maintained a commitment to building open-source software that supports users as they innovate everywhere.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN (pronounced ˈvɪʒn like “vision”) is Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes and 24/7 cloud operations partner. VSHN 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 our own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agilely and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
Markus Speth
Marketing, Communications, People
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We have been working hard since the initial announcement of Project Syn back in November 2019, and are proud to announce version 0.1.0, the first pre-release of a set of Project Syn tools.
Quick reminder about what Project Syn is about:
Project Syn is a pre-integrated set of tools to provision, update, backup, observe and react/alert production applications on Kubernetes and in the cloud. It supports DevOps through full self-service and automation using containers, Kubernetes and GitOps. And best of all: it is Open Source.
Short answer: it enables the management of many Kubernetes clusters, and provides a set of services to the users of those clusters. Project Syn is composed by many tools; some specially developed for the project, some already existing, all Open Source. It’s not only about tooling, it’s also about processes and best practices.
The actual story is a bit longer.
Features of version 0.1.0
To manage a big fleet of Kubernetes clusters, we need an inventory with the following information:
The cloud providers they are running on;
Locations;
Tenants each cluster belongs to;
Kubernetes versions deployed;
Kubernetes flavor / distribution used;
…and a lot more!
This is what the Project Syn tool Lieutenant (written in Go) gives us: an inventory application to register clusters, to assign them to a tenant and to store inventory data. It consists of a REST API (based on the OpenAPI 3 specification) and a Kubernetes Operator, to store data directly in the underlying Kubernetes cluster (in CRDs) and to act on events.
Knowing about clusters is just one part. Another important element is to continuously deploy and monitor system applications (like K8up, Prometheus, …) on Project Syn enabled Kubernetes clusters. This is all done with the GitOps pattern, managed by Argo CD, which is deployed to every cluster. Thanks to Argo CD we can make sure that the applications deployed to the cluster are exactly configured as specified in the corresponding Git repository, and that they are running just fine.
Each Project Syn enabled Kubernetes Cluster has its own so-called Catalog Git Repository. This contains a set of YAML files specifically crafted for each cluster, containing the system tools to operate the cluster, and to give access to well configured self-service tooling to the user of the cluster. The generation of these YAML files is the responsibility of the Project Syn tool Commodore (written in Python). Commodore is based upon the Open Source tool Kapitan by leveraging inventory data from Lieutenant. After gathering all needed data about a cluster from the inventory, Commodore can fetch all defined components, parameterize them with configuration data from a hierarchical GIT data structure and generate the final YAML files, ready to be applied by Argo CD to the Kubernetes Cluster. The Lieutenant API also knows where the catalog Git repository is located, and Commodore is therefore able to automatically push the catalog to the matching Git repository.
Secrets are never stored in GitOps repositories. They are instead stored securely in Hashicorp Vault, and only retrieved during the “apply” phase, directly on the destination Kubernetes Cluster. This process is supported by the Kapitan secret management feature and by Commodore, who prepares the secret references during the catalog generation. Argo CD calls kapitan secrets --reveal during the manifest apply phase, which then actually connects to Vault to retrieve the secrets and stores them in the Kubernetes Cluster, ready to be consumed by the application.
The management of all these Git repositories is the responsibility of the Lieutenant Operator (written in Go, based on Red Hat’s Operator SDK). It is able to manage remote Git repositories (GitLab, GitHub, Bitbucket, etc) and prepare them for Commodore and Argo CD, for example by configuring an SSH deploy key.
The Project Syn tool Steward (written in Go) has the responsibility of enabling Project Syn in a Kubernetes Cluster, communicating with the Lieutenant API, to perform the initial bootstrapping of Argo CD. This bootstrapping includes basic maintenance tasks: should Argo CD be removed from the cluster inadvertently, Steward will automatically reinstall it. An SSH deploy key is generated during bootstrapping and transmitted back to the API. With this procedure it is possible to bootstrap the whole GitOps workflow without any manual interaction.
Analogies with Puppet
For those familiar with Puppet, there are some similarities with the design of Project Syn:
Puppet Server: Commodore and Kapitan to generate the catalog, matching the facts from the cluster.
Puppet DB: Lieutenant acting as inventory / facts registry.
Puppet Agent: Steward and Argo CD on the cluster. Steward to communicate with the API and Argo CD to apply the catalog.
Puppet Modules: Commodore Components, bringing modularity into Kubernetes application deployment.
Many of these concepts are documented in the Project Syn documentation pages, specifically the Syn Design Documents, documenting all the design decisions (even though they are still in “work-in-progress” stages).
What are the next steps for Project Syn?
This is really just the beginning! There are a lot of plans and ideas for the future evolution of Project Syn. We have crafted an initial roadmap, and we published it as part of the official Project Syn documentation.
This initial pre-release is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the surface there is a lot more brewing, to be released as soon as possible. To reiterate: It’s not only about tools, but also about concepts and processes, which also means a lot of documentation will emerge over the next months.
One of the focus of this initial pre-release was to lay the foundation for future development. It has a strong focus on the operations side. Future milestones will broaden the focus to include more and more self-service possibilities for the user, including tight integration of Crossplane for easy and fully automated cloud service provisioning.
We at VSHN are now starting to use Project Syn for an initial set of managed Kubernetes clusters, and will continue to develop the concept, tools and processes while we learn about more use cases and with the real-life experience we gather.
How can I contribute?
Project Syn is a young project and is making the first initial steps in the open world. Many things are just getting started, just like the documentation and the contribution guidelines. Testing and giving feedback through GitHub issues is certainly a great way to start contributing. And of course, if you are looking for a Managed Kubernetes or Managed OpenShift cluster, get in touch with us with the form at the bottom of this page!
Zürich, 28.11.2019: VSHN wins gold at Digital Economy Award
VSHN wins gold at Digital Economy Award in the category Highest Digital Quality
Who would have thought? VSHN – The DevOps Company wins gold at the Digital Economy Award in the category Highest Digital Quality. We couldn’t be happier and would like to thank all #VSHNeers who made this success possible. The moment of certainty was captured on video by our friend David Kilchenmann from Puzzle, thank you very much, Dave! 😊
The Digital Economy Award Night
At the Digital Economy Award Night, 600 guests from the digital industry, research, business and politics celebrated the digital achievements of the year. The award ceremony took place in the Hallenstadion in Zurich in the presence of Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin.
Winner in the category Highest Digital Quality 2019: VSHN – The DevOps Company
Jury president Marcus Dauck:
«VSHN is setting a new benchmark for both SMEs and larger companies in the clearly defined service segment with the highest quality and strong global growth from Switzerland. As a young company, in a technologically rapidly changing environment, relying on sustainable but flexible services is not a matter of course and requires perseverance. Speed, focus and quality are at the highest level and have impressed the jury.»
The entire wording of the winning speech can be found in the official press release of the Digital Economy Award AG.
The Certificate Holders
At the Digital Economy Award Night on November 28, companies and organizations in five special disciplines were again awarded certificates: • Security: First Security Technology • Industrie 4.0: Side Effects • Lean, Agile & Scrum: SBB Informatik, VSHN, Aduno Gruppe / Viseca Cards Services SA, Five Up Community • Open Source: Zammad • User Experience: ti&m, Aduno Gruppe / Viseca Cards Services SA, interactive friends
About Digital Economy Award
The Digital Economy Award is organised by the ICT trade association swissICT and the specialist publisher Netzmedien AG and was created through a merger of the Swiss ICT Award and the Swiss Digital Transformation Award. The next award ceremony will take place on November 25 2020 in the Hallenstadion in Zurich.
All #VSHNeers celebrate the award together
The day after the Digital Economy Award, the entire team was able to take a look at the “Cup” at our Christmas party.
What’s next?
Even after winning the Digital Economy Award, it won’t get boring – have a look at our “Next Big Thing”, Project Syn.
VSHN is proud to announce a partnership with Crossplane
Zurich, Nov 21, 2019: VSHN is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Crossplane.io for Project Syn – VSHNs next generation Managed Services framework.
Cloud Agnostic with Crossplane
VSHN has always been cloud agnostic and will further enhance this paradigm by partnering with Crossplane – „The open source multicloud control plane“. By leveraging Crossplane, the user of Project Syn can specify the backend services needed in a completely cloud-independent way. Provisioning of these services happens fully automated, handled by the tooling in the most optimal way. As an example: when a MySQL service is requested, Crossplane would provision a cloud service if the cloud provides it or deploys it inside the Kubernetes cluster leveraging a service operator. This way the user doesn’t have to care about the implementation and can fully focus on the application. Project Syn is designed to run on all Kubernetes distributions and clouds. It’s prepared to support all the specific features of any given cloud and Kubernetes distribution by abstracting the specifics. This means Project Syn will run on OpenShift with APPUiO.ch, Rancher Kubernetes and all managed Kubernetes offerings. Support for even more Kubernetes flavors and clouds are added on demand. Plans exist to support single node Kubernetes Clusters using Rancher k3s.
Why Crossplane?
Tobias Brunner, Head of DevOps & Partner of VSHN – The DevOps Company:
“After several weeks of evaluation, we’re excited to be using Crossplane as a cornerstone in our next-gen hosted DevOps product. Crossplane is an extensible open-source platform that adds declarative cloud service provisioning and management to the Kubernetes API with excellent support for GitOps-style continuous deployments for cloud-native apps that is at the heart of the next-gen offering of VSHN.”
About Crossplane
Welcome to Crossplane! Crossplane is an open source multicloud control plane to manage your cloud-native applications and infrastructure across environments, clusters, regions and clouds. It enables provisioning and full-lifecycle management of applications and managed services from your choice of cloud using kubectl. Crossplane can be installed into an existing Kubernetes cluster to add managed service provisioning or deployed as a dedicated control plane for multi-cluster management and workload scheduling. Crossplane enables the community to build and publish Stacks to add more clouds and cloud services to Crossplane with support for out-of-tree extensibility and independent release schedules. Crossplane includes Stacks for GCP, AWS, and Azure today.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN (pronounced ˈvɪʒn like “vision”) is Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, Openshift and 24/7 cloud operations partner. VSHN 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 our own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agilely and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
Markus Speth
Marketing, Communications, People
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Announcing Project Syn – The Next Generation Managed Services
20. Nov 2019
VSHN announces Project Syn
VSHN is proud to announce Project Syn, the next generation Open Source managed services framework for DevOps and application operations on any infrastructure based on Kubernetes.
Project Syn is a pre-integrated set of tools to provision, update, backup, observe and react/alert production applications on Kubernetes and in the cloud. It supports DevOps through full self-service and automation using containers, Kubernetes and GitOps. And best of all: it is Open Source.
Project Syn combines tools and processes to make the best out of containers, Kubernetes and Cloud Services
VSHNs mission is to automate all aspects of software operations to help software developers to run their applications on any infrastructure. Since 2014, we have been using Puppet and Ansible to automate monitoring, backups, logs, metrics, service checks and alerts. Project Syn is the next generation of application operations tooling packaged as containers and orchestrated on any Kubernetes service. Project Syn provides an opinionated set of integrated tools and processes on any Kubernetes service and cloud infrastructure provider:
GitOps and infrastructure as code: declare the application environment requirements in Git and let the tooling take care of creation/changes
Observability and insights: service checks, metrics, logs, thresholds, alert rules and paging
Service provisioning: declare backends and other service dependencies as portable Kubernetes Objects (CRD) and let the tooling create the infrastructure-specific service (e.g. database service, S3 storage service, etc) with best-practice default configuration
Backup: regularly back up all user data from each service and persistent volume
Application container deployment automatically integrating the topics above
Work on any Kubernetes service and cloud provider
The Project Syn tooling is a fundamental part in your DevOps journey and provides you with production quality Ops.
Cloud Agnostic with Crossplane
VSHN has always been cloud agnostic and will further enhance this paradigm by partnering with Crossplane – “The open source multicloud control plane”. By leveraging Crossplane, the user of Project Syn can specify the backend services needed in a completely cloud-independent way. Provisioning of these services happens fully automated, handled by the tooling in the most optimal way. As an example: when a MySQL service is requested, Crossplane would provision a cloud service if the cloud provides it or deploys it inside the Kubernetes cluster leveraging a service operator. This way the user doesn’t have to care about the implementation and can fully focus on the application. Project Syn is designed to run on all Kubernetes distributions and clouds. It’s prepared to support all the specific features of any given cloud and Kubernetes distribution by abstracting the specifics. This means Project Syn will run on OpenShift with APPUiO.ch, Rancher Kubernetes and all managed Kubernetes offerings. Support for even more Kubernetes flavors and clouds are added on demand. Plans exist to support single node Kubernetes Clusters using Rancher k3s.
Details of Project Syn
Project Syn will become an Open Source project in the near future. It consists of several components, working together to bring the necessary features for running applications in production on Kubernetes, acting as an operations framework. Multiple Kubernetes distributions are supported and it can be installed on an already existing Kubernetes clusters or it can even provision a new one. Taking care of what is running inside a Kubernetes clusters (including the Kubernetes cluster itself) is in the heart of Syn.
Production readiness
Syn is made for production. It brings all aspects needed to run an application in production like monitoring of all important services and backup of data.
Self-service
All parts of Syn are engineered for self-service. Define what you need – declarative in code – and the platform does it for you. Be that provisioning of services, inside or outside of the cluster, configuration consistent backup incl. monitoring or setting the matching monitoring and alerting rules, the platform automatically takes care of it.
Developer happiness
By being able to work with the platform without external dependencies, the developer can express the needs for the application in code (e.g. “a Postgres database is needed”) and do this individually.
Service provisioning
Provisioning services like databases outside of the cluster (e.g. in the cloud) or inside the cluster is completely automated by Project Syn, leveraging the endless possibilities of Crossplane. It is a key part of the platform and fully integrated with all the important production readiness features. Crossplane abstracts the specifics of the service to be provisioned. As a user of the platform you just tell Crossplane what you want. e.g. a MySQL server, and Crossplane then takes care to deploy the best matching service, depending on which cloud it runs. On AWS, Crossplane would provision an RDS instance, on a cloud without a managed database offering, it would provision an in-cluster MySQL instance managed by a matching database operator, installed and configured by the Project Syn platform. The reconciliation process of Crossplane ensures that the provisioned services are configured as intended all the time and will take measures should the configuration drift apart.
Best-practices configuration
Project Syn makes use of best-practices configuration, learned from running Kubernetes and applications on top of it in production since many years, and applies them continuously. As the best-practices evolve over time, they are integrated as they are learned.
Data protection
Data safety is key. Project Syn makes sure to continuously backup the important data on a filesystem level and also on an application consistent level. All data is stored encrypted at rest and in transit by leveraging possibilities of modern application offerings.
Security
No secrets are stored in plain text, they all live in protected key stores. By applying best-practices configuration we ensure secure configuration by default of all components. Only TLS secured connections are used.
Configuration auditing
All configuration is stored in Git and applied using the GitOps pattern. This allows to have full auditability and history of the full configuration. By signing the generated configuration data we ensure that only trusted configuration is applied to the cluster. In-cluster configuration reconciliation ensures that the configuration is up-to-date all the time and matches the intended state.
Regular maintenance
Project Syn components are regularly maintained in a fully automated way. This is to ensure that latest patches are installed and no vulnerable components are part of the system.
Decentralization
A key part of Project Syn is a decentralized approach. All parts are designed to work without relying on a central management service.
Open Source
One of the goals of Project Syn is to make use of existing and fantastic Open Source applications and glue them together to form a unity. To name a few – the most important ones:
Kapitan
Jsonnet
Crossplane
Argo CD
Prometheus – Alertmanager
Grafana
Loki
Vault
Alerta
Renovate
All Project Syn components specifically written for tying all these tools together will become Open Source as well. Contributions from Project Syn are continuously brought upstream to support these tools.
Project Syn as Managed Service by VSHN
Project Syn is an Open Source project and can be used by anyone for free. VSHN in addition offers Project Syn as a managed service. Taking care of the Project Syn platform with engineering, 24/7 operations and maintenance is key part of the offering. By adding additional services VSHN ensures that the platform can be trusted to run business-critical application workload.
Alert handling
Reacting to alerts and handle them according to a specified SLA, including 24/7 operations and continuous improvement of alert rules based on a day-to-day experience
Expert pool
The Project Syn experts at VSHN are available to help the user of the platform
Developer support
Supporting the users of the platform by actively participating as part of the development team enables the user to get the best out of the platform. We provide the Ops part in the DevOps chain.
SLA
Specific SLAs are available for applications running on the Project Syn platform
Best-practice curation
Delivering of best practice configuration learned by operating many Project Syn enabled clusters in production all over the world
Container image curation
Only VSHN tested and approved images are running on the platform which ensures stability and security
Regular maintenance
VSHN carries out regular maintenance on all involved components by keeping them up-to-date to latest bugfix and security updates
Active project Syn development
Customer needs are actively developed by VSHN engineers and brought into the Project Syn platform
Assisting services
Assisting Project Syn platform services are provided, like:
Customer portal with self-service capability and deep insights
Service desk
Image registry with curated and tested images
Inventory
and more
Early Access for Project Syn
The foundation for Project Syn is already prepared. We are actively looking for early access users of the platform, helping to test it and shape the future of Project Syn. If you are interested in getting a glimpse at our next generation managed services platform, please fill in the form below and let us know. [hatchbuck form=”Contactform-vshn-ch”]
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.
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VSHN is a finalist at the Swiss Digital Economy Award
18. Sep 2019
VSHN is a finalist at the Swiss Digital Economy Award category Highest Digital Quality
Zurich, September 18 2019
VSHN has made it into the 23 finalists of the Digital Economy Award 2019.
VSHN has made it into the 23 finalists of the Digital Economy Award 2019. After an exciting application phase and pitches in front of juries of experts from the Swiss digital economy, we are delighted that VSHN – The DevOps Company made it into the 23 finalists. The Digital Economy Award is awarded in four categories to both start-ups and established companies. The winners will be announced on November 28 2019.
Jury statement Highest Digital Quality
VSHN – THE DEVOPS COMPANY SHORT DESCRIPTION VSHN is the leading Swiss service provider for DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift and 24/7 Cloud Operations. VSHN helps software developers run applications agile and 24/7 on any infrastructure and relieve IT operations. THE JURY STATEMENT The jury recognizes that VSHN’s highly focused business model provides a managed service for software developers that runs 24/7 on any infrastructure and relieves IT operations. In a clearly defined service segment, a new benchmark is set with the highest quality and strong global growth from Switzerland. VSHN has sustainably established a DNA consisting of a service seminar set paired with a very collaborative management model and is therefore an important enabler for the Swiss digital economy. A continuous further development of the organization focuses on automation in order to provide the service even faster and more completely. Speed, focus and quality are at the highest level and have impressed the jury.
The finalists of the Swiss Digital Economy Award 2019
And these are the finalists: The Next Global Hot Thing:
Archilyse
Fixposition
Protonmail
Sonect
Digital Innovation of the Year:
Aionav Systems
Approovd
Carbon Delta
Seervision
Side Effects
Digital Transformation:
Bank Vontobel
BVD Druck+Verlag
Confiseur Bachmann
Five up Community
HEKS
Jungfraubahnen Management
Sozialversicherung Aargau
Verein iGovPortal.ch
Veriset
Highest Digital Quality:
SBB Informatik
VSHN – The DevOps Company
Aduno Gruppe
ti&m
Five up Community
On 25 October, an exclusive event for the finalists and other interested parties will take place at the Radisson Blu near Zurich Airport as an after-show for the swissICT Symposium.
Digital Economy Award ceremony on 28 November 2019
On November 28 2019, the awards ceremony for the Digital Economy Award will take place in the Hallenstadion Zurich. The awards will be presented in a festive awards show and background information on the winners will be provided. We are particularly pleased that Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin has confirmed his participation. For the first time in the history of the event (including the predecessor awards) we are receiving the highest attendance from Bern. Dr. Daniel Risch, Minister of Economic Affairs and Deputy Head of Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein, will also attend the ceremony. The award ceremony will be accompanied by interesting and highly topical thematic inputs and a gala dinner. Single tickets can be ordered under the following link. Tickets can be ordered directly on the Digital Economy Awards website.
Markus Speth
Marketing, Communications, People
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VSHN and Puzzle ITC support acrevis Bank with future-oriented technology platform for further digitalization projects
9. Sep 2019
acrevis Bank creates future-oriented technology platform for further digitalization projects
With the development of its own technology platform, acrevis Bank AG of Eastern Switzerland has succeeded in laying the foundation for its further digitalization projects. The platform enables acrevis to react agile, flexible and quickly to customer and market needs. VSHN and Puzzle thus support acrevis in the ongoing digitalization of its business area in order to react to the growing customer needs and market requirements.
Official press release of acrevis Bank from Monday, September 09, 2019
acrevis Bank erstellt zukunftsweisende Technologieplattform
Der Ostschweizer acrevis Bank AG ist es mit der Entwicklung einer eigenen Technologie-Plattform gelungen, die Basis für ihre weiteren Digitalisierungsvorhaben zu legen. Die Plattform ermöglicht es acrevis, agil, flexibel und schnell auf Kunden- und Marktbedürfnisse reagieren zu können.
Die neue acrevis Technologie-Plattform vereint modernste Technologie und innovatives, fortschrittliches Gedankengut. Dank der erfolgreichen Zusammenarbeit mit den IT-Dienstleistern Puzzle ITC und VSHN konnten innerhalb von sieben Monaten für die acrevis Bank AG optimale Voraussetzungen für die Zukunft geschaffen werden.
Die Two-Speed Architektur der Plattform erleichtert es acrevis, die mit Niederlassungen vom Bodensee bis zum Zürichsee vertreten ist, künftige komplexe Anforderungen der Digitalisierung zu meistern. Besonders vorteilhaft ist es, dass die Technologie-Plattform erlaubt, bewährte Strukturen zu bewahren und gleichzeitig für Neues gewappnet zu sein: Die moderne Lösung verbindet beide Welten, so dass neue Tools entstehen können, ohne den Machern der bereits vorhandenen Systeme im Weg zu stehen.
Christian Gentsch, Leiter des Bereiches Logistik und Mitglied der Geschäftsleitung der acrevis Bank sowie Geschäftsführer der Finanz-Logistik AG: «Wer hätte es uns zugetraut, dass wir, als regional tätige Bank, zusammen mit Puzzle ITC und VSHN, ein Projekt dieser Grösse in solch kurzem Zeitraum erfolgreich realisieren könnten? Die Plattform deckt nicht nur alle dem heutigen Standard entsprechenden Kriterien ab, sie verfügt zusätzlich über neue, innovative Ansätze und ebnet den Weg zu unserem Ziel, zukünftige Digitalisierungsprojekte schnell, unkompliziert und kostengünstig realisieren zu können.»
Die VSHN AG ist das Bindeglied zwischen Business, Software-Entwicklung und IT-Betrieb. Als führender Schweizer Partner für DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift und 24/7 Cloud Operations unterstützt VSHN Software-Entwickler dabei, Applikationen agil und 24/7 auf beliebiger Infrastruktur zu betreiben und den IT-Betrieb zu entlasten. Seit 2014 betreuen wir für 350 Kunden & Partner über 1’500 Server in 20 verschiedenen Clouds sowie bei Kunden on-premises und überwachen mehr als 80’000 Services. VSHN ist ISO 27001 zertifiziert und arbeitet nach den strengen FINMA-Richtlinien, um die Sicherheit und Vertraulichkeit von Kundendaten jederzeit sicherzustellen. VSHN ist der erste Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP) in der Schweiz und wurde als Rising Star Switzerland 2019 in der ISG Provider Lens ausgezeichnet. Mehr Informationen: www.vshn.ch
Puzzle ITC deckt als innovativer IT-Dienstleister den ganzen Lebenszyklus von geschäftskritischen Anwendungen und Infrastrukturen ab. Dabei wird konsequent auf Open Source Technologien sowie modernste Methoden und Werkzeuge gesetzt. Seit 1999 wuchs das Start-Up zum erfolgreichen Software- und Technologie KMU mit über 120 Mitarbeitenden in Bern, Basel, Zürich und Tübingen (DE). Heute arbeitet ein interdisziplinäres und qualifiziertes Team an Projekten in den Bereichen: Beratung, Applikationen, Delivery, Infrastruktur und eigenen Open Source Lösungen. Mehr Informationen: www.puzzle.ch
Die acrevis Bank AG ist 2011 aus dem Zusammenschluss der Bank CA St.Gallen AG und der swissregiobank AG entstanden. Als führende Regionalbank zwischen Bodensee und Zürichsee positioniert sich acrevis durch eine systematische Abdeckung des Marktgebiets und segmentspezifische Angebote. Die Kernkompetenzen liegen in der Finanzierung privater Immobilien, in der Anlageberatung, in der Vermögensverwaltung sowie im kommerziellen Geschäft mit KMU, Gewerbe und Selbstständig- erwerbenden. Mehr Informationen: www.acrevis.ch
Puzzle ITC deckt als innovativer IT-Dienstleister den ganzen Lebenszyklus von geschäftskritischen Anwendungen und Infrastrukturen ab. Dabei wird konsequent auf Open Source Technologien sowie modernste Methoden und Werkzeuge gesetzt. Seit 1999 wuchs das Start-Up zum erfolgreichen Software- und Technologie KMU mit über 120 Mitarbeitenden in Bern, Basel, Zürich und Tübingen (DE). Heute arbeitet ein interdisziplinäres und qualifiziertes Team an Projekten in den Bereichen: Beratung, Applikationen, Delivery, Infrastruktur und eigenen Open Source Lösungen. Mehr Informationen: www.puzzle.ch
Die VSHN AG ist das Bindeglied zwischen Business, Software-Entwicklung und IT-Betrieb. Als führender Schweizer Partner für DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift und 24/7 Cloud Operations unterstützt VSHN Software-Entwickler dabei, Applikationen agil und 24/7 auf beliebiger Infrastruktur zu betreiben und den IT-Betrieb zu entlasten. Seit 2014 betreuen wir für 350 Kunden & Partner über 1’500 Server in 20 verschiedenen Clouds sowie bei Kunden on-premises und überwachen mehr als 80’000 Services. VSHN ist ISO 27001 zertifiziert und arbeitet nach den strengen FINMA-Richtlinien, um die Sicherheit und Vertraulichkeit von Kundendaten jederzeit sicherzustellen. VSHN ist der erste Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP) in der Schweiz und wurde als Rising Star Switzerland 2019 in der ISG Provider Lens ausgezeichnet. Mehr Informationen: www.vshn.ch
Computerworld Top 500 2019: VSHN makes a leap forward
3. Sep 2019
VSHN improves placement and continues to grow strongly
UPDATE: VSHN in the top 10 fastest growing Swiss ICT companies for the 2nd year in a row
Computerworld once again ranked the top 500 of the strongest Swiss ICT companies in 2019. The measured total turnover of the companies listed in the ranking rose further to around 78 billion Swiss francs, driven by digitisation and cloud adoption.
Nevertheless, Computerworld sees the first signs of a slight slowdown, so entrepreneurs are “cautiously optimistic” about the future.
UPDATE: VSHN again among the top 10 fastest growing Swiss ICT companies
VSHN defies the negative signs and continues to grow strongly. In 2019, we again made it into the top 10 of the fastest growing Swiss ICT companies.
In 2019, we were again able to increase both sales and the number of employees. Every month we were able to welcome new VSHNeers. In the Computerworld Top 500 ranking of Swiss ICT companies, VSHN was able to improve its ranking with a big leap from 487th to 454th place. Of course, we are very pleased about this great ranking and take the award as an opportunity to continue to improve in the future. And all that during Swiss #digitalday. ?
The complete edition of the Top 500 with exciting facts and reports can be ordered directly from Computerworld.
Learn more about Computerworld Top 500
The special edition of Computerworld Top 500 has long since become the industry’s standard reference work and publishes the list of the 500 ICT companies with the highest sales in Switzerland since 1997. The special digital edition of Computerworld Top 500 is now available.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN (pronounced ˈvɪʒn like “vision”) is Switzerland’s leading DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, Openshift and 24/7 cloud operations partner. VSHN 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 our own hardware, we operate extensive applications according to the DevOps principle agilely and 24/7 on every infrastructure, so that software developers can concentrate on their business and IT operations are relieved.
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. VSHN is the first Kubernetes Certified Service Provider (KCSP) in Switzerland, we were awarded as Rising Star Switzerland 2019 in the ISG Provider Lens, are ISO27001 certified and work according to the strict FINMA guidelines.
APPUiO – Swiss Container Platform
With APPUiO.ch we have created a Swiss container platform based on Red Hat OpenShift on which we can offer Managed Services as a PaaS solution (Platform-as-a-Service) on any infrastructure: public, dedicated, private and on-premises.
VSHN at the award ceremony for the Rising Star award Cloud Transformation/Operation Services & XaaS from ISG in Berlin
28. Jun 2019
VSHN receives Rising Star award
VSHN – The DevOps Company receives the award Rising Star of the ISG Provider Lens Switzerland 2019 study at the award ceremony night in Spreespeicher Berlin. We are of course very happy that we were able to place ourselves so successfully in the study alongside many well-known global players from the IT world. The VSHNeers Patrick Mathers (CEO) and Markus Speth (CMO) receive the Rising Star from ISG Director Heiko Henkes and are very pleased about the award.
Heiko Henkes statement about VSHN:
“We have been watching VSHN for several years now and our extensive research in 2019 has come to the conclusion that VSHN can be regarded as Unicorn and one of the most innovative IT service providers in the area of Cloud Transformation/Operation Services & XaaS. As an absolute expert in Managed Services and the operation of modern Container Platforms such as OpenShift and Kubernetes, VSHN supports many companies in an agile and innovative way both in Switzerland as well as internationally with their digital transformation and the implementation of a holistic DevOps strategy. VSHN relieves software developers in their daily work like no other company in Switzerland and despite the size of the company, VSHN is able to manage and scale large and complex projects thanks to sophisticated management & automation.”
Such kind words are of course very nice and at the same time underline our daily work and strategic orientation.
Importance of the award for VSHN
What does the Rising Star award mean for VSHN? On the one hand, the study confirms us in our daily work and in our strategy not to do everything ourselves, but to focus on the operation of modern hosting platforms and future technologies such as Docker, OpenShift and Kubernetes, to automate and to cooperate with partners. On the other hand, the study results also confirm that Switzerland is a multi-cloud country and DevOps is “the way to go”. For this reason, we are extremely happy about the award as Rising Star and see it as a confirmation of our previous path and at the same time as an incentive to become even better in the future.
Berlin is always worth a visit, of course all the more so if you are receiving a prize. Following a few impressions of the ISG Provider Lens Award Ceremony Night 2019 at the Spreespeicher in Berlin on Wed. June 26 2019.
ISG annually awards the Rising Star to the product challenger with the highest potential for the future, which convinces in particular by its promising product portfolio and promising roadmap, focusing on key market trends and customer value. ISG defines the selection criteria of the Rising Star as follows:
“Rising Stars are mostly product challengers with high future potential. When receiving the “Rising Star” award, such companies have a promising portfolio, including the required roadmap and an adequate focus on key market trends and customer requirements. Also, the “Rising Star” has an excellent management and understanding of the local market. This award is only given to vendors or service providers that have made extreme progress towards their goals within the last 12 months and are on a good way to reach the leader quadrant within the next 12-24 months, due to their above-average impact and innovative strength.”
About ISG Provider Lens
In the Provider Lens, the market research company ISG rates Swiss cloud providers for the attractiveness of their product portfolio and their competitive strength. ISG is one of the leading market research and consulting companies in the information technology segment, helping more than 700 clients worldwide to achieve operational excellence. Customers have the proven expertise in innovative technology solutions, the industry’s most comprehensive database, and more than 50 years of experience and global leadership in an international information and consulting firm. ISG is based in Stamford, Connecticut with 21 locations worldwide and supports its customers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria through its locations in Frankfurt a. M., Kassel and Zurich.
About VSHN – The DevOps Company
VSHN is the leading Swiss partner for DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift and 24/7 Cloud Operations. VSHN helps software developers run their applications agile and 24/7 on any infrastructure while relieving the burden on IT operations. Since 2014, we are managing more than 1500 servers in 20 different clouds as well as on-premises at customer locations with a total of more than 80’000 services for 300 different customers and partners. We are ISO 27001 certified and work to the strict FINMA guidelines to ensure the security and confidentiality of customer information at all times. Take a look at our services and learn more about our services and how we can possibly support you. Subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter (@vshn_ch and @APPUiO) and don’t miss any news. Follow @VSHN_ch Follow @APPUiO
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