Warren Buffett's favorite insurer GEICO drops VMware for OpenStack
Warren Buffett’s favorite insurer GEICO drops VMware for OpenStack

US auto insurer GEICO has decided to migrate from VMware to OpenStack.
Tad Van Fleet, a distinguished architect at GEICO, said "OpenStack allows us to avoid vendor lock-in and allows us to customize our infrastructure to meet our specific needs. We can integrate various open source tools and platforms, which is something we couldn't do with VMware. Additionally, OpenStack's community-driven development model means we can contribute back and benefit from innovations made by others."
GEICO's migration is already in progress and the insurer is hiring staff to advance it: we’ve spotted jobs covering software-defined storage that mention Ceph and MinIO, networking gigs that seek skills in SONiC NOS, plus roles that require service reliability engineering and hardware expertise. One gig seeks a “Staff Engineer – OpenStack” to “spearhead the design, development, deployment, and management of our advanced private cloud systems.”

    

Whoever gets that gig “will be pivotal in transitioning objectives into operational realities, contributing significantly to the organization's growth and success in the private cloud space.”

        


        

Some of the jobs have salary ceilings beyond $300,000.
Van Fleet said GEICO’s migration started with "right-sizing our environment to eliminate over-provisioned resources. This allowed us to reduce the number of physical servers and streamline our infrastructure.”

        

We can’t tell you much more about the move, because GEICO declined to comment on the matter.


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The Register learned of the insurer’s plans in a draft white paper published by the Open Infrastructure Foundation that advises on the feasibility of VMware-to-OpenStack migrations. Not long after we sought comment from GEICO about its plans, the URL for the white paper produced a 404 error.
Whatever GEICO’s reasons for its move, it joins other high-profile orgs that have backed away from VMware: we’ve previously reported on moves by Computershare and Boyd Gaming. Those decisions were motivated, in part, by the licensing changes Broadcom brought to VMware. It’s unclear if GEICO decided to move for the same reason.
GEICO is one of legendary investor Warren Buffett's most successful ventures. Buffett is immensely wealthy but a famously modest spender, and generally likes companies he invests in to keep a very close eye on costs. The Register fancies GEICO may see open source as helping it to do so. ®                                
                    