In May, Catalyst Cloud hosted events in Wellington and Auckland, titled “Look to New Zealand: The State of Aotearoa Cloud in 2024.” This three-part series explores the presenters key insights and future potential of New Zealand's cloud technology.

Part two of this series shares an overview of Paul Seiler, Chief Executive Officer, presentation which focused the local context of a New Zealand cloud provider.

Finding an identity in a dominated market

The vision of Catalyst Cloud was to create a cloud service that was secure, reliable, and scalable, tailored specifically for New Zealand. The key to this vision was OpenStack. By using OpenStack, Catalyst Cloud harnessed hyperscale and hypersecure cloud capabilities, developing a public cloud offering tailored to the New Zealand market. This localised approach allowed them to establish a secure, reliable, and scalable cloud service that reflected New Zealand’s needs and values.

But, creating Catalyst Cloud was just the first step. The real challenge was establishing its identity in a market dominated by large US-based companies. Over the years, Catalyst Cloud developed its identity based on the values of sovereignty, capability, and trust – values that were important to the founders and staff. OpenStack was key to achieving this. It provided the technical foundation and also aligned with Catalyst's commitment to a collaborative, open source approach. This alignment enabled Catalyst Cloud to develop a solution that truly reflected New Zealand's needs and values.

But does OpenStack help New Zealand companies become the “creators” rather than just “buyers”? Paul says it does.

Enabling New Zealand Companies to Innovate

OpenStack enables allows quick and effective deployment of cutting-edge technologies. Take GPU and Kubernetes for example.

GPU

GPU is the key computing component which is often required for training and deploying AI-models or inferencing large amounts of data. Servers are varied, expensive, somewhat different to the usual, CPU-focused servers which form the majority of cloud data centres. But OpenStack (and some very skilled staff!) have made it possible to deploy a GPU-as-a-Service offering here in New Zealand. This allows New Zealand companies to do some amazing development with AI on data gathered from inside or outside New Zealand without ever having to jeopardise the sovereignty of that data. (You can see this in action in part 3.)

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is becoming the largest and most commonly used way to deploy applications into the cloud. It’s an OpenSource offering, originally created by Google, as a way of deploying “containers”, building blocks for applications. Deploying with Kubernetes means that, ostensibly, you can deploy your environment in any method you might choose, either on-prem or in the cloud. (We’re oversimplifying to an almost reductive extent, but you can read more about Kubernetes here)

Building on Kubernetes is one thing, managing and handling the infrastructure for Kubernetes environments is another – and this is where Catalyst Cloud Kubernetes Service (CCKS) steps in. CCKS is Catalyst Cloud’s new innovation, a managed Kubernetes service to drastically simplify the life of developers deploying into the cloud. Now, CCKS can handle the auto-healing, auto-scaling and upgrading of your Kubernetes cluster, alongside so much more. This innovation, built of an OpenStack project called Magnum, is another example of the innovation which Catalyst believe shows the incredible opportunity for technical development here in New Zealand.

Choosing New Zealand cloud solutions

While bringing new cloud innovations is great, it is equally important to adapt these innovations to meet the specific needs and challenges of New Zealand users. By taking a decentralised approach, local providers like our team at Catalyst Cloud can work more closely with their customers to develop solutions that are tailored to the local context. Ultimately, this can solve problems more effectively and open new opportunities for New Zealand businesses. For example, Catalyst Cloud offers various consumption models. Some companies need private cloud deployments with fixed fees and managed services, while others benefit from public cloud's consumption-based fees and volume discounts.

Catalyst Cloud’s new release, Enclave, offers a middle ground. It allows purchasing a fixed amount of vCPU and RAM for long terms within the public cloud, providing dedicated servers with higher security, reduced fees, and greater customisation.

Enclave, CCKS, and GPU-as-a-Service are examples of how a less centralised approach enables innovations tailored to local markets. These advancements take the best of global technology and adapt them to New Zealand’s specific needs.

But the underlying infrastructure isn't the most eye-catching aspect of cloud environments. More interesting is what people can build and do with public cloud.

Continue reading to find out more about how NZ-based companies like Tohu Media and Dragonfly Data Science are leveraging the cloud in Part 3 (coming soon!).