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Advisory

IT Infrastructure, Cloud and DevOps Consulting, Vendor-Neutral by Design

We are an open-source-first engineering consultancy that advises on, designs, and operates the infrastructure your business runs on. The advice is technology-agnostic: we lead with open standards and outcomes, recommend the strongest tool for each layer, and adapt to your stack rather than push a fixed product. From architecture review and sovereign cloud strategy to DevOps best practices, we cut through hyperscaler lock-in, CLOUD Act exposure, and VMware licensing pain with systems you actually control. Engineering in Europe, with EU data residency as a capability and teams in Amsterdam and Dubai. Your data, your keys, your control.

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Where we advise, end to end

  • IT infrastructure and system administration consulting: assess, harden, and operate compute, networking, storage, identity, and bare metal across Linux and UNIX estates, on-prem, hybrid, and cloud
  • Sovereign cloud strategy mapped to GDPR, NIS2, DORA, and CLOUD Act exposure, with EU data residency, customer-held keys (BYOK/HYOK), and open standards such as Gaia-X, EUCS, and the Sovereign Cloud Stack as reference points
  • Private cloud and virtualization architecture across the open ecosystem - e.g. OpenStack, Apache CloudStack, OpenNebula for IaaS control planes, Proxmox VE, Harvester, or XCP-ng for hypervisor stacks, or Kubernetes-native virtualization on KubeVirt - matched to your scale and workloads, not a vendor roadmap
  • Cloud-native and platform engineering on the CNCF landscape: container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes, k3s, RKE2, Talos, OpenShift), GitOps and CI/CD (e.g. Argo CD, Flux, Tekton, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), and infrastructure-as-code (e.g. OpenTofu, Terraform, Pulumi, Crossplane, Ansible) - we adapt to your stack
  • AIOps, observability, and private AI advisory: OpenTelemetry- and PromQL-based monitoring (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana, the LGTM stack, VictoriaMetrics, OpenSearch) plus self-hosted LLM and RAG strategy, with PII protection and GDPR alignment

How an engagement works

  • Architecture review: a clear-eyed assessment of your current estate, sovereignty gaps, reliability risks, and cost drivers, with prioritized, vendor-neutral recommendations
  • Strategy and design: a target architecture and migration path tied to your exit strategy, whether that means sovereign workloads on your current provider or a new open-source private cloud
  • Build and migrate: hyperscaler exit and VMware alternatives executed with minimal downtime - e.g. to OpenStack, CloudStack, Proxmox VE, or Kubernetes-native platforms - using reproducible, auditable infrastructure-as-code
  • Operate or hand over: we run it as a managed service or transfer full ownership to your team, with documentation, knowledge transfer, and policy-as-code (e.g. OPA, Kyverno) either way
  • Scoped, contact-only engagements tailored to your environment, compliance needs, and timeline - no fixed product, no list price

Why teams in Europe choose us

  • Vendor-neutral and open-source-first: advice grounded in open standards (OCI, the Kubernetes API, OpenTelemetry, OpenTofu) so you are never locked to a single vendor or jurisdiction
  • Sovereign by design: EU data residency, customer-managed keys, and GDPR-, NIS2-, and DORA-aligned controls built in, not bolted on, so no control plane or metadata leaves your jurisdiction
  • Breadth across the full stack - virtualization, containers, IaC, GitOps, observability, storage, networking, and private AI - not a generalist reselling someone else's product
  • Strong fit for regulated industries and public-sector buyers across Germany (DSGVO-konform, souveräne Cloud) and the wider EU
  • Engineering in Europe with offices in Amsterdam and Dubai, ready to scope your requirements
FAQ
What does an IT infrastructure consultant do?

An IT infrastructure consultant assesses your current systems, then advises on and designs the compute, network, storage, identity, and automation that run your workloads. At Rapid Solutions that advice is vendor-neutral and open-source-first, spanning sovereign cloud strategy, private cloud and virtualization architecture, DevOps and platform engineering, AIOps and observability, and managed operations - and we can build and run the result or hand it to your team.

Is your consulting tied to specific products like OpenStack or Kubernetes?

No. We work across the full open-source ecosystem and recommend the strongest tool for each layer based on your scale, compliance, and team. That might mean OpenStack, CloudStack, OpenNebula, Proxmox VE, Harvester, or KubeVirt for virtualization; Kubernetes, k3s, RKE2, Talos, or OpenShift for orchestration; and OpenTofu, Terraform, Pulumi, Crossplane, or Ansible for infrastructure-as-code. We design to open standards and to your exit strategy, not to a single vendor.

How do you approach a sovereign cloud strategy?

We start with where your data and operations are legally exposed - CLOUD Act reach, cross-border transfers, who holds the keys - then map a target architecture to GDPR, NIS2, DORA, and schemes like Gaia-X, EUCS, and the Sovereign Cloud Stack. The outcome is either hardening your existing provider with EU data residency and customer-held keys, or a fully open-source private cloud inside your perimeter, whichever fits your compliance posture and cost goals.

What is the best VMware alternative after the Broadcom price increases?

It depends on your estate. For straightforward virtualization with a lean team, hypervisor and HCI stacks like Proxmox VE, Harvester, or XCP-ng work well; for multi-tenant, API-driven clouds, OpenStack or Apache CloudStack fit; and Kubernetes-native virtualization on KubeVirt suits container-first teams. We assess scale, tenancy, and skills, then plan and run a migration that cuts licensing cost while keeping full control of your data and keys.

Do you provide DevOps and platform engineering best practices too?

Yes. We advise on CI/CD, GitOps, infrastructure-as-code, observability, and AIOps grounded in open standards like the OpenGitOps principles, OpenTelemetry, and the Kubernetes API. We help you choose and adopt the right tooling across the CNCF landscape - from delivery (Argo CD, Flux, Tekton) to monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry) - so releases get faster and safer and your team owns the result.

How much does IT infrastructure or cloud consulting cost?

Cost depends on scope, environment size, and whether you need a one-off architecture review, a build and migration, or ongoing managed operations. We scope each engagement to your goals and provide a tailored quote rather than a list price, so contact us to discuss your requirements.

Bring this to your stack.

Tell us what you run today and we will map the fastest safe path forward.

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