VanillaCore

Services

How We Work

Four ways to engage us, matched to how you budget, procure, and build. Every engagement is grounded in open source, cloud-native practice, and full ownership of the result.

Advise

Assessments, strategy, and architecture with written results.

Build

Design, implementation, modernization, and engineering of cloud and AI platforms.

Run

Managed operations in three clear responsibility tiers.

Enable

A curated knowledge platform plus live trainings, for your team and your agents.

Advise: Assessments & Strategy

Strategy and architecture consulting for sovereign cloud and AI: technology selection, target architectures, migration paths, and sovereignty risk. Vendor-independent, with a written and actionable result.

Start with a bounded engagement. Fixed scope, fixed duration, fixed price on request. The workshops are decision-level formats for architects and leadership; they build on existing foundations, and our trainings cover the fundamentals where needed:

2 weeks · Fixed price

Sovereignty & Cloud-Native Assessment

Inventory of your stack, dependencies, and lock-ins. You receive a sovereignty risk map, a target architecture, and a prioritized roadmap as a written report with an executive briefing.

Request this assessment

1 week · Fixed price

VMware-Exit Check

Feasibility and migration path from VMware to open-source virtualization with Proxmox, OpenStack, or Kubernetes. Includes an effort estimate and a licensing cost comparison.

Request the check

2 days · Decision workshop

AI Readiness Workshop

For architects and leadership with cloud foundations in place. Your use-cases against your data reality: what sovereign AI on standard GPU hardware can do for you today. You receive a concrete stack blueprint and a build-or-buy recommendation. Fundamentals are covered by our Sovereign AI trainings.

Book the workshop

2 days · Decision workshop

GovStack Architecture Workshop

For governments and international organizations with cloud foundations in place: building-block mapping, reference architecture, and a capacity plan for digital-government infrastructure. Fundamentals are covered by our five-day government program. Delivered by the team that trains GovStack practitioners worldwide.

Book the workshop

Not sure which format fits? Write to us

Build: Architecture & Engineering

We design and build the platforms we recommend, and we hand them over as something your organization truly owns. We have designed and delivered large-scale, sovereign architectures on private, hybrid, and public cloud infrastructures: event-driven microservice systems as well as modernized traditional landscapes.

Sovereign architecture: any architecture style, any environment, delivered at scale under your control

  • Cloud-native architecture and implementation: event-driven systems, infrastructure as code, GitOps-based delivery
  • Private cloud and AI stacks on standard hardware, on-premises or in the cloud, on the platform of your choice
  • Application modernization: monolith decomposition, migration to open-source frameworks and event-driven architectures
  • Application development in Java, C#, Python, Go, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Kotlin, with open-source frameworks first
  • Open-source AI: model deployment, fine-tuning, and AI-driven features integrated into your systems and processes

Discuss your architecture

Run: Managed Operations

Operations in three tiers, from backing your team to running the platform for you:

Tier 1

Supported

Your team operates, we back you up.

  • ✓ Business hours (Mo–Fr, 9–17 CET)
  • ✓ Next-business-day response
  • ✓ Incident and upgrade guidance
  • ✓ Quarterly platform reviews

Tier 2

Co-Managed

Shared responsibility with defined handoffs.

  • ✓ Extended hours (Mo–Fr, 7–19 CET)
  • ✓ Same-day response (≤ 4 h)
  • ✓ Patch and upgrade execution
  • ✓ Monthly operations reviews

Tier 3

Fully Managed 24/7

We operate the platform for you.

  • ✓ 24/7 monitoring and on-call
  • ✓ ≤ 1 h response for critical incidents
  • ✓ Patching, upgrades, backup & DR
  • ✓ Named contact, monthly reporting

All tiers build on open-source observability with Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, and Tempo, plus AI-driven predictive operations. Contractual SLAs are defined per engagement, including public-sector contract frameworks.

Talk about operating your platform

Enable: Knowledge & Trainings

Your teams should be able to run and evolve their stack themselves. We enable them in two ways: a curated knowledge platform for continuous learning, and live trainings for focused, hands-on depth.

Subscription · Early access

VanillaBrain

Deep, curated knowledge bases around cloud-native and AI: more than 25 years of practice combined with continuously curated ecosystem knowledge, from Kubernetes and Cloud Fundamentals to OpenStack, Operations, and AI. Structured learning paths take your team from concepts to production readiness, with video workshops, in-depth articles, and regular consultancy sessions included. The same knowledge is accessible to your AI agents, so what your people learn is also what your automation knows. Available on demand, as a subscription. Learn more about VanillaBrain.

Request early access

Live courses run on-site or remote, in English or German, worldwide. We come to you wherever it is safe to travel. Fundamentals courses require no prior experience; practitioner courses build on them:

3 days · Fundamentals

Cloud-Native Fundamentals

Concepts, containers, and a first production-shaped Kubernetes experience. The foundation for every practitioner course.

3 days · Fundamentals

Sovereign AI Fundamentals

What open-source AI can and cannot do: models, data, infrastructure requirements, and a first hands-on with LLMs on standard hardware.

4 days · Practitioner

Kubernetes for Operations Teams

From cluster architecture to production: workloads, networking, storage, security, and day-2 operations, with extensive hands-on labs.

4 days · Practitioner

Cloud-Native Architecture & GitOps in Practice

Designing and delivering cloud-native systems: patterns, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and GitOps workflows, applied to realistic scenarios.

4 days · Practitioner

Sovereign AI Engineering: LLMs on Your Own Hardware

Running and integrating open-source models in production: Ollama, LangChain, RAG pipelines, GPU sizing, and operations.

5 days · Practitioner

Open-Source Private Cloud

Concepts, architecture, and operations of private clouds with Proxmox, OpenStack, and Kubernetes, built up hands-on over the full week.

4 days · Practitioner

Platform Operations & Observability

Approaches, fundamentals, and hands-on practice with Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, and Tempo, and how to act on what they show.

5 days · Program

Cloud Fundamentals for Government Teams

The capacity-building course we deliver internationally within the GovStack initiative. Foundations, sovereignty, and hands-on practice for public-sector teams.

Plan your enablement

Get in Touch

Start Your Engagement

Whether you need advice, a build, operations, or enablement: write to us and we will find the right way to work together.

Karsten Samaschke

Karsten Samaschke

Founder & CEO

Enterprises & architecture: cloud-native platforms, AI stacks, modernization, engineering.

Write to Karsten
Friederike Zelke

Friederike Zelke

Partner Manager

Public sector, GovStack & partnerships: governments, international organizations, communities.

Write to Friederike
Schedule Appointment