Origin of NWCS

Updated March 10, 2026 by J. Wubben

Before we can discuss the solution, we must first address the problem. As you, the reader, are likely aware, there is a lot of fragmentation in virtualization. Engineers tend to get overwhelmed with too many options that don't fit their needs. They end up wedged between something expensive (VMWare, Nutanix, etc) and something that is open, but lacks functionality (OpenStack, Libvirt, etc). Small and medium sized businesses are especially likely to get caught up in this pressure and commit to a public cloud solution or some on-prem solution. More often than not, the only solution that checks all the boxes comes with an astronomical price tag, a contract, and/or licensing limitations. On the other hand, there are open solutions that are much lower cost, but not user friendly. Many engineers may lack the skills necessary to manage the complexities of open solutions, which makes them much harder to utilize. So the problem is this: As an end user, you want a simple and inexpensive solution that actually works. And, ideally, something that isn't going to lock you into some contract that you'll have to re-negotiate. Does such a solution exist?

If you want something done right...

A few years ago, I was sitting at my desk and found myself facing this exact problem. I had some ideas, and the best way to discover if these ideas were good or not would be to test them. But testing would require funding. Potentially, a lot of funding. That's expensive! How could I decide if my ideas were even worth the cost it would require just to test them out? This was when I realized: I need my own virtualization solution. I believed it was possible to have the best of both worlds, and so I created NWCS to bridge the gap between expensive virtualization solutions and free solutions that are overly complex with limited functionality. NWCS offers enterprise class virtualization, built on open foundations, without astronomical costs or licensing limitations.

As an engineer myself, I wanted to develop real solutions to real problems that I have personally encountered during my years in the tech industry. For example, the search functionality of this website was built as a result of exploring innovative solutions to the "search problem". With the platform I have developed, such experimentation and exploration can now be done at significantly lower cost and with much more flexibility. The NWCS virtualization platform was built for freedom: Freedom to tinker. Freedom to test ideas without breaking the bank. Freedom to create. Freedom to build. Freedom to just work.

My platform provides the following functionalities:

  • Virtual machine management: CRUD operations, live migration, and multi-arch (x86_64 and ARM) support
  • VPC networking
  • Elastic IPs
  • Firewalling
  • Fully automated and managed services
  • S3 compatible object storage
  • DNS records and zone management

NWCS empowers you to have your own private cloud, without having to break the bank or deal with complicated solutions and/or contract negotiations. With years of experience in the industry, I also offer professional services related to the NWCS technology stack, so that you can benefit from my skills and expertise.

In this blog, I will share my experience with NWCS, including how I built the virtualization platform, the issues I have faced and how I overcame them, and why my platform is better than all the others. My focus has not been on virtualization alone; there are many adjacent problems that also need to be solved, and I will discuss these solutions as well. Finally, I will also be using this blog to write about my experiences in the tech industry, the various frustrations and issues I have encountered in the field, and how they were resolved.

If you have questions about this blog post, or would like to suggest a topic for a future blog post, please feel free to reach out.