Cloudify works in cases where you have very advanced service chaining requirements. It really works well there, and it fits the best. They have a standardized markup that's based on TOSCA, which is a standard. I like the fact that they're standards-based. Their solution works extremely well if you have the talent and the manpower to write TOSCA descriptors to deploy and interchange services or to automate the configuration and turn up of services.

There are numerous valuable features in this solution including that Cloudify supports all the major cloud providers. One of the cool features is its extendibility which means you can build your own custom logic by building a Cloudify plugin and deploying that plugin to Cloudify manager. I also like the usage of the Cloudify cluster setup where you can use it for high availability and manage complex use cases. In addition to that, Cloudify support deployment update and day-2 operation where it would be easy to manage and modify existing nodes.  

The best feature of Cloudify is that it enables a single platform to communicate with the DB, with applications, and with the entire infrastructure. The product is very stable and has a lot of troubleshooting and analytical features. It's easy to understand and user-friendly. If you want to uninstall something, it's very easy to have the logic created in Cloudify. Other solutions don't have this. For example, if you wanted to decommission after three or four years, rather than going for a full decommission, it's possible to unallocate a particular space. If you want to allocate storage for a new build, it's very easy to deploy, uninstall and release some storage from the TOSCA.

The solution includes the option to run background scripts and processes from a connected API. 

The YAML format is also easy to use with some practice. 

Documentation is sufficient to learn from examples and modify to any company's needs. 

The application orchestration and NFV capabilities represent the state of the art in orchestration tools. Cloudify can be deployed successfully in any combination of cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, OpenStack, Hyper-V and VMware; same automated process, any platform. As TOSCA adoption increases and becomes more standard, we feel comfortable recommending Cloudify to our customers because it will preserve their investment and avoid vendor lock-in.

It is easy to follow the template.

The TOSCA model. It allows modeling the application rather than the automation. It is a machine-readable representation of the application and its infrastructure, which can be used for other things too, not just for the orchestration (e.g. enterprise architecture big picture, who connects to whom).

Cloudify also provides the infrastructure-as-code, as well as operational action capabilities (orchestrated startups or upgrades, and more).

No need to change the existing application code base.

• Auto-scaling
• Load balancing
• Creating a local cloud.

I used the 2.x version and did not use the 3.x version.

Cloudify provides a good framework that you can build on to provide custom solutions for an organization.

• Extensible internal functions and plugins.
• Can implement custom plugins to fit your scenario.
• Python based plugins.
• Use what you need: You can remove certain Cloudify functions from the framework to create a "minified" version of what you need. This might only consist of the messaging delivery system, and the orchestration functions.

• Good OASIS TOSCA blueprint support
• Extensibility
• Multi-platform nature