Application Infrastructure, Application Storage
Article | July 19, 2023
DApps (sometimes called Dapps) are from the blockchain universe and so, logically, the apps part stands for application (obviously) and the D part stands for decentralised (only obvious once you know that we’re talking distributed immutable language here). According to the guides section at blockgeeks, DApps are open source in terms of code base, incentivised (in terms of who validates it) and essentially decentralised so that all records of the application’s operation must be stored on a public and decentralised blockchain to avoid pitfalls of centralisation. So then, Cartesi is a DApp infrastructure that runs an operating system (OS) on top of blockchains. The company has now launched a more complete ‘platform-level’ offering, which is described as a layer-2 solution
Read More
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Article | September 14, 2023
Unveil the Hyperconverged Infrastructure adoption strategies, build an effective HCI implementation plan and align them with businesses of all sizes. Know leading companies for HCI adoption.
Contents
1. Introduction to HCI in B2B Markets
2. Evaluating HCI Readiness for B2B Organizations
2.1. Identifying Business Use Cases for HCI Implementation
2.2. Hyper-Converged Management and Orchestration
3. Building an Effective HCI Implementation Plan
3.1. Implementation of Managed Service Providers
4. Aligning HCI Strategy with Business Objectives
4.1. Integration and Compatibility with Existing Systems
4.2. HCI and Cloud Integration: Hybrid and Multi-Cloud for HCI
5. Top HCI Companies to Improve Cloud Management & Data Security Solutions
5.1. Virtual Tech Gurus
5.2. CTC Global
5.3. Winslow Technology Group
5.4. Internetwork Engineering
5.5. Eastern Computer Exchange
6. Maximizing Business Value through HCI in B2B Markets
1. Introduction to HCI in B2B Markets
HCI, a software-defined solution that organizes and abstracts networking, CPU, memory, and storage devices as resource pools, utilizing commodity x86-based hardware and virtualization software, enables the administrator to combine and provision these resources as virtual machines and independent storage resources such as network-attached storage (NAS) filers and object stores. Organizations face numerous infrastructure difficulties. They frequently receive urgent demands from the business to keep their organization agile and proactive while implementing new digital transformation initiatives. For many organizations, a cloud-only IT strategy is not a viable option; as a result, there is a growing interest in hybrid scenarios that offer the best of both realms.
Hyperconvergence makes administration much easier, enabling management of all aspects of infrastructure from one place while reducing complexity by removing compatibility problems between multiple vendors. AllHyperconvergedInfrastructure offerings serve as the foundation for on-premises infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) by unifying and integrating computing and storage as fundamental HCI technology infrastructure services.
The global Hyper-Converged Infrastructure market size was valued at USD 4805.24 million in 2022 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 26.53% during the forecast period, reaching USD 19719.08 million by 2028.
2. Evaluating HCI Readiness for B2B Organizations
2.1. Identifying Business Use Cases for HCI Implementation
Software-Defined Data Center: Businesses face challenges due to surging market costs, increased competition, and the need for improved business agility. Scaling data centers and managing the addition of new resources pose a concern for an efficient workforce and time consumption. HCI is a key component of the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) strategy for centralizing business operations. SDDC abstracts hardware resources, enables policy-driven automation for resource allocation, and manages data resulting in an agile, pooled, automated data center environment.
High-Performance Computing: As technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and three-dimensional imaging advance, the size and quantity of data that organizations must manage grow exponentially. Here, High-Performance Computing (HPC) comes into play, which employs clusters of powerful processors operating in parallel to process massive multidimensional datasets (big data) and solve intricate complexities at extremely high rates. It is fueled not only by rising demands but also by the prevalence of RDMA networking with reduced latency and higher throughput, as well as the widespread availability of public and private cloud HPCaaS.
Software-Defined Networking Integration: Business requirements require quick responses from enterprises and service providers to improve network control. Like storage, software-defined networking (SDN) virtualizes networking functions within a hyperconverged infrastructure. It creates a centrally managed and programmable network by separating network forwarding functions from network control functions. It allows for the centralized administration of networking devices and facilitates the automation of network devices and evaluating HCI solutions for business-specific needs.
2.2. Hyper-Converged Management and Orchestration
A modern hyper converged data center supports growing workloads while keeping a check on capital and operating expenses. This paves the way for a simplified transition to a hybrid cloud that allows for scalable performance, streamlined administration, and enhanced orchestration.
It delivers rapid deployment, orchestration, management, and monitoring of containerized environments, allowing focus on running businesses instead of infrastructure. This functionality enables IT departments to find a middle ground between empowering developers to choose their own containerized infrastructure and meeting the demands of service-level agreements in terms of reliability and availability.
The secure integration and smarter work are done through the use of open, extensible features that interface seamlessly with third-party platforms and applications to automate lifecycle operations and enable consistency and governance. It allows teams to intelligently visualize, optimize, and orchestrate the entire infrastructure and set of apps.
3. Building an Effective HCI Implementation Plan
3.1. Implementation of Managed Service Providers
Typically, the implementation ofmanaged service providers(MSPs) takes about 90-120 days, depending on the readiness of the organizations.
Meet the core subject matter experts in procurement to perform an organizational analysis and assessment.
Document current-state processes and policies helping identify the ROI for organizations.
Conduct an in-depth organizational assessment to capture operational and cultural requirements, adjusting the core implementation methodology.
Perform testing, configuration, and system design.
Carry out build & unit testing and user acceptance testing.
4. Aligning HCI Strategy with Business Objectives
4.1. Integration and Compatibility with Existing Systems
Business applications and specific technologies, including third-party services and service-level contracts, require HCI. Businesses use cloud-based ERP and CRM applications. Before choosing an HCI solution, decision-makers should consider if the hyperconverged infrastructure supports business application back-end systems. Containers and other workload-supporting technologies are equally significant. Multiple cloud services power businesses. Even if they run their cloud systems, they may use third-party disaster recovery or identity and access management (IAM) services. Decision-makers must ensure that the chosen HCI can integrate with these other services without extra steps.
4.2. HCI and Cloud Integration: Hybrid and Multi-Cloud for Hyperconverged Infrastructure
According toNutanix, 91% of IT decision-makers who consider hybrid cloud the ideal IT model for organizations.
Hybrid cloud is prevalent for comparable reasons. This architecture provides a comprehensive range of public and private cloud-based computing, storage, and services. Many organizations are discovering that integrating these technology trends can yield substantial benefits. By implementing HCI for their hybrid clouds, businesses are better equipped to address a variety of IT challenges, such as distributed workforces resulting in distributed data. As businesses increasingly adopt multi-cloud strategies, utilizing multiple public cloud services with private cloud or on-premises infrastructure becomes increasingly crucial. HCI simplifies multi-cloud management by reducing the difficulty of tracking resources, managing security, and optimizing performance across various cloud environments.
To assure compatibility between the HCI platform and different cloud services, network connectivity and data transit speeds management is required, which affects the performance and efficacy of a multi-cloud configuration. Hyperconverged infrastructure and cloud computing complement one another to provide a flexible, efficient, and scalable IT infrastructure that can adapt to the ever-changing requirements of businesses. Educating employees about hyperconverged technology, throughHCI certifications and courses,will empower them with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively deploy, manage, and optimize hyperconverged infrastructure, leading to enhanced operational efficiency, streamlined IT management, and the ability to harness the full potential. By comprehending the relationship between HCI and cloud computing, businesses make more informed IT strategy decisions and capitalize on the benefits of both approaches.
5. Top HCI Companies to Improve Cloud Management & Data Security Solutions
5.1. Virtual Tech Gurus
Virtual Tech Gurus (VTG), specializes in delivering Hybrid Solutions that seamlessly integrate the advantages of hyperconverged data center and public cloud technologies. It offers various insights, from data center inventory and discovery to user access auditing, cyber and business resiliency assessments, chargeback insights, capacity reporting, and cyber-configuration auditing. Its Cyber-Resolutions services are designed to encompass prevention auditing, response services related to user risks, cyber resiliency assessments, monitoring, and comprehensive incident response. This offers flexible, cost-effective services that translate into tangible business value for customers. VTG bolsters business performance in critical growth-oriented areas by providing consulting and project services across cloud services, data center migration, cloud migration, infrastructure assessment, and staffing. By elevating infrastructure performance, VTG achieves the twin goals of cost reduction and heightened availability, ultimately facilitating the swifter deployment of new services.
5.2. CTC Global
CTC Global, a prominent conglomerate, is a pivotal player in the HCI technology landscape. In the current era, enterprises embrace the choice of on-premise cloud networking resources to construct private cloud networks or opt for cloud-based networking resources for hybrid clouds. These cloud networking resources encompass virtual routers, virtual firewalls, HCI network monitoring, and management software, among other tools and functions readily accessible as needed. Its services include orchestrating a targeted response to cyberattacks to curtail their impact on business operations, Establishing an efficient third-party governance program to safeguard against ecosystem-related risks that could undermine business performance, Addressing the intricate digital risk management challenges a dynamic, distributed, and diverse workforce poses, equipping businesses with the knowledge to embed resilience into their day-to-day operations ensures smooth adaptation to the increasingly digital sphere.
5.3. Winslow Technology Group
Winslow Technology Group (WTG), a prominent leader in IT solutions offers managed services and cybersecurity services since 2003, consistently delivering exceptional business outcomes to its customers. WTG is committed to facilitating innovation and transformation for its clients' businesses by harnessing the advantages of data center solutions, digital workspace solutions, networking, and cloud infrastructure solutions. WTG serves a broad spectrum of clients, from medium-sized enterprises to Fortune 50 corporations, across diverse market segments, including the public sector, finance, healthcare, insurance, education, manufacturing, and technology. Data center advantages include reduced downtime enhanced security increased efficiency, optimized performance, automation of data centers and downtime & security management.
5.4. Internetwork Engineering
Internetwork Engineering (IE) fosters meaningful interactions by connecting individuals to its customers, colleagues, suppliers, patients, citizens, and students. IE is a strategic solution provider catering to mid-market and enterprise clients. Its comprehensive services span consulting, implementation, and operational services, enveloping four validated architectures: collaboration, data centers, intelligent networks, and security. Advancing data protection strategy in the modern landscape encompasses more than mere security and recovery, it extends to data availability, access privileges, and data center considerations. Data protection figures prominently in evaluating storage, backup solutions, network design, and security controls. IE addresses this essential facet with various solutions to ensure seamless business operations such as meeting backup and recovery goals, navigating data center breaches, cyber-attacks, and DDoS attacks, facilitating data replication to remote or cloud data centers, and more.
5.5. Eastern Computer Exchange
Eastern Computer Exchange (ECEI), a technology company, boasts an impressive legacy of three decades in the industry. ECEI offers holistic technology solutions, encompassing migrations, consolidations, cloud integrations, and global desktop rollouts. ECEI's specialty solutions encompass a broad spectrum, including private/public/hybrid cloud strategy and implementation, operations managed services, cloud management platform implementation, DevOps strategies with container management and orchestration solutions, hyper-converged infrastructure solutions, and end-user compute modernization solutions. The crucial interplay between network and security is the foundation of ECEI's offerings. Recognizing the inadequacy of traditional detection and blocking defenses, ECEI aligns with the zero trust network architecture (ZTNA) trend, offering valuable expertise for evaluating and orchestrating the migration to ZTNA.
6. Maximizing Business Value through HCI in B2B Markets
Hyper-converged infrastructure has emerged as a potent solution that holds the potential to enhance business value. It brings inherent data protection and disaster recovery features, assuring business continuity and upholding the critical trust of B2B partners. Security and compliance are prioritized through integrated measures that safeguard data integrity and adhere to industry regulations. This technology also empowers business agility. Swift deployment and flexibility enable rapid responses to market shifts, thereby boosting hyperconverged market sizes, ensuring B2B enterprises seize emerging opportunities and adapt to evolving customer preferences. By optimizing operations, hyperconverged infrastructure frees up resources that can be allocated to a customer-centric focus, nurturing stronger and more responsive client relationships.
As we peer into the future, the trajectory of HCI's influence reveals promising trends and a wide-ranging scope poised to redefine how businesses extract value within B2B environments. One of the prominent trends on the horizon is the deepening integration of HCI architectures into diverse business ecosystems. Furthermore, the burgeoning scope of HCI extends beyond conventional data center management. The forthcoming years are anticipated to witness an increased convergence of HCI with cloud technologies, resulting in a hybridized infrastructure model. Moreover, the integration of HCI aligns harmoniously with the ascent of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things. The seamless connectivity and resource optimization offered by HCI are poised to drive transformative shifts in industrial automation, supply chain management, and predictive maintenance, ultimately nurturing enhanced productivity and innovation within B2B sectors.
Read More
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, Windows Systems and Network
Article | July 11, 2023
Adopting DevOps and CD in IaaS environments is a strategic imperative for organizations seeking to achieve agility, competitiveness, and customer satisfaction in their software delivery processes.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. What is IaaS Virtualization?
3. Virtualization Techniques for DevOps and Continuous Delivery
4. Integration of IaaS with CI/CD Pipelines
5. Considerations in IaaS Virtualized Environments
5.1. CPU Swap Wait
5.2. CPU System/Wait Time for VKernel:
5.3. Memory Balloon
5.4.Memory Swap Rate:
5.5. Memory Usage:
5.6. Disk/Network Latency:
6. Industry tips for IaaS Virtualization Implementation
6.1. Infrastructure Testing
6.2. ApplicationTesting
6.3. Security Monitoring
6.4. Performance Monitoring
6.5. Cost Optimization
7. Conclusion
1. Introduction
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) virtualization presents significant advantages for organizations seeking to enhance their agility, flexibility, and speed to market within the DevOps and continuous delivery frameworks. Addressing the associated risks and challenges is crucial and can be achieved by employing the appropriate monitoring and testing techniques, enlisted further, in this blog.
IaaS virtualization allows organizations to provision and de-provision resources as needed, eliminating the need for long-term investments in hardware and data centers. Furthermore, IaaS virtualization offers the ability to operate with multiple operating systems, databases, and programming languages, empowering teams to select the tools and technologies that best suit their requirements.
However, organizations must implement comprehensive testing and monitoring strategies, ensure proper security and compliance controls, and adopt the best resource optimization and management practices to leverage the full potential of virtualized IaaS. To achieve high availability and fault tolerance along with advanced networking, enabling complex application architectures in IaaS virtualization, the blog mentions five industry tips.
2. What is IaaS Virtualization?
IaaS virtualization involves simultaneously running multiple operating systems with different configurations. To run virtual machines on a system, a software layer known as the virtual machine monitor (VMM) or hypervisor is required.
Virtualization in IaaS handles website hosting, application development and testing, disaster recovery, and data storage and backup. Startups and small businesses with limited IT resources and budgets can benefit greatly from virtualized IaaS, enabling them to provide the necessary infrastructure resources quickly and without significant capital expenditures.
Virtualized IaaS is a potent tool for businesses and organizations of all sizes, enabling greater infrastructure resource flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.
3. Virtualization Techniques for DevOps and Continuous Delivery
Virtualization is a vital part of the DevOps software stack. Virtualization in DevOps process allows teams to create, test, and implement code in simulated environments without wasting valuable computing resources. DevOps teams can use the virtual services for thorough testing, preventing bottlenecks that could slow down release time. It heavily relies on virtualization for building intricate cloud, API, and SOA systems. In addition, virtual machines benefit test-driven development (TDD) teams that prefer to begin their troubleshooting at the API level.
4. Integration of IaaS with CI/CD Pipelines
Continuous integration is a coding practice that frequently implements small code changes and checks them into a version control repository. This process not only packages software and database components but also automatically executes unit tests and other tests to provide developers with vital feedback on any potential breakages caused by code changes.
Continuous testing integrates automated tests into the CI/CD pipeline. For example, unit and functionality tests identify issues during continuous integration, while performance and security tests are executed after a build is delivered in continuous delivery. Continuous delivery is the process of automating the deployment of applications to one or more delivery environments.
IaaS provides access to computing resources through a virtual server instance, which replicates the capabilities of an on-premise data center. It also offers various services, including server space, security, load balancing, and additional bandwidth. In modern software development and deployment, it's common to integrate IaaS with CI/CD pipelines. This helps automate the creation and management of infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code (IAC) tools. Templates can be created to provision resources on the IaaS platform, ensuring consistency and meeting software requirements. Additionally, containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes can deploy applications on IaaS platforms.
5. Considerations in IaaS Virtualized Environments
5.1. CPU Swap Wait
The CPU swap wait is when the virtual system waits while the hypervisor swaps parts of the VM memory back in from the disk. This happens when the hypervisor needs to swap, which can be due to a lack of balloon drivers or a memory shortage. This can affect the application's response time. One can install the balloon driver and/or reduce the number of VMs on the physical machine to resolve this issue.
5.2. CPU System/Wait Time for VKernel
Virtualization systems often report CPU or wait time for the virtualization kernel used by each virtual machine to measure CPU resource overhead. While this metric can't be directly linked to response time, it can impact both ready and swap times if it increases significantly. If this occurs, it could indicate that the system is either misconfigured or overloaded, and reducing the number of VMs on the machine may be necessary.
5.3. Memory Balloon
Memory ballooning is a memory management technique used in virtualized IaaS environments. It works by injecting a software balloon into the VM's memory space. The balloon is designed to consume memory within the VM, causing it to request more memory from the hypervisor. As a result, if the host system is experiencing low memory, it will take memory from its virtual infrastructures, thus negatively affecting the guest's performance, causing swapping, reduced file-system buffers, and smaller system caches.
5.4. Memory Swap Rate
Memory swap rate is a performance metric used in virtualized IaaS environments to measure the amount of memory being swapped to disk. When the swap rate is high, it leads to longer CPU swap times and negatively affects application performance. In addition, when a VM is running, it may require more memory than is physically available on the server. In such cases, the hypervisor may use disk space as a temporary storage area for excess memory. Therefore, to optimize, it is important to ensure that VMs have sufficient memory resources allocated.
5.5. Memory Usage
Memory usage refers to the amount of memory being used by a VM at any given time. Memory usage is assessed by analyzing the host level, VM level, and granted memory. When memory usage exceeds the available physical memory on the server, the hypervisor may use disk space as a temporary storage area for excess memory, leading to performance issues. The disparity between used and granted memory indicates the overcommitment rate, which can be adjusted through ballooning.
5.6. Disk/Network Latency
Some virtualization providers provide integrated utilities for assessing the latency of disks and network interfaces utilized by a virtual machine. Since latency directly affects response time, increased latency at the hypervisor level will also impact the application. An excessive amount of latency indicates the system is overloaded and requires reconfiguration. These metrics enable us to monitor and detect any negative impact a virtualized system might have on our application.
6. Industry tips for IaaS Virtualization Implementation
Testing, compliance management and security arecritical aspects of managing virtualized IaaS environments . By implementing a comprehensive strategy, organizations ensure their infrastructure and applications' reliability, security, and performance.
6.1. Infrastructure Testing
This involves testing the infrastructure components of the IaaS environment, such as the virtual machines, networks, and storage, aiming to ensure the infrastructure is functioning correctly and that there are no performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, or configuration issues. Testing the virtualized environment, storage testing (testing data replication and backup and recovery processes), and network testing are some of the techniques to be performed.
6.2. Application Testing
Applications running on the IaaS virtual environment should be thoroughly tested to ensure they perform as expected. This includes functional testing to ensure that the application meets its requirements and performance testing to ensure that the application can handle anticipated user loads.
6.3. Security Monitoring
Security monitoring is critical in IaaS environments, owing to the increased risks and threats. This involves monitoring the infrastructure and applications for potential security threats, vulnerabilities, or breaches. In addition, regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing help identify and address potential security issues before they become significant problems.
6.4. Performance Monitoring
Performance monitoring is essential to ensuring that the underlying infrastructure meets performance expectations and has no performance bottlenecks. This comprises monitoring metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, network traffic, and disk utilization. This information is used to identify performance issues and optimize resource usage.
6.5. Cost Optimization
Cost optimization is a critical aspect of a virtualized IaaS environment with optimized efficiency and resource allocation. Organizations reduce costs and optimize resource usage by identifying and monitoring usage patterns and optimizing elastic and scalable resources. It involves right-sizing resources, utilizing infrastructure automation, reserved instances, spot instances (unused compute capacity purchased at a discount), and optimizing storage usage.
7. Conclusion
IaaS virtualization has become a critical component of DevOps and continuous delivery practices. To rapidly develop, test, and deploy applications with greater agility and efficiency by providing on-demand access to scalable infrastructure resources to Devops teams, IaaS virtualization comes into picture. As DevOps teams continue to seek ways to streamline processes and improve efficiency, automation will play an increasingly important role. Automated deployment, testing, and monitoring processes will help reduce manual intervention and increase the speed and accuracy of development cycles. In addition, containers will offer a lightweight and flexible alternative to traditional virtualization, allowing DevOps teams to package applications and their dependencies into portable, self-contained units that can be easily moved between different environments. This can reduce the complexity of managing virtualized infrastructure environments and enable greater flexibility and scalability. By embracing these technologies and integrating them into their workflows, DevOps teams can achieve greater efficiency and accelerate their delivery of high-quality software products.
Read More
IT Systems Management
Article | July 14, 2022
Every business or organization has spent a lot of time and energy building its network infrastructure. The right resources have taken countless hours to establish, ensuring that their network offers connectivity, operation, management, and communication. Their complex hardware, software, service architecture, and strategies are all working for optimum and dependable use.
Setting up a security strategy for your network requires ongoing, consistent work. Therefore, the first step in implementing a security technique is to do so. The underlying architecture of your network should consider a range of implementation, upkeep, and continuous active procedures.
Network infrastructure security requires a comprehensive strategy that includes best practices and continuing procedures to guarantee that the underlying infrastructure is always safe. A company's choice of security measures is determined by:
Appropriate legal requirements
Rules unique to the industry
The specific network and security needs
Security for network infrastructure has numerous significant advantages. For example, a business or institution can cut expenses, boost output, secure internal communications, and guarantee the security of sensitive data.
Hardware, software, and services are vital, but they could all have flaws that unintentional or intentional acts could take advantage of. Security for network infrastructure is intended to provide sophisticated, comprehensive resources for defense against internal and external threats. Infrastructures are susceptible to assaults like denial-of-service, ransomware, spam, and illegal access.
Implementing and maintaining a workable security plan for your network architecture can be challenging and time-consuming. Experts can help with this crucial and continuous process. A robust infrastructure lowers operational costs, boosts output, and protects sensitive data from hackers. While no security measure will be able to prevent all attack attempts, network infrastructure security can help you lessen the effects of a cyberattack and guarantee that your business is back up and running as soon as feasible.
Read More