Cloud Native Data Center for the Future

Cloud Native Data Center for the Future

These days, applications are distributed across the internet in a greater number than ever before. As a result, IT departments need to manage data not just on their own private networks, but also in the public cloud. And with the advent of new and interesting data sources such as social media and IOT sensors, the management of this data is becoming even more challenging. This is why many enterprises are opting to adopt a cloud-native approach to their infrastructure than trying to keep up with the ever-increasing amount of changes.

To understand the concept of a cloud native data center, the components should be first understood. These are unique building blocks designed for different use cases within Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation, Cloud Computing (Cloud-Native Applications), Security and Compliance (Perimeter capabilities), along with supporting Infrastructure Services provided by AI/Automation/Clouds in a form of software as a service.

What it is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is an emerging trend to provide IT services based on Internet. The cloud computing based service provider will provide all necessary hardware, software, connectivity and platform support to provide very large amount of services through the Internet.

The cloud computing concept was first introduced by Google to deploy their applications into the Internet; but later it was also used for other services like marketing, security, finance etc. Cloud computing has gained huge popularity because of its ability to scale systems quickly and reduce operational costs.

The cloud-native data center is a new paradigm for how data should be managed in the enterprise. According to Gartner, it promises a redeveloped environment that is applications first and then deeply integrated into technologies that provide scale and agility while standing on a stable foundation.

Pillars of Cloud Native System

The cloud-native data center is based on three pillars. These are distributed, micro services architecture, open source software, and automated workflow.

1. Distributed Hardware Architecture

The cloud-native data center’s physical hardware is designed for being extremely modular so that it can be easily scaled up or down. This makes it easy to add more hardware or to remove existing hardware at will without interrupting the operating systems or applications running on top of them. The micro services architecture is an extension of the service-oriented architecture (SOA). It is based on the design pattern to provide better flexibility for modules, services and applications to work together as well as highlight modularity throughout all layers of an application.

2. Open source software

If you are using open source software, then you are also using the associated community around the open source software. This increases availability of production services and ensures that the code is secure. These softwares help to establish quality interconnected services. Today, large enterprises use open source software to deploy their applications and services quickly and efficiently

3. Automated workflow

Automated workflow- This is the final piece of the puzzle, which can transform a data center into a cloud native data center. The automation provides process templates that can be used for configuring and customizing infrastructure based on applications and workloads’ requirements.

The flexibility of the cloud-native data center means that organizations do not have to worry about making long term commitments with regards to their physical infrastructure investments since they can easily replace or upgrade it in an on-going basis.

Traditional vs Cloud native data center

When compared to the traditional data center, cloud-native data centers are designed to support fast dynamic change and scalability while maintaining existing business functionality. The different types of data centers are categorized according to the type of change (planned vs. unplanned) that can be supported. Cloud-native data centers are characterized by dynamic composition, elasticity, and agility.

Cloud-native environments enable rapid deployment of applications making them suitable for modern application development environments like micro services. Traditional data centers were designed to support slow dynamic change over time, thus they allow gradual changes to be made to the business functionality.

Cloud-native technologies pair well with micro services, because micro services can rapidly deploy and scale independently without any major changes in the remaining system architecture. Therefore, cloud-native applications are easily deployed using containers and orchestrated through various orchestration tools.

Difference between Cloud and data centers

A cloud is a user-managed pool of virtualized resources used as a shared IT infrastructure where multiple organizations share the same physical location. A data center, on the other hand, is an area where hosting services are provided to companies or individuals so that they can operate their own computing environment. Data centers are centrally located within buildings, rather than dispersed across data centers.

Cloud-native architecture provides many benefits over traditional data centers because it allows applications to run in different virtual environments that are controlled by the users themselves. This allows for rapid provisioning and scaling of compute power without having to manage physical machines and brings greater efficiency with operational cost reduction through self-service access.

Impact of Lifestyle Automation

Small components can be easily developed, deployed, and scale up or down based on demand. This means that each component in the architecture is designed for a specific role. Therefore, if one component becomes corrupted or fails for any reason, it doesn’t affect other components or applications running in the architecture. Rapid elasticity is the key to achieving the goal of a cloud-native architecture.

Being able to quickly provision and deploy applications can help organizations respond to competitive threats, reduce costs, and gain a competitive advantage. In addition, being able to scale up or down as demand changes allow organizations to only pay for the resources they use. This approach avoids over purchasing which leads to cost savings.

The principles of the cloud-native architecture are lifecycle automation, small components, and rapid elasticity.  The term “Cloud Native Data Center” is an emerging concept that presents an exciting opportunity to transform data centers into highly available, dynamic, and responsive infrastructure. The cloud native data center enables IT operations teams to deploy infrastructure services on-demand using hybrid digital platforms.