Cloud Technology - Where Is My Computer?
Lonnie Elwood, Sr. Client Success Manager – Cloud/Hosting
Advances in Cloud technology have forced IT organizations to alter their thinking about how they handle their computing workload needs. Computing workload should be thought of computing tasks that need to have compute resources available to them. Not only is there the question of where those resources are located (on-premise vs. Cloud), but the nature of the computing resources themselves. We can generally categorize those resources as below:
Bare Metal
Bare metal is what people have historically thought of when it comes to compute resources. This is a physical server with an operating system on it. That operating system has access to all the resources on it.
Virtual Machines
Virtual machines are operating systems that sit on top of what is known as a hypervisor. A hypervisor is software that slices up and manages the physical server and makes the compute resources available to multiple virtual machines.
Docker/Containers
Docker is a popular computer program that performs operating system level virtualization. When running Docker, software packages called containers are used that include their own tools, libraries and configuration files, and the containers are isolated from each other, but can communicate through well-defined channels. The difference between containers and virtual machines is that containers are all run by a single operating system kernel and are more lightweight than virtual machines
Serverless Computing
Serverless computing is a Cloud computing concept that is a form of utility computing. The Cloud provider acts as a server, allocating the machine resources dynamically. Although there is a server in the background providing the computing resources, the server management and capacity planning is transparent to the operator or developer. This is an option that can make sense if the computing workload is especially “bursty” or early in the dev-ops cycle.
Which category of computing resource you leverage is dependent on the nature of the software you are running. The software may be either off the shelf or completely home grown, giving you differing degrees of latitude. GSI is knowledgeable in these different categories so we can help you navigate getting to the Cloud and ensuring once you get there the Cloud continues to add value you expect to receive. If you have any other questions about the Cloud or are looking for assistance with your migration project, GSI is here to help you. At GSI we take pride in the fact that our teammates and consultants have extensive technical and business experience that can help your organization. We have a Cloud Value Assessment offering that provides you with a Cloud Migration Strategy/Roadmap that is in complete alignment with your business goals.
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