«Microservices, containerisation and Kubernetes have become the golden development standard as they free applications from infrastructure»
STEP LOGIC offers a wide range of virtualisation services, including the integration of Kubernetes-like containers into an existing private cloud. In projects, the company most often uses server virtualisation, which allows multiple operating systems to run on a single physical server as virtual machines, and network virtualisation — a technology that connects applications to a virtual network as to a physical one. STEP LOGIC's Director of Computing Systems, Sergey Kapliy, goes in detail on this issue.
– Sergey, virtualisation is becoming increasingly popular. Is it really promising? What are the cases where it really helps?
– Virtualisation makes the computing environment independent of the physical infrastructure, which is why this technology has long been one of the most sought-after in both small businesses and large enterprise data centres. Server virtualisation, for example, is now an indispensable part of almost every project.
Virtualisation improves the efficiency of hardware and helps get more out of it, thereby reducing acquisition and operating costs. The technology allows for flexible load redistribution between hardware elements, making it possible to build fault-tolerant and disaster-resistant solutions.
The evolution of virtualisation technologies has led to the emergence of cloud computing, a service that provides shared computing resources on demand over the Internet. While both technologies are equally noteworthy, virtualisation and cloud computing are not interchangeable. Often the customer company starts with server virtualisation and then moves to cloud computing to increase flexibility.
– What customers are most interested in virtualisation and why? Did this change during the pandemic?
– Virtualisation and cloud technologies are actively used both for complex environments with a modern hybrid infrastructure stack, private cloud services and for systems that are used in the SMB segment, e.g. for implementing the BYOD concept.
Turning to the issue of the pandemic, in the first half of last year, we saw a surge of interest in remote user activity solutions and, as a consequence, in virtual desktop technology (VDI).
– Which virtualisation technologies and solutions would you rate as the most popular at the moment and why?
– In my view, microservices, containerisation and Kubernetes are now becoming the most popular solutions, which have become the golden development standard as they free applications from infrastructure, allowing them to run independently and run anywhere.
– What does your company offer in this area?
– STEP LOGIC offers a wide range of virtualisation services, including the integration of Kubernetes-like containers into an existing private cloud. Projects using such technology often become a kind of challange. For example, we were recently approached by one of our customers whose monolithic application and database had grown so large that its virtual machines could no longer fit on quad-processor servers. To solve the problem, our engineers proposed changing the architecture of the application and creating an infrastructure for microservices that would allow for the future launch of updated services.
Virtualisation technologies also enable us to plan changes for hybrid tasks in the infrastructure for 3-5 years, quickly upgrade existing infrastructure when there are multiple data centres, create availability zones and isolate failure domains.
– Tell us about some of your company's projects involving the use of virtualisation technology. What challenges have these technologies helped meet?
– Key benefits of virtualisation include reduced capital and operating costs, minimisation or elimination of downtime, increased IT productivity, efficiency, flexibility and agility, faster provisioning of applications and resources, improved business continuity and disaster recovery and simplified data centre management.
In projects, we most often use server virtualisation, which allows multiple operating systems to run on a single physical server as virtual machines, and network virtualisation — a technology that connects applications to a virtual network as to a physical one. To improve manageability, mobility and security of the workplace, desktop virtualisation technologies are applied.
– Thank you for the interview!
By Anna Tumakova.
Source: ict-online.ru