If you choose the most popular words in the entire technology circle in the past year, then cloud native must bear the brunt.

Indeed, the cloud-native technologies and concepts represented by Kubernetes are "popular" today, especially with the active participation of many leading companies, which not only opens up the "last mile" for Kubernetes to be implemented on a large scale in the enterprise production environment, Even more, Kubernetes is becoming an indispensable technical protagonist in key business scenarios.

According to the "Top Ten Forecasts of China's Cloud Computing Market in 2020" recently released by IDC, by 2022, 50% of enterprises will deploy unified VMs, Kubernetes and multi-cloud management processes and tools to support multi-cloud management and governance. In addition, by 2022, 60% of China's top 500 enterprises will also invest in automation, orchestration and development lifecycle management of cloud-native applications and platforms.

challenges

But objectively speaking, the road to cloud native for most enterprises is not "one-stop", and they often face the following challenges:

How to make the connection between the running old system and the new application seamless?

Once a containerized application is deployed, how can it be maintained and updated?

How to minimize the technical risks of infrastructure and application transformation in a hybrid multi-cloud environment, etc.

So, is there a better delivery method to solve this problem and help enterprises embark on the cloud-native journey calmly?

Five new trends in cloud native

We know that cloud native defines an optimal path for applications to maximize the capabilities and value of the cloud.

Among them, the key container technology can "virtualize" software resources, and microservices refer to the software architecture based on container applications. These two are typical cloud-native technologies, while Kubernetes can take into account containers and traditional virtualization and physical machines. Resource management helps enterprises achieve more agile development and delivery of software and applications.

Against this background, cloud native applications have gradually entered the field of vision of more and more enterprise customers from the Internet industry, and gradually presented five new trends:

First, steady-state IT and sensitive IT are integrated with each other.

The so-called "steady-state" IT refers to the realization of a stable, secure and high-performance IT architecture based on years of informatization accumulation of enterprises; "sensitive" IT requires the use of cutting-edge Internet technologies to build an agile, flexible and differentiated digital architecture. There is a clear distinction between these two architectures, and the advent of the cloud-native era has changed this situation and accelerated the integration between the two. The most typical ones include Oracle database and SAP? ERP. Heavy application”, and is also actively transforming through containerization to adapt to the new changing needs of customers.

The second is that the virtual machine world and the container world are speeding up.

In the past, virtual machines and containers were often two independent worlds. The problem was that, whether it was for the transformation of a large number of traditional applications or for digital innovation businesses, enterprises not only had to go through the transformation of the architecture, but also had to change the software and applications. The requirements for iteration and quality have also been greatly improved, which has brought many problems. However, now the virtual machine world and the container world are accelerating. In other words, the integration of IaaS and PaaS is accelerating to meet the needs of enterprises' rapid iteration and rapid innovation of DevOps.

Third, the demand for engineering integrated solutions has surged.

Similarly, in the past, IT and development were relatively "separated", but in the future, IT and development must move toward "integration", which also means that the application service model of enterprises will be transformed into a cloud-native model, and they will integrate and interact with applications. Affected by this, more and more software and hardware integrated solutions have appeared in the market. Among them, AWS?Outposts, Microsoft Azure?Stack, Google's Anthos launched in foreign markets, Apsara?Stack launched by Alibaba Cloud in China, and Tencent Cloud Blackstone Hybrid Cloud are all "evidence" that engineering integration solutions are hot.

Fourth, cloud native is rapidly moving towards an enterprise-level production environment.

It can be seen that more and more enterprise-level users are deploying cloud-native applications in production environments and migrating core applications to cloud-native. According to a third-party research report, 72% of enterprises currently focus on building a transformation path for existing applications, that is, by modernizing and reconstructing the cloud-native application architecture to facilitate the development of hybrid cloud applications in a multi-cloud environment.

Fifth, multi-cloud hybrid has gradually become the mainstream of the market.

In fact, for most enterprises, "dual-mode IT" or hybrid multi-cloud architecture is actually the best architecture deployment mode to obtain the best cost and achieve quick response. The seventh annual cloud computing status survey conducted by market research firm RightScale in 2018 also showed that in the Chinese market, the proportion of enterprises deploying hybrid cloud is expected to rise from 12% now to 45% by 2021. Obviously, China's hybrid cloud market will also enter a period of rapid development in the next few years.

It is not difficult to find that today, with the rapid implementation of cloud-native technologies, the rapid iteration of new technologies, and the endless emergence of new demands, the number, complexity and data volume of enterprise business systems are increasing exponentially. It has been difficult to meet the increasing demands of system and data interaction, agile innovative applications, data sharing, and new business development, etc., and transformation and change are "imminent".

A new model of end-to-end delivery

Indeed, as a new software architecture, cloud native has been widely promoted with the rapid popularization of Kubernetes, but many users still face two major challenges in the process of implementing cloud native, which are mainly reflected in:

On the one hand, the infrastructure management and application management of most enterprises in the past were disconnected and could not provide consistency and one-stop management capabilities; on the other hand, for enterprises, with more and more business operations And applications scale to a multi-cloud hybrid state, which requires that infrastructure architecture capabilities must evolve to support innovation anywhere, while providing a seamless development, deployment, and ongoing management experience.

It is precisely in insight into this new market demand and change that Dell Technologies has launched the cloud native platform, which is an engineering solution that delivers software and hardware in one piece. Provided to enterprise customers, it is a true hybrid cloud-ready enterprise-grade cloud-native platform, and it is also an ideal choice for enterprises to digitally transform and realize their cloud-native journey. Specifically:

First of all, the software core of Dell Technologies cloud native platform is VMware Tanzu, VMware Tanzu is the latest family of cloud native products from VMware, which can help enterprises manage modern applications and deliver modern applications to any cloud environment.

At present, through Project Pacific, the functions and services of VMware Tanzu can be introduced, and enterprise users can realize the integration of containers and virtual machines, convert VMware vSphere into a Kubernetes native platform, and maximize the potential of helping customers release virtual machines. . More importantly, with Tanzu® Kubernetes® Grid and VMware® PKS, you can efficiently deploy, run and manage Kubernetes, gain productivity quickly, and provide a consistent and integrated experience for traditional and cloud-native workloads.

The value brought by this is that IT operation and maintenance and developers manage their respective work on a unified platform, so that enterprises can complete virtual machine resources and cloud-native applications under a unified platform provided by Dell Technologies. Docking and realizing unified management will finally make virtual machines and containers "integrated" perfectly, and completely connect IaaS and PaaS.

Secondly, the modern application and data base of Dell Technologies cloud native platform is VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail (VCF on VxRail for short), which is a set of industry-leading hyper-converged software built on VxRail. Hardware-integrated infrastructure solutions.

VCF?on?VxRail is tightly integrated by VMware?vSphere, vSAN, NSX and Dell?EMC?VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure, with all the functions from computing, storage, network virtualization to cloud computing management platform, while also combining public cloud The simplicity, flexibility, and affordability of , with the security, control, and performance of on-premises infrastructure.

The advantage brought by VCF?on?VxRail is that enterprises can make flexible choices according to their own business needs. Due to the consistency of the infrastructure, the existing workloads of the enterprise can be flexibly migrated between private clouds and public clouds, and between multiple public clouds without any modification; at the same time, this load migration is also bidirectional, It can go from private cloud to public cloud, or from public cloud to private cloud, or from one kind of public cloud to another kind of public cloud, providing users with the greatest convenience.

It is worth mentioning that with the release of VMware? vSphere? 7 and VMware? Cloud? Foundation? 4 (VCF? 4.0) in April this year, Dell? EMC? VxRail has also been upgraded to version 7.0 simultaneously, and its upgrade focus includes three First, VxRail? 7 and Vsphere? 7 support both traditional virtual machines and cloud-native applications; _ Second, Dell Technologies released on May 20, VCF? 4.0? Consolidated? Architecture can be deployed on 4 nodes of VxRail , effectively reducing the initial investment cost of customers;_Third, the further in-depth integration of VCF? 4.0 and VxRail? 7 also realizes the fully automated installation, configuration and upgrade from VxRail hardware to VCF? 4.0 software, which greatly reduces the IT architecture. It is difficult to operate and maintain, while supporting the development and maintenance of cloud-native applications more quickly.

As the enterprise technology strategy architect of Dell Technologies Group said: "VCF?on?VxRail is an engineering-integrated solution, both in terms of reducing the complexity and cycle of deployment, and in terms of user experience. enhance the effect.”

Finally, during the implementation of the Dell Technologies cloud native platform, Dell Technologies also provides a four-step service method including strategic discussion, planning and design, implementation and delivery, and continuous operation and maintenance to help enterprises implement a series of cloud-native solutions.

During this process, Dell Technologies first found out the basic situation of enterprise IT and the demands of stakeholders through strategic seminars held with relevant personnel of the enterprise, and finally reached the status quo of enterprise IT and the future cloud native and microservices The strategic consensus on how to develop the platform, and then through planning and design, including integrating the original multi-cloud infrastructure of the enterprise, multi-cloud service management, the evolution route of the cloud business innovation model, and providing modern application architecture planning and application migration assessment to help enterprises achieve micro Service-oriented application transformation.

Not only that, Dell Technologies also provides disaster recovery and business continuity solutions for enterprise applications and data, to meet the requirements of Class Guarantee 2.0. Through the evaluation of the current status of operation and maintenance, it proposes operation and maintenance optimization solutions, such as making enterprise implementation more satisfying cloud The DevOps system of native applications really helps enterprises to build an agile cloud-native platform calmly, and provides a steady stream of new impetus for the continuous innovation of enterprises.

It is worth mentioning that the Dell Technologies cloud native platform also provides a new "cloud consumption" model, that is, through the Dell® Technologies® Cloud platform that supports the subscription model, the hybrid cloud architecture required by the enterprise can be deployed in just 14 days. . And, with Dell? Technologies? ON? Demand (DTOD) to provide a consumption and service-based delivery model, to provide enterprises with greater choice, flexibility and predictable results.

It can be seen that the Dell Technologies cloud native platform delivers engineered solutions through the integration of software and hardware, as well as an innovative new end-to-end delivery model, which truly provides enterprises with a software and hardware layer that includes both traditional and cloud-native applications. The integrated platform that meets the needs of all aspects not only provides support for cross-multi-cloud technology integration and business upgrades, but also ensures the stability and security of various core application services, enterprise-level consistency and business compliance; at the same time, it also breaks the original hardware. The shackles between environments also connect the boundaries of private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid clouds, ensuring the digital transformation needs of enterprises and the business upgrade capabilities required for cloud-native upgrades.

Redefining the cloud-native journey

In general, Dell Technologies cloud native platform acceleration redefines the cloud native journey of enterprises, solves the pain points of users in cloud native infrastructure, and also builds a new future-oriented hybrid multi-cloud management model. Its value is far more than Now, it's more about the future.

First, relying on the powerful capabilities brought by VMware Tanzu, the Dell Technologies cloud native platform can easily help enterprises achieve cloud-native upgrades and transformations.

In particular, larger traditional users do not have to choose between virtual machines and K8s container environments, giving them the freedom to develop and operate modern applications on the Dell Technologies cloud-native platform, while continuing to leverage existing technologies, tools and skills Portfolio investments to minimize risk and cost on the road to cloud-native transformation.

Second, it allows enterprises to greatly reduce the "constraints" brought about by daily infrastructure operations. In other words, in the future, the service models of enterprises will be transformed into cloud models, and they will be deeply integrated with applications. Therefore, by enabling the operation of enterprise infrastructure through the Dell Technologies cloud native platform, enterprises can avoid the need to pay attention to the underlying infrastructure. To solve the problems, and build a new application-centric management model to promote the improvement of business value.

The third is to help enterprises achieve unified management in a hybrid multi-cloud environment. Whether an enterprise adopts a private cloud, a hybrid cloud, or a public cloud in the future, these different clouds are a way and a choice for enterprises to build and manage resources. For enterprises, through the unified user experience provided by Dell Technologies cloud native platform, and "for my use" on the basis of security and control, it will ultimately achieve resource optimization, cost reduction and efficiency increase for enterprises.

The full text concludes that cloud native is the general trend of enterprise digital transformation in the future. In this process, the only thing that enterprises need to do is how to make a safe, smooth, and even silent transformation, rather than subverting and breaking and rebuilding. From this point of view, embarking on the journey of cloud native through Dell Technologies cloud native platform should become the most ideal choice for enterprises in the future, thereby maximizing the release of new value brought by comprehensive cloud native.

Haven't seen enough? Click to watch the Dell Technology Cloud Platform Online Lecture, and follow the old driver to go to the cloud from "Rong"!

Cloud-native applications in a multi-cloud environment