How Cloud Datacenters Differ from Traditional Datacenters
The main component of any cloud datacenter is its ability to scale up and down quickly. In the old days, a company would purchase collocated space and managed services inside of a datacenter. They would ship the server and have someone physically install their bare metal server into a rack. In a cloud data center, that process simply doesn’t happen. You may encounter datacenters that still cater to both methods but a true cloud-only datacenter does not encourage clients to bring in their own bare metal hardware. Why would a client want to do that anyway?
Many companies have moved their infrastructure off-site and into cloud datacenters. Popular service providers such as AWSrealize that they need to continuously build out their infrastructure in order to support the ever expanding needs of consumers. Cloud service providers such as AWS have mastered the art of automation. When new hardware needs to be built out, the teams inside the datacenter typically install the hardware and go back to their workstations and kick off a zero touch install.
This allows AWS datacenter engineers to completely stage a new piece of infrastructure equipment without having to plug away at a terminal screen. Cookbooks are used to script the entire install process and once the servers are up and ready to go, they are provisioned and added into the available pool of resources based upon the intended use of the site administrator. This allows servers to be spun up immediately and be deployed into the cloud for use.
On Amazon’s side, their move towards automating everything is merely a business decision. When more services become automated, the less overhead is needed. Therefore the savings are passed down to the customers. When services become automated, it allows users to build out their own infrastructure in hours when the same process would take weeks if you were using physical equipment in an onsite datacenter.
One of the main drivers behind cloud adaptation is the fact that the bare metal hardware vendors largely stay irrelevant throughout the whole process. This has allowed administrators the ability to focus strictly on performance metrics. Those who host in a cloud datacenter do not have to rely on supporting different types of hardware on site. In a traditional datacenter where your hardware is collocated, administrators and engineers had to deal with the specific nuances of hosting certain software and applications on certain bare metal machines. This overt simplification of the IT process as a whole is the main reason why cloud datacenters have become so popular in recent years.
Comments
Post a Comment