There are times when the best option is to support both approaches. For instance, when two companies using different approaches merge. A truly modern hyperconverged infrastructure is the only way to enable containers and VMs simultaneously. We will discuss how this is feasible.
Not long ago, the growth of virtual machines (VMs) completely changed how organizations addressed evolving business needs. VMs provided enterprises and service providers with a creative new way to add flexibility to infrastructure and introduce the entire concept of IT as a service. Containers have since joined the fray, in particular adding convenience as organizations have heavily focused on enhancing the development process, while realizing new levels of performance and efficiency over traditional VMs.
Understandably, containers and VMs have their pros and cons, with each excelling in different areas depending upon organizational needs. For instance, when delivering next-generation cloud native apps and microservices, the convenience associated with containers gives them a noticeable edge. Containers are easier to establish and share than their VM counterparts.
Yet, when an organization has an application that needs to use a custom kernel module that isn’ t in the host kernel, or is simply designed for a different OS (like Windows) , utilizing a Linux container simply won’ t work. In this case, leveraging a VM helps avoid any OS or application compatibility issues.
Simply put, there are times when the best option is to support both approaches. For instance, a merger of two companies that use different approaches. Of course, a truly modern hyperconverged infrastructure is the only way to enable containers and VMs simultaneously.
In this purely software-based environment, a single solution enables the business to consolidate workloads and infrastructure by integrating VMs, containers and storage on a single stack. Plus, being purely software based, the use of commodity, off-the-shelf hardware or dedicated servers from the cloud is a reality.
This software only approach to hyperconverged infrastructure provides the flexibility to start using containers for production workloads, including future cloud native apps and microservices, while leveraging VMs where still needed – all with integrated software defined storage used as a single distributed pool with high availability and redundancy.
Click here to learn more about how a modern hyperconverged infrastructure can empower your organization to simultaneously enjoy the benefits both compute environments.
