Cloud Technology Myths. Part 2: Let's talk about the quality of services
Last week, we prepared a material for you, which dispelled some of the most common myths concerning the activities of a cloud provider. Today we will continue to wade through a veil of delusions, using our own experience of developing a virtual infrastructure provider 1cloud.ru .
/ photo Ted Eytan CC
According to Gartner, a popular myth about cloud computing is its inapplicability for business-critical applications. But this is absolutely not the case, which is confirmed by recent trends, when companies from the first days use the cloud to support their business.
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A critical business application can be installed on a “large” server with 16 processors and several terabytes of memory, which is associated not so much with the need for such performance as with increasing the level of machine reliability. In servers of this class there are much more duplicate components that prevent all sorts of hardware failures. Duplication also occurs at higher levels.
For example, all nodes of the 1cloud infrastructure are duplicated, which greatly reduces the risk of downtime, and the equipment used has high availability, security and performance (for more information about the hardware, see the link ).
1cloud virtual servers are located on NetApp FAS6240 / FAS8040 disk arrays with Intel chipsets using high-performance memory and NVRAM, which guarantees a high level of availability (99.999%). Each controller has a service processor isolated from the main controller, which will continue to work even if the main part of the board fails. With regard to the organization of communication channels, there is used a reservation with the separation of different providers and physical routes.
If you need an example of a “large” and important application in the cloud, then take a look at SAP HANA. SAP has long been a leading global supplier of enterprise management systems. The HANA product they are developing is a high-performance DBMS for demanding applications with unusual data placement. All user database information is stored in the server’s memory and is available for a request with minimal overhead.
Oracle has a similar position regarding virtual systems with virtualization scenarios of one of the most popular databases for high-load systems - the Oracle Database. And this is not all examples.
The myth that Russian hosters are worse than foreign ones is partly due to the misconception about the use of outdated equipment by providers, which no one serves. The 1cloud equipment is located in SDN data centers (St. Petersburg) and Dataspace (Moscow), which have been certified by Tier III. These certificates confirm the lowest possible risk of data center malfunctions due to the failure of hardware and the human factor.
Moreover, our activity is aimed at satisfying a wide range of requirements and customer requirements for IT infrastructure. This implies an active position in dealing with complaints. It doesn’t matter when and in what way you contact us for information - you will always get a competent, prompt and polite response to the point (we described the principles of our support service in a previous post ).
Since 2014, 1cloud has become a significant player in the virtualization market in Russia. In 2015, the company's turnover grew 10 times, and the service gained popularity. This was made possible thanks to the principle that we follow from the very beginning of the company's existence: the availability of services for both IT specialists and users with a minimum level of specialized knowledge and experience.
Automation played an important role in this. It allows you to quickly and efficiently process user requests, manage virtual machines and offer a level of service that some foreign colleagues are not able to provide.
At first, 1cloud offered only one service - rental of VPS / VDS servers . But soon the range of services expanded: a private cloud appeared, DNS hosting and other services. But we are not going to stop at what we have achieved, so we continue to expand the capabilities of the service.
Protecting the cloud environment is not much different from protecting a traditional data center - the approaches are the same. Sometimes even it turns out to use the already familiar security tools. At the same time, the provider does its best to ensure data integrity and high availability:
Clouds allow you to implement a level of privacy similar to the local data center. If you add to this a powerful infrastructure of a professional data center provider, a security system and the ability to comply with corporate policies, then you will have a good place to store important information.
If the data is for some reason damaged or lost, then in this case the providers offer a backup service. The client can quickly restore data and settings in case of unforeseen problems. The backup function is also provided by the 1cloud company: the client independently configures all the options using the configurator in the control panel.
Backup is done automatically once a day. Copies are retained for the entire duration chosen by the user: 7, 14, 21 or 28 days. For example, if you connected a backup with a storage depth of 7 days, then you have the option to “roll back” the server to the state of any of the 7 copies created.
Copying is performed to a remote disk array, which allows access to data for recovery even if the server’s file system is completely unavailable, including as a result of irreversible user actions. Moreover, from the backup, you can restore both the server itself, from which it was created, and another host located in the 1cloud infrastructure.
This concludes the second part of the analysis of myths about cloud technologies. In the subsequent post we will talk about where exactly the hardware of the provider is located, and also highlight the cost of services. Subscribe to our blog , not to miss, friends.
PS A few materials about the development of our IaaS-provider:
/ photo Ted Eytan CC
Myth number 1: Clouds are not suitable for business critical applications
According to Gartner, a popular myth about cloud computing is its inapplicability for business-critical applications. But this is absolutely not the case, which is confirmed by recent trends, when companies from the first days use the cloud to support their business.
')
A critical business application can be installed on a “large” server with 16 processors and several terabytes of memory, which is associated not so much with the need for such performance as with increasing the level of machine reliability. In servers of this class there are much more duplicate components that prevent all sorts of hardware failures. Duplication also occurs at higher levels.
For example, all nodes of the 1cloud infrastructure are duplicated, which greatly reduces the risk of downtime, and the equipment used has high availability, security and performance (for more information about the hardware, see the link ).
1cloud virtual servers are located on NetApp FAS6240 / FAS8040 disk arrays with Intel chipsets using high-performance memory and NVRAM, which guarantees a high level of availability (99.999%). Each controller has a service processor isolated from the main controller, which will continue to work even if the main part of the board fails. With regard to the organization of communication channels, there is used a reservation with the separation of different providers and physical routes.
If you need an example of a “large” and important application in the cloud, then take a look at SAP HANA. SAP has long been a leading global supplier of enterprise management systems. The HANA product they are developing is a high-performance DBMS for demanding applications with unusual data placement. All user database information is stored in the server’s memory and is available for a request with minimal overhead.
Oracle has a similar position regarding virtual systems with virtualization scenarios of one of the most popular databases for high-load systems - the Oracle Database. And this is not all examples.
Myth number 2: Russian hosters worse than foreign
The myth that Russian hosters are worse than foreign ones is partly due to the misconception about the use of outdated equipment by providers, which no one serves. The 1cloud equipment is located in SDN data centers (St. Petersburg) and Dataspace (Moscow), which have been certified by Tier III. These certificates confirm the lowest possible risk of data center malfunctions due to the failure of hardware and the human factor.
Moreover, our activity is aimed at satisfying a wide range of requirements and customer requirements for IT infrastructure. This implies an active position in dealing with complaints. It doesn’t matter when and in what way you contact us for information - you will always get a competent, prompt and polite response to the point (we described the principles of our support service in a previous post ).
Since 2014, 1cloud has become a significant player in the virtualization market in Russia. In 2015, the company's turnover grew 10 times, and the service gained popularity. This was made possible thanks to the principle that we follow from the very beginning of the company's existence: the availability of services for both IT specialists and users with a minimum level of specialized knowledge and experience.
Automation played an important role in this. It allows you to quickly and efficiently process user requests, manage virtual machines and offer a level of service that some foreign colleagues are not able to provide.
At first, 1cloud offered only one service - rental of VPS / VDS servers . But soon the range of services expanded: a private cloud appeared, DNS hosting and other services. But we are not going to stop at what we have achieved, so we continue to expand the capabilities of the service.
Myth number 3: My data in the cloud is badly protected
Protecting the cloud environment is not much different from protecting a traditional data center - the approaches are the same. Sometimes even it turns out to use the already familiar security tools. At the same time, the provider does its best to ensure data integrity and high availability:
- Network access to client virtual servers is usually restricted from outside by firewalls with protection against various attacks, including DDoS attacks;
- Client virtual environment is isolated at the level of management software. In other words, the policy of differentiation of access rights for data center employees and specialists of the customer;
- As for the information itself on the disks, it can be encrypted both at the provider level (virtual disks storage) and at the client level (logical disks, user folders).
Clouds allow you to implement a level of privacy similar to the local data center. If you add to this a powerful infrastructure of a professional data center provider, a security system and the ability to comply with corporate policies, then you will have a good place to store important information.
If the data is for some reason damaged or lost, then in this case the providers offer a backup service. The client can quickly restore data and settings in case of unforeseen problems. The backup function is also provided by the 1cloud company: the client independently configures all the options using the configurator in the control panel.
Backup is done automatically once a day. Copies are retained for the entire duration chosen by the user: 7, 14, 21 or 28 days. For example, if you connected a backup with a storage depth of 7 days, then you have the option to “roll back” the server to the state of any of the 7 copies created.
Copying is performed to a remote disk array, which allows access to data for recovery even if the server’s file system is completely unavailable, including as a result of irreversible user actions. Moreover, from the backup, you can restore both the server itself, from which it was created, and another host located in the 1cloud infrastructure.
This concludes the second part of the analysis of myths about cloud technologies. In the subsequent post we will talk about where exactly the hardware of the provider is located, and also highlight the cost of services. Subscribe to our blog , not to miss, friends.
PS A few materials about the development of our IaaS-provider:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/308276/
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