The Future Of Virtualization Infrastructure

When the Broadcom company announced its acquisition of VMware on the 26th of May 2022, the virtualization industry was brazing for another great evolution. And this time, we might witness a greater blast in the evolution of virtualization infrastructures. So, at the back of this announcement and the introduction of many virtualization-enhancing features, are we getting into the fourth-age evolution of virtualization infrastructures?

The inception of data virtualization infrastructures focused on relieving the huge task accompanying big data issues of physical machines by granting end-users the opportunity to access and modify data stored across various systems through a single view. Using the ESX hypervisor machine, VMware gained huge momentum in the data management sector. However, while this infrastructure was widely accepted, it contains a series of challenges that made users desire significant improvement.

At the back of this development, the second age of virtualization infrastructures comes into play. This time, a cloud-based data virtualization infrastructure was announced, taking virtualization to a new level where users can access data on popular platforms like Azure, Amazon web, and more. Again, this transition gave users timely access to the database with minimum stress. Then, big companies and the public sector with a data center utilized OpenStack for data positioning. Thus, increasing their accessibility to end users.

The Third virtualization infrastructure age introduced the use of containers in database management on Kubernetes. This transformation aims to allow developers to present their database in independent containerized microservices. Thus, they can promote their services to test, stage, and promotion environments and become readily available to users.

Utilizing ETCD, Kubernetes stores the containerized services, which are only accessible with the help of an API. This development was a big upgrade on the seemingly cumbersome traditional VMs and Hypervisors as it provides users with the needed database at the minimum interval. While data virtualization keeps enjoying a series of upgrades, we might as well say that we are already witnessing the fourth age of evolution. This development makes users curious about what the fourth evolution has in stock and about what the future holds for data virtualization.

So, before moving on to the future of virtualization infrastructures, let’s look at what the buzzing fourth-age evolution is all about and why this development is all for the customer’s good.

The fourth age virtualization infrastructures

Like every other evolution mentioned earlier, the fourth age virtualization comes with another view on virtualization. It is also called the age of evolution and convergence on cloud-native platforms. It aimed at running virtual machines alongside Kubernetes through the help of KubeVirt. The KubeVert project allows KVM-enabled machines to be managed as pods on Kubernetes.

Despite the fame of Kubernetes in recent years, it’s surprising that many projects are still run on virtual machines. With the prolonged coexistence between these two virtualization tools, the new evolution is about having both works as a single system without a requirement for the actual application.

This innovation combines the features of both Virtual machines and Kubernetes to provide a good user experience. In addition to this benefit, KubeVirt grants Virtual machines the opportunity to utilize Kubernetes abilities, as seen with projects like Tetkton, Knative, and the like. These projects work as both Virtual machines and container-based applications.

Features of the fourth age evolution Virtualization Infrastructures

Combining virtual machines and containers into a single system, the fourth-age virtualization tools possess several amazing features that provide a great user experience. Here are the features:

• Virtualization Monitoring
• Pipelines Incorporations
• Utilization of GitOps
• Serverless Architecture
• Service Mesh

Virtualization Monitoring

This is an automated and manual technique that ensures appropriate analysis and monitoring of virtual machines and other virtualization infrastructures. The virtualization monitoring technique has three main processes that enhance its efficacy. This process includes monitoring, troubleshooting, and reporting. This feature guides against untoward occurrences, performance-related issues, unexplainable or architectural changes, and risks.

Also, it allows you to plan capacity better and manage resources adequately. Another benefit associated with virtualization monitoring is the absence of server overload, which makes data processing faster and better. Lastly, virtualization monitoring improves the general performance of virtualization infrastructures by quickly detecting impending issues. With total control of virtualization monitoring processes, a feature seen in previous ages, virtualization monitoring is a key feature in the new infrastructures with more efficiency.

Pipelines Incorporations

Pipelines are aggregates of tasks assembled in a defined order of execution through the help of pipeline definitions. With this feature, a continuous flow integration and delivery of your applications’ CI/CD workflow become organized.

OpenShift Pipeline, based on Kubernetes resources, is an example of how this feature works. In addition, it utilizes Teckton for optimum accuracy. With CI/CD pipeline automation, you can easily escape human errors and maintain a consistent process for releasing software.

Utilization of GitOps

GitOps aims at automated processing, ensuring secure collaboration among teams across repositories. This feature utilizes Git for applications and infrastructure management. GitOps allows for maximum productivity through its ability to offer continuous deployment and delivery. Also, it allows you to create a standardized workflow using a single set of tools.

Furthermore, GitOps provides more reliability through the revert and fork feature. There’s also the provision of additional visibility and fewer attacks on your server. GitOps provides easier compliance and auditing due to the ability of Git to track and log changes. Git also affords users an augmented developer experience while managing Kubernetes updates, even as a newbie to the Kubernetes services.

Serverless Architecture

Serverless computing is an as-used backend service provision method that ensures users face less stress while computing databases. In addition, it allows users to work on a budgeted amount as the user only pays for what they consume. Also, the scalability of this feature makes it possible to process many requests in less time. You can easily update, fix or add a new feature to an application with minimal effort. Moreover, the serverless architecture significantly reduces liabilities as there’s no backend infrastructure to account for.

Lastly, with serverless architecture, efficiency is hundred percent because there’s no idle capacity, as it is usually evoked only on request.

Service Mesh

A feature that uses a sidecar to control service-to-service communication over a network. Service mesh allows different parts of an application to work hand in hand. This feature is commonly seen in microservices, cloud-based applications, and containers. With the service mesh feature, you can effectively separate and manage service-to-service communication in your application. Also, detecting communication errors becomes easier because each exists on an individual infrastructure layer.

Furthermore, the service mesh offers security features such as authorization, encryption, and authentication. As a result, application development, testing, and deployment also become faster. Lastly, having a sidecar beside a cluster of containers is good for managing network services. With this and other amazing features of the fourth-age evolution virtualization, you can incorporate your VMs and containers into a cloud-native platform.

How can you incorporate cloud-native platforms into your business?

While you might be wondering how to get started with a cloud-native platform, the simplest thing to do is research the essence of using Kubernetes and containers and how you can incorporate them into your business. Furthermore, you can also look into organizations running a similar business as you and how they use the cloud-native platform. Then, after understanding how this platform works and how you can transition into the platforms, proceed to download the Red Hat OpenShift.

Install the application, and after the installation, you can download the OpenShift Migration Toolkit for Virtualization. This Toolkit is a guide for efficiently transitioning into the OpenShift Virtualization from the current virtual machines. With this development, you can incorporate your virtual machines into the current Kubernetes. Also, virtual machines will be able to offer OpenShift capabilities such as cluster management, cloud storage, cloud-native platform services, and other amazing features.

Just as the transition from the big old data to the growing virtualization era, virtual machines are fast becoming a thing of the past and should be replaced by more efficient cloud-native platforms. Moreover, with the growing demand for data sharing in the digital world, sticking with an old-time virtualization system might impact your business negatively. Therefore, you need to embrace this latest trend for maximum output.

What does the future hold for virtualization infrastructures?

Looking at how far virtualization infrastructures have changed over the years, it’s safe to say that more exciting features await the evolution of virtualization infrastructures. The digital world keeps expanding with jaw-dropping developments in all sectors. Moreover, cryptocurrency has come to challenge the legal notes for making digital transactions, with robots gradually replacing human efforts, among other innovations.

So, the wave in the evolution of virtualization infrastructures is expected to become stronger over the years. Soon enough, we might expect the innovation of the fifth-age virtualization infrastructures.