Empowering application development is one of the foundational requirements of IT. Today, IT teams are being put to the test because of a fundamental, evolutionary shift in how applications are developed, deployed and modernized.
That shift is being driven by the embrace of cloud-native architectures enabled by containerized workloads orchestrated by Kubernetes. However, the growth of containers doesn’t obviate or mitigate the need for IT teams to also support the virtual machine (VM) architectures that are the foundation for most existing legacy applications.
Rather, the challenge is to support VM- and container-based application development and modernization. The two development models are inexorably linked: New cloud-native apps have interdependencies with legacy apps, and legacy apps need to be modernized with cloud-native features such as mobile front ends, elastic scalability and self-service provisioning.
Until relatively recently, the model for development and modernization typically consisted of two different architectures, one for containers and one for VMs. This created problems for IT: too much complexity; too many silos; an inability to create and enforce consistent policies for areas such as security, governance and compliance; and the growth of uncontrolled shadow IT environments, to name just a few.
A single platform
The logical and necessary model is to use a single cloud-based platform that supports VM and container development side by side, as equal development models.
This side-by-side aspect is critical because it gives developers maximum flexibility in choosing the technology that best fits the needs of the application. It also recognizes the reality that no app is an island and developers often have to write code to address interdependencies with other applications.
The ability to seamlessly go back and forth between VMs and containers means developers can work faster, better and safer, accelerating speed to market for both new application development as well as modernization of existing applications.
For IT, a single platform reduces complexity, maximizes automation and provides a consistent infrastructure and consistent operations across all environments, from the data center to the edge to multiple public clouds.
For IT teams looking to support cloud modernization with VMs and containers, the Dell Technologies Cloud is a fast, safe, simple and familiar path to the future.
Built on VMware Cloud Foundation and Dell VxRail, the Dell Technologies Cloud enables IT to use consistent, familiar tools for both containers and VMs, with maximum automation and consumption-based as-a-service deployment options.
Key benefits include:
- Rapid deployment of standard upstream Kubernetes.
- Ability to host virtualized and containerized applications within the same infrastructure.
- Ability to extend your team’s existing skill set to perform Kubernetes administration.
- Streamlined IT operations though automated lifecycle management for private cloud infrastructure.
- Consistent infrastructure and operations across public and private cloud.
Conclusion
If you are in IT and responsible for supporting application modernization, you must support containerized development. With Dell Technologies Cloud, the path to supporting both VM and container architectures in the same platform is fast, simple and straightforward, maximizing flexibility and minimizing risk. To find out more, please visit Dell Technologies.
