Cloud Computing, Data Centers and IoT, as we know today, are the center of the global digital economy. In whichever way they are used and accessed, we can see a standard, centralized architecture, which means they are centralized in terms of location, but disparate in terms of hardware and software used at that central location. For example, you may have your cloud computing infrastructure located at a centralized data center. This cloud computing infrastructure is made of up disparate hardware, namely servers, redundant switches & routers, storage [SAN/NAS] and load balancers etc., and run the standard virtualization software like OpenStack, VMware, Hyper-V and so on. This is the standard architecture accepted and used globally in building private and public cloud computing infrastructure today.
Individuals and organizations who deploy, manage, operate and support this type of cloud infrastructure are aware of the numerous difficulties and complexities involved. Apart from these difficulties, the frequent increase in license costs of the software deployed on the cloud computing infrastructure is a major concern globally.
So, in a sense, this standard and expensive cloud computing architecture and business model has locked itself into a quicksand with no easy exit, unless a new genre in technology addresses the following concerns:
- increasing complexity of the deployed base
- poor scalability
- inefficient security
- cumbersome manageability
- high maintenance costs
- evident vendor lock-ins with frequently increasing license costs
- maintaining of multi-tiered separate teams/organizations to operate and support
- time-consuming fixes to problems
- coordination with multiple vendors
The new genre in technology must have software and hardware components that are stable, trusted and used extensively globally to have proven their efficiency in their respective parts. So now you have a situation where you need something drastically new, yet that same “new” has to be trusted, stable and proven at the same time. This is a situation which is difficult-to-almost impossible to match.
In addition, the learning curve of adapting this new genre should be minimal, its deployment fast and the ability to transition should have a minimal turn-around time with little or no project management. The ability to scale and reliably manage the infrastructure is also a pivotal point. The modern-day security breaches, as experienced, are also a high concern.
The most important concern is the cost factor. In other words, having a lower cost should not mean having to compromise with fewer features with higher complexity and higher operating and managing costs. It should far transcend the idea of “you get what you pay for”, and bring about a unique total value proposition that satiates the demand of small and medium businesses, enterprise and the government sectors all at once. These points are difficult to satiate in the real-world, and so far we may not have been acquainted with a suitable product or solution, never mind a “genre”.
There is one possible product, technology and solution that may befit the new genre in technology for decentralized cloud computing, data center and IoT.
The virtual system on chip [vSoC], a software product and technology developed at SynchroKnot addresses some of the contradictions and paradoxes mentioned above. While being developed and used internally for 8+ years, the all-new vSoC is geared for its formal release with its extensive features. With the SynchroKnot vSoC software you can have a decentralized cloud, IoT and data center in minutes.
The vSoC can be considered as a complete alternative to centralized cloud infrastructure, hardware and software. So for example, if you currently use any of the three disparate components of the centralized cloud infrastructure mentioned below, then it is very simple to use vSoC instead.
- Physical servers to run server and desktop virtualization software, like OpenStack, VMware, Hyper-V, RHEV, Xen, etc.
- Redundant physical and virtual routers and switches from Cisco, Juniper, etc.
- Physical and virtual SAN/NAS, distributed file and block storage [Netapp, Dell, Ceph, Gluster, etc.]
So how would it be possible to transition from three disparate hardware and software infrastructures spanning different market segments onto a single, all-inclusive and all-exclusive virtual system on chip product which does everything?
The short answer is to install vSoC in less than a minute onto a SynchroKnot-certified system on chip [SoC] and connect them to each other directly. It is as simple as that, as the SynchroKnot software does everything for you.
Elaborating a bit, the SynchroKnot-certified SoCs are inexpensive and readily available, and come in a very small form factor of only 4×4 inches, with a very high tolerance for heat and vibration. They have upto 16 threads running at ~4.2 GHz, with newer models expected to be released in the near future.
So you would purchase these SoCs from the SynchroKnot-authorized manufacturer directly, stack them up with spacers and pillars, and install SynchroKnot vSoC on the supported Debian or Debian-variant of the Linux operating system. Since the size is so small, it can be kept literally anywhere, plus you can connect locally or globally-dispersed vSoC+SoCs via standard VPN. You can manage all of the vSoCs from any of the vSoCs [locally/globally] if desired, and get a single universal view as if they were being managed from the same local location.
It is possible to connect the vSoCs to each other without using redundant physical and virtual switches and routers because the vSoC comes with an actual, fully-automatic [no configuration needed], high-performance switch, which is self-healing and mission-critical, with the ability of providing multi-path [layer 2] redundancy.
In the rapidly slowing global economy, keeping pace with business goals is getting increasingly challenging. With very few options available in the existing cloud computing, data center and IoT spheres, conjuring a positive trend aimed at rejuvenating the micro- and macro-economic dynamics of your organization is difficult.
The new genre of Decentralized Cloud Computing, Data Center and IoT could be the realistic and practical solution available right now.
By: Mehul Sharma
The author is the owner of SynchroKnot and Creator of vSoC.
