Introduction
Dedicated servers are no longer sustainable as they age due to their lack of scalability, agility and high operating costs. Unlike cloud servers, which allow resources to be dynamically provisioned in tandem with real-time demands, on premise servers rely on pre-allocated resources. Given the challenges involved with resource planning, IT managers inevitably end up over- or under-allocating computing resources such as bandwidth, CPU and RAM.
Business Challenge: B2B cloud-migration is a complex process with operational and security risks
Although cloud-migration appears to be the way forward for most enterprises, the journey to the clouds isn’t always linear. Since legacy systems are tightly-coupled architecture with interdependent components that handle business-critical legacy file format and applications, they cannot be simply lifted and shifted. Similarly, iterative and limited migration strategies are just as unfeasible due to the extended downtime involved for the former, and the technical risks the latter brings. That leaves us with the vertical and horizontal migration strategies. Of the two, the horizontal migration strategy is most commonly employed by B2C and ecommerce businesses as the majority of their apps and databases are typically designed to scale outwards.
However, this approach is not ideal for B2B enterprises since most still operate legacy systems, whose tightly coupled DNA contrasts with the loosely coupled framework of horizontal architectures.
Another alternative would be a vertical architecture. Unlike horizontal architectures, which scale by increasing the number of servers to cope with higher workloads, vertical architectures scale by adding more CPUs and RAM to an existing server. That said, vertical architectures can be scaled with no change to the code and are generally easier to manage as data is traditionally stored in one robust server unlike its horizontal counterparts, which distributes data across a fleet of smaller-scale, virtual machines.
While there are numerous cloud service providers, most only offer a horizontal architecture. To address the gap in cloud service offerings catered to B2B enterprises, ESDS brought together a team of highly experienced engineers to develop a highly agile and scalable cloud-based architecture with auto-scaling technology.
The Solution
The list of services provided to the Embassy group are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Operating System and Database Management, Backup Services, network connectivity, tremendous 24/7 support from ESDS’ team, replication configuration management, complete monitoring, robust Security and optimum cost effectiveness in terms of reducing OPEX.
Optimizing hardware performance with Intel inside
After evaluating an array of scaling methodologies and their implications, it became clear to ESDS that the most ideal solution would be an integrated cloud infrastructure with horizontal and vertical scaling functionality, built-in data security and reduced latency. By leveraging on Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors, ESDS was able to achieve best-in-class performance, security, agility and efficiency on eNlight Cloud - the first-of-its-kind, auto scalable, managed cloud solution with vertical and horizontal scaling functionality. On top of that, these processors also helped improve data security, resource utilization and system uptime on eNlight Cloud, while retaining workload isolation. Through the deployment of the new Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8170 Processors, which feature 26 cores and a 2.1 GHz clock speed, eNlight Cloud was able to achieve a huge boost with the overall performance and generate up to 176 virtual machines per server.
A faster and safer B2B cloud migration strategy With eNlight Cloud
B2B enterprises can accelerate their journey to the clouds without incurring downtime or operational risks as eNlight Cloud is built with a live migration feature that allow servers to be migrated without downtime. In addition to that, eNlight Cloud can also efficiently and securely replicate the original execution requirements of enterprises’ legacy applications without disrupting operations or requiring any modification or redesign of the application programming interface (API).
From a cost perspective, eNlight Cloud delivers massive savings through the complete eradication of capital investments and substantially lowered operating costs. Unlike physical servers, which require hefty upfront investments, eNlight Cloud requires no sunken costs since its servers are hosted on the cloud. In addition to that, it also operates on a metered, pay-per-consume billing model that charges enterprises only for utilized resources – so, enterprises will no longer have to incur unnecessary costs from over-allocation of resources.
Conclusion
Migrating legacy servers and applications is a complex process that varies from company to company, depending on their existing IT infrastructure and licensing agreements. Depending on their respective business goals and operating costs, migrating to the cloud may or may not be ideal. For some, upgrading their existing physical server seem more viable to avoid the technical challenges altogether but this is a myopic solution as business demands will eventually outgrow the server’s available resources. With eNlight Cloud, B2B enterprises can eliminate the operational and security risks with cloud-migration and accelerate their cloud migration journey as eNlight Cloud is not only designed to integrate with legacy systems and applications but also able to perform a live server migration. With eNlight Cloud, enterprises can leverage on a highly agile, flexible and cost-effective cloud solution to achieve greater agility, manageability and flexibility while enjoying huge savings on their IT expenditure in the long run.
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