Why Use a Cloud Management Platform?
Managing your cloud starts with selecting the right platform. There are a range of solutions available from cloud management platform vendors, including those delivered as Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). These platforms give you a consolidated dashboard from which you can see and manage all your workloads and cloud resources.
A cloud management platform helps your IT organization manage cloud services, resource optimization, server virtualization, and compliance. Many of them are based on open source cloud software, helping you avoid vendor lock-in.
Many cloud management platforms are based on open source cloud software, helping you avoid vendor lock-in.
OpenStack* Cloud Platform
OpenStack* is an excellent cloud platform for businesses looking for open source on Intel® architecture. It allows IT teams to orchestrate dynamic, pooled compute, networking, and storage resources. This means private clouds can effectively use on-premises equipment with higher-than-average utilization due to the underlying virtualization.
Intel was an early contributor to OpenStack*, with contributions that were instrumental in enhancing OpenStack's performance, availability, and security. Today, Intel is an OpenStack* Foundation Platinum Member and continues to expose APIs so that OpenStack* solutions can provision our latest platform technologies, like Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) and Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512).
In addition, Intel works with leading vendors like SUSE and Red Hat to optimize their solutions for OpenStack* on Intel platforms.
SUSE OpenStack Cloud*
SUSE OpenStack Cloud* delivers an open source private cloud solution that helps IT organizations meet the increasing demand for cloud services without vendor lock-in. Built on an Intel®-based platform of high performance computing (HPC) and storage, SUSE OpenStack Cloud* is designed for flexibility, operational efficiency, and simplified deployment. It includes a broad range of capabilities and integration opportunities. With an OpenStack* private cloud, IT organizations can help reduce operational costs while increasing agility.
Open Source Software
A SUSE OpenStack* private cloud is designed to help eliminate vendor lock-in, provide on-demand storage and computing, and eliminate workload bottlenecks. A broad community of open source developers increases the range of available solutions and services and promotes interoperability. As a result, businesses can capture greater returns on their in-house IT resources.
Improved Operational Efficiency
SUSE OpenStack Cloud* helps increase networking flexibility, improve operational efficiency, and simplify private cloud infrastructure management. SUSE's Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities help IT organizations rapidly deliver business solutions, including integration with enterprise storage and data center solutions.
Flexible, Scalable Intel® Architecture
With OpenStack* infrastructure built on Intel® technology, SUSE OpenStack Cloud* delivers flexibility, operational efficiency, scalable storage, and simplified deployment. Intel's security-focused, high-performance technologies help provide the foundation for your cloud services, so that IT organizations can focus on improving service levels and meeting business needs while reducing operational costs. Cloud administrators get a single view into cloud operations, improving the speed of problem resolution.
To learn more about the competitive advantages of this OpenStack* platform, see our SUSE OpenStack Cloud* solution brief.
Red Hat* OpenStack* Platform
For over 25 years, Intel and Red Hat have been committed to accelerating digital transformation. The Red Hat OpenStack platform offers an integrated solution to create and manage an infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud with reliability and security. It uses available hardware to provide computing, storage, and networking and employs a set of services working together to control these resources. The cloud can be managed through a web-based interface or an extensive API.
Unified Management
The Red Hat OpenStack platform includes tools to track costs, manage resources, and ensure compliance.
Dashboard
Users can perform several tasks from the dashboard, like creating and launching new instances (virtual machines), accessing a global view of resources, and managing the virtual network, virtual storage, and security rules.
Platform Director
The platform includes a director to install and manage the complete OpenStack* cloud. After the director is set up and configured, it deploys the OpenStack* infrastructure—controller, compute, and storage nodes—according to the user's specifications. To learn more, see our reference architecture for deploying the Red Hat OpenStack platform on Intel® architecture.
Red Hat* OpenShift* Platform
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is one of the leading security-enabled, enterprise-grade container application platforms available. In addition to providing advanced application management, this platform helps accelerate and automate development and deployment. By taking full advantage of cloud containers without having to completely rearchitect applications, development, and IT operations teams gain the agility to develop more applications and major features per year.
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is based on an industry-standard Docker* runtime environment and Kubernetes* orchestrator. It provides Container as a Service (CaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) workflows for developers and existing applications.
Open Source Ecosystem
To help enterprises start taking advantage of open source container applications, Intel and Red Hat codeveloped a set of optimized solutions. Intel® Select Solutions for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform were designed to optimize price and performance while significantly reducing infrastructure evaluation time. Components are workload optimized and verified to perform.
Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors
Intel® Select Solutions for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform combine the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor platform, Intel® SSD technology, and Intel® Ethernet Network Adapters with the latest Red Hat* Enterprise Linux* operating system to help enterprises quickly harness a reliable, comprehensive solution. Intel works with Red Hat to expose our latest platform technologies, including Intel® Deep Learning Boost (Intel® DL Boost) and Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (Intel® AVX-512) within OpenShift, so that developers can more easily take advantage of them.
Advanced Security and Reliability
Powered by Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, Intel® Select Solutions for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform deliver advanced security features with technologies designed to keep data secure. They also have high uptime with advanced reliability, availability, and serviceability features that facilitate recovery, which can reduce the frequency and cost of server downtime while protecting the integrity of mission-critical workloads.
Discover more of the benefits by exploring Intel® Select Solutions for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
VMware Cloud Foundation*
VMware Cloud Foundation* is an integrated software stack that enterprises can deploy on premises as a private cloud or within public cloud services. This stack bundles compute virtualization with VMware vSphere*, storage virtualization with VMware vSAN*, network virtualization with VMware NSX*, and cloud management and monitoring with VMware vRealize Suite*. All together, these VMware cloud management solutions give you a powerful, secure foundation for your Intel® Hybrid Cloud. Additional tools and services are available for multicloud management.
Intel and VMware have a strong history of working together to enable Intel platform optimizations into all products in the VMware Cloud Foundation stack. These result in capabilities like live database migration between private and public cloud infrastructure and unique configurations for specific use cases. In particular, Intel® technologies as part of the VMware vSphere* cloud virtualization platform help IT teams support new workloads while managing the complexity of their infrastructure.
High Performance on Intel® Xeon® Platforms
When running on Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, VMware vSphere* provides an ideal IT infrastructure for hosting a full range of enterprise applications. With the combination of scalable performance, high availability, and security, you can enhance service levels, accelerate time to market, and deliver higher value at lower total cost.
Cloud Security Management
VMware vSphere* integrates advanced security capabilities into the hypervisor. These cloud-based security capabilities are powered by machine learning and provide greater visibility, protection, and response times for security events.
Support for Intel® Optane™ Technology
Memory and storage solutions featuring Intel® Optane™ technology deliver faster end-to-end performance with greater data mobility and portability. VMware vSphere* natively supports Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory. This allows users to run multiple workloads on a single physical machine, perform live migration of virtual machines across servers with different types of persistent memory, and apply the benefits of persistent memory to unmodified legacy workloads. Intel® Optane™ DC Solid State Drives breakthrough performance bottlenecks by delivering extremely high throughput at low queue depths, ideal for big data workloads.
As cloud technologies evolve, Intel and VMware will continue working together to advance solutions in areas like 5G and IoT. To find a processor series that works with vSphere, explore the VMware CPU compatibility tool.
Microsoft Azure Stack*
Microsoft Azure Stack is an extension of Azure that combines the flexibility of cloud computing with the performance and control of on-premises environments. Azure Stack is the only true Azure-consistent hybrid cloud management software, allowing you to offer Azure services on premises while also keeping you in charge of managing every aspect of data security and storage.
In addition, Microsoft Azure offers Azure Stack HCI* solutions that let you run virtual machines on premises with hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). It provides similar functionality as with Azure Stack, but with an emphasis on data center consolidation.
Consistent Hybrid Application Development
Maximize developer productivity by empowering them to build and deploy applications the same way, whether they run on Azure or Azure Stack—a write-once, deploy-anywhere approach. With this level of consistency, you can implement a DevOps approach across your hybrid cloud environment.
Developers can build applications using a consistent, open set of Azure services that meet business, technical, and regulatory requirements. This environment is ideal whether developing machine learning applications or creating disaster recovery systems.
Azure Services Available on Premises
Powered by Intel® technologies, Azure Stack allows you to adopt hybrid cloud computing on your terms while benefiting from public cloud services. Meet both your business and technical requirements with the flexibility to choose the right combination of cloud computing services and deployment models for your applications.
Intel-Powered Azure Stack
Intel® Xeon® processors and Intel® Solid State Drives provide the high performance compute and storage inside Azure Stack. This platform comes with security technologies such as Intel® AES New Instructions (Intel® AES-NI) to encrypt data in motion and at rest and Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX) for hardware-based isolation and memory encryption. Businesses looking to extend workloads to the cloud can rest easy knowing Inte's reliable performance extends with them—regardless of whether they're in Azure or Azure Stack.
With Azure cloud management, you get Azure services the way you want them. Microsoft and Intel's longstanding commitment to advancing the hybrid cloud makes Azure Stack an excellent cloud computing software to future-proof your business. To get started, developers can prototype applications using the Azure Stack Development Kit, a free single-server deployment option.
Google Cloud's Anthos*
Anthos is an open platform that lets enterprises build or modernize applications and run them anywhere. Anthos integrates the Google Kubernetes Engine, a managed service from Google that provides a production-ready environment for containerized applications.
Enterprises can run Anthos on prem and in cloud environments, enabling a consistent management system throughout. This common environment enhances collaboration among developers and accelerates time to market for new applications.
With Intel® Select Solutions for Google Cloud's Anthos, you can easily deploy and manage applications using either virtual machines or Kubernetes containers across your hybrid cloud. These pretested, validated solutions make use of your existing VMware vSphere* and VMware vSAN* environment.
Flexible Deployment and Management
Anthos gives you unified cloud resource management and application portability across on-premises infrastructure and public cloud service providers, including Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Microsoft Azure*. You can deploy applications with containers, microservices architecture, and a service mesh delivered by Google Cloud and built on Intel® architecture.
Scalability from Enterprise to Cloud
Anthos helps you securely and reliably scale workloads from on-premises infrastructure to the cloud without the need for reconfiguration, application changes, or testing.
With Intel® Select Solutions for Anthos, your business can fast-track the deployment of your hybrid cloud with the optimized performance and memory capacity hyperconverged infrastructures need, without the time usually required to research and tune the stack.
AWS Outposts*
AWS Outposts* extends native AWS services to your data center. This gives you an on-premise cloud that uses the same APIs and tools as in your AWS public cloud. These connected environments create a more consistent experience across your hybrid cloud.
AWS Outposts* offers fully managed infrastructure with support for local instance storage and access to the latest AWS capabilities. It is available in two options.
VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts*
VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts* lets your IT team use the same VMware control plane and APIs that you already use to run your on-premise infrastructure.
AWS Native Variant of AWS Outposts*
With the AWS native variant, your IT team can use the same APIs and control plane that you're already familiar with in running AWS cloud services, but on premises.
AWS Outposts* keeps you up to date with the latest generation of technologies from Intel, such as the platform capabilities that come with high-performance Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. This means you can take advantage of the most-optimized software and hardware configurations without any extra work from your IT team.