Technological developments in the age of Industry 4.0 are accelerating some business sectors at a head-spinning pace. Innovation is fueling the drive for greater profitability. One way that tech managers are handling these changes is through the use of microservices, enabled by containers. And as usual, Cisco is taking advantage of the latest technologies.

From Cost Center to Profit Center

In this new world, IT departments are being asked to evolve from cost centers to profit centers. However, virtualization and cloud computing are not enough. New services developed in the traditional way often take too long to adapt to existing infrastructures.

Because of such short life cycles, IT professionals need the tools to implement these technologies almost immediately. Often one company may have many cloud providers in a multicloud environment. Containers give IT managers the control they were used to in the data center.

Microservices and Containers

But what if you could break up these entangled IT resources into smaller pieces, then make them work independently on any existing platform? Developers find this new combination of Microservices and containers offers much greater flexibility and scalability. Containers offer significant advantages over mere virtualization. Containers supercharge today's state-of-the-art hyperconverged platforms and they are cost-effective

A remaining challenge is to get companies to use containers. The adoption of a new technology often depends how easy it is to deploy. One of the early players in container technology is Kubernetes. But getting Kubernetes up and running can be a major task. You can do it the hard way using this tutorial from Kelsey Hightower. Or you can take the easy route, using the Google Container Engine (GKE).

Cisco Container Platform

Another easy-to-use solution is the Cisco Container Platform (CCP). Cisco's takes advantage of the company's robust hardware platforms and software orchestration capabilities. CCP uses reliable Cisco equipment that enable users to deploy Kubernetes, with options for adding cloud security, audit tools, and connectivity to hybrid clouds. Notice the growing popularity of the Kubernetes platform in the graph below:

Use Cases

Space does not permit the inclusion of all the potential use cases of Cisco Container Platform and its accompanying software solution. Here are just a few examples we would like to highlight:

#1: Kubernetes in your Data Center

For agility and scale, nothing beats native Kubernetes. Developers can easily deploy and run container applications without all the puzzle pieces required in traditional deployments. This means a new app can be up and running in minutes rather than days or weeks. Just create one or more Kubernetes clusters in Cisco Container Platform using the graphical user interface. If more capacity is needed for special purposes, simply add new nodes. CCP supports app lifecycle management with Kubernetes clusters and allows for continuous monitoring and logging.

#2: Multi-tier App Deployment Using Jenkins on Kubernetes

Developers are often frustrated because of the time it takes to get their applications into production using traditional methods. But these days it's critical to get releases out fast. Using open-source solutions, Cisco Container Platform is able to create the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline that developers are looking for. CCP takes advantage of Jenkins, an open-source automation server that runs on a Kubernetes engine.

BayInfotech (BIT) works closely with customers to implement these CI/CD integrations on the Cisco Container Platform. While it may seem complicated, once the infrastructure is set up and running, developers find it easy to create and deploy new code into the system.

#3: Hybrid Cloud with Kubernetes

The Cisco Container Platform makes it easier for customers to deploy and manage container-based applications across hybrid cloud environments. Currently, hybrid cloud environments areisbeing achieved between HyperFlex as an on-premises data center and GKE as a public cloud.

#4: Persistent Data with Persistent Volumes

Containers are not meant to retain data indefinitely. In the case of deletion, eviction or node failure, all container data may be lost. It involves the use of persistent volumes and persistent volume claims to store data. Further, when a container crashes for any reason, application data will be always retained on the persistent volume. Customer can reuse the persistent volumes to relaunch the application deployment so that customer will never lose the application data.

Conclusion

We all know the many advantages to deploying microservices using the latest advancements in container technology. Cisco is on the cutting edge of these innovations. Cisco Container Platform takes advantages of popular tools on the market to make your app deployments faster than ever. BayInfotech has been a key system integrator working closely with Cisco Business Units and Engineering to take this advanced automation platform to define the go-to-market strategy. BIT is actively involved PoCs, PoVs, mentor install and partner enablement for this evolving CCP technology.

Resources

What are microservices?

What are containers?