Mirantis Flow reinvents the data center as Cloud Native
- September 16, 2021
If you're a developer looking for somewhere to run your applications, the traditional physical data center is just one of your options. Already you have private clouds, public clouds, or some combination of the two to consider. But what if the future was no longer bound to the physical data center itself? What if the data center extended beyond the physical data center to include public cloud and other services?
In other words, what if the data center itself were cloud native?
As you might imagine, we do a lot of thinking about the future here at Mirantis, and one of the things we focus on is not just the best way to deliver infrastructure services, but how we can do that while guaranteeing outcomes for our customers.
And in that light, today we are announcing our new approach, Mirantis Flow.
Combining Mirantis Container Cloud with 24x7x365 monitoring and operations support, Mirantis Flow provides a Data Center as a Service experience that enables your developers to focus on creating and using Kubernetes and OpenStack clusters rather than managing infrastructure.
The result combines software and operational services as an easy to consume service that can be deployed in your data center in a matter of days. From there, we support you as you grow, taking full responsibility for your data center so you can focus on building your applications and not your infrastructure.
Mirantis Flow is a paradigm shift in the way you look at delivering and managing data center infrastructure. Key differences include:
Mirantis Flow provides all of this in a single platform on any infrastructure, including bare metal, private cloud, public cloud, and edge, treating all infrastructures as a single multi-cloud. It offers multiple entry points, and enables modernization at any stage by offering a path to cloud native application development, enabling developers to ship code faster.
Consider the differences between the traditional data center and the Cloud Native data center provided by Mirantis Flow:
In short, Mirantis Flow provides an environment that enables you to treat the data center with the same cloud native approach you use for your applications.
The traditional data center is slow, complex, inflexible, and expensive. The world is moving to Cloud Native Architectures, and replacing the traditional data center with modern technologies based on open source allows for a public cloud-like experience, anywhere.
Mirantis Flow provides all the benefits of public cloud and all the benefits of private cloud, but with none of the disadvantages. You get a completely managed service with guaranteed outcomes, and all it requires is a small minimum monthly commitment. These guaranteed outcomes ensure that initial deployment can be done in as little as a couple of hours, and you'll be on your way to generating the unique value only our company can provide.
In other words, what if the data center itself were cloud native?
As you might imagine, we do a lot of thinking about the future here at Mirantis, and one of the things we focus on is not just the best way to deliver infrastructure services, but how we can do that while guaranteeing outcomes for our customers.
And in that light, today we are announcing our new approach, Mirantis Flow.
What is Mirantis Flow?
Mirantis Flow looks at what your data center needs in order to accommodate not just the containerized workloads that are part of modern applications, but also those applications that are virtualized or even running on bare metal, providing a vendor-agnostic, proactively operated service that provides for both your physical data center and the public cloud.Combining Mirantis Container Cloud with 24x7x365 monitoring and operations support, Mirantis Flow provides a Data Center as a Service experience that enables your developers to focus on creating and using Kubernetes and OpenStack clusters rather than managing infrastructure.
The result combines software and operational services as an easy to consume service that can be deployed in your data center in a matter of days. From there, we support you as you grow, taking full responsibility for your data center so you can focus on building your applications and not your infrastructure.
Mirantis Flow is a paradigm shift in the way you look at delivering and managing data center infrastructure. Key differences include:
- Mirantis Flow moves to a consumption-based model, enabling you to consume resources from multiple cloud providers -- but only when you need them.
- Mirantis Flow includes a simplified licencing model that gives you access to the full scope of the Mirantis products, including not just Mirantis Kubernetes Engine, but also tools such as Mirantis Container Runtime or Mirantis Secure Registry.
- Mirantis takes over operation of the infrastructure, enabling your devops team to save time so they can focus on application delivery.
- Mirantis Flow provides access to multiple cloud providers with a central point of control and visibility, for a truly hybrid cloud environment with no additional skills required on your part.
Traditional data centers vs Mirantis Flow
Leveraging the recent exciting releases of Mirantis Container Cloud, Mirantis OpenStack, and Mirantis Kubernetes Engine, all workloads are available for migration to cloud native infrastructure, whether they are traditional virtual machine workloads or containerized workloads.Mirantis Flow provides all of this in a single platform on any infrastructure, including bare metal, private cloud, public cloud, and edge, treating all infrastructures as a single multi-cloud. It offers multiple entry points, and enables modernization at any stage by offering a path to cloud native application development, enabling developers to ship code faster.
Consider the differences between the traditional data center and the Cloud Native data center provided by Mirantis Flow:
| Comparison | Traditional DC | Cloud Native DC |
| Cost | High | Low |
| Hardware | Appliances/COTS | COTS |
| Open source / standards | ✗/✓ | ✓ |
| API driven | ✗ | ✓ |
| Self-service | ✗ | ✓ |
| TTM for Applications | Slow | Fast |
| Day 2 / Admin effort | High | Low |
| Developer-centric | ✗ | ✓ |
| Abstraction | None or VMs | Containers, VMs, Micro-VMs |
| Workload density (efficiency) | Low | High |
| Workload optimization (utilization) | Low | High |
| Consistency (across clouds) | Low | High |
| No Lock-in (HW/SW) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Hybrid cloud (interconnection) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Security | Manual | Automatic with policies |
| Complete data visibility and control | ✓ | Built-in, OSS / standards |
| Workload management | ? | Standardized with Kubernetes |
| Analytics / Big data | ? | Built-in, OSS / standards |
| Pay-as-you-go, usage-based pricing | ✗ | ✓ |
| Built-in, automated data backups and recovery | ✗ | ✓ |
Moving into the future
Public Cloud did not kill the private data center, but it did create a new model for how software should be built, run, secured, and managed.The traditional data center is slow, complex, inflexible, and expensive. The world is moving to Cloud Native Architectures, and replacing the traditional data center with modern technologies based on open source allows for a public cloud-like experience, anywhere.
Mirantis Flow provides all the benefits of public cloud and all the benefits of private cloud, but with none of the disadvantages. You get a completely managed service with guaranteed outcomes, and all it requires is a small minimum monthly commitment. These guaranteed outcomes ensure that initial deployment can be done in as little as a couple of hours, and you'll be on your way to generating the unique value only our company can provide.
