Best Practice丨Detailed explanations of 5 solutions for building a private pool on the cloud (virtual IDC)

Introduction to private pool series on the cloud is finally here. This article will focus on the various solutions for building a private pool (virtual IDC) on the cloud and their respective advantages and disadvantages, and give relevant cost-effective optimization suggestions.

Author of this article: Alibaba Cloud technical expert Li Yuqian

summary

Focusing on the value, acquisition, purchase, capacity planning, and implementation of private pools (virtual IDC), we will introduce them one by one in the form of feature articles. For example, from the perspective of business certainty and continuity, it introduces the private pool and how to obtain ; then starting from the business workload characteristics, combining various demand characteristics, give the corresponding purchase plan suggestion ; for the value of private pool, acquisition, after the purchase scheme is understood that the actual purchase private pool when the need to know the capacity of resources, we introduced on how cloud resource capacity planning and implementation . In this article, we focus on the various solutions for building a private pool (virtual IDC) on the cloud and their respective advantages and disadvantages.

01

Who needs a private pool on the cloud

Private pool core features : resources to deliver certainty to ensure business continuity, exclusive use, flexible business side of resource sharing. In addition, the private pool mentioned here is a resource pool on the cloud, which corresponds to a self-built IDC resource pool. As shown in Figure 1 below, the general classification of customer service options, building a private pool on the cloud is suitable for enterprise-level customers.

For enterprise-level customers, if the business resource delivery needs are deterministic and the core business continuity needs to be guaranteed, then the private pool on the cloud is very suitable. In addition, some super large customers have the ability to build their own computer rooms. These customers also recommend building private pools on the cloud. The reason analysis is shown in Table 1.

Figure 1-General classification of customer service options

The comparative analysis of traditional self-built IDC and cloud-based OnCloud private pool construction is shown in Table 1.

Table 1-Comparison of Self-built IDC and OnCloud

more information,

[1] How to build an idc computer room?

https://www.zhihu.com/question/19861355

[2] Ding Changyan, how does Huawei accelerate the green development of IDC industry in fulfilling the "dual carbon" goal?

https://t.cj.sina.com.cn/articles/view/1730695047/67284f8700100sd0v

[3] Jiao Yiquan, IDC-Data Center Industry Chain Structure and Cost Composition

https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404449364213891307

[4] 2021 China IDC Industry Analysis Report-Market Status and Prospects for Development Business Opportunities

http://baogao.chinabaogao.com/hulianwang/547125547125.html

02

How to build a private pool on the cloud

In the context of distributed cloud, private pools also exhibit distributed characteristics.

As shown in Figure 2, the overall layout of the private pool also has many forms. Different customers will eventually have their own'private computing power' in different'locations' such as the center, edge, local, and on-site. The sharing scale between the center and the edge is larger, and the local and on-site sharing scale is smaller.

Figure 2-Private Pool Layout

On the cloud platform, there are currently related products and services in both the center and the edge, and these services support the delivery of customers' "private pool" resources. For example, Alibaba Cloud provides flexible guarantees, capacity reservations with immediate effect, storage dedicated clusters, cloud exhibitions, cloud boxes, and other optional commodity services.

In terms of computing resources, combined with a variety of payment modes, you can choose DedicatedHost with annual and monthly subscription, ECS server with annual subscription, ECS server with volume + SavingPlan combination, flexible guarantee + SavingPlan combination, immediate effective capacity reservation + SavingPlan combination etc. To support the construction of cloud private pools of computing resources. Let's analyze one by one:

1. Build a private pool based on DedicatedHost

1. Evaluate the capacity requirements of the business for resources
2. Resource capacity requirements are converted to DedicatedHost quantity requirements
3. Purchase DedicatedHost server (according to the amount or monthly subscription)
4. Create instance resources based on DedicatedHost, such as oversold deployment, custom specification deployment, etc.

This model is simple to understand: buy physical machines on the cloud in bulk (no need to pay attention to the operation and maintenance of physical machines and computer rooms, use physical servers with commoditized, service-oriented, and online APIs), and perform independent orchestration services of application resources based on these physical machines . These services include: business load balancing, business load mixed deployment, business load oversold, resource time sharing, and so on.

This model is suitable for large enterprises, which have their own resource delivery, resource orchestration, resource management optimization teams, and implement programmable infrastructure. The supporting tasks that originally came from the construction of the computer room, the power supply of the computer room, security, and server network management were all handed over to the cloud platform. The business side focused on computing resources, focused on business development, and better supported business iteration. The business side makes full use of the internal application profile to analyze the data in depth, build an orchestration, operation and maintenance system that matches the characteristics of the application workload, effectively and controllably improve resource utilization and save costs. For example, XX Technology Group purchased a large number of DedicatedHosts on Alibaba Cloud, and the clusters on the cloud built on these DedicatedHosts achieved autonomous secondary scheduling and improved resource utilization.

2. Build a private pool based on the ECS server's monthly subscription

1. Evaluate the capacity requirements of the business for resources
2. Purchase the specifications and quantity of ECS instances that match the business, and hold them for a long-term and monthly basis

This model is simple to understand: if you hold a specific resource instance for a long time, this resource instance is not released, thereby supporting the deployment and orchestration of the business-oriented specific resource instance.

The adaptability of this model is very wide, and resource needs of all sizes can be met. At the same time, these specific resources can also be handed over to the PaaS platform, and the PaaS platform can perform capacity scheduling and deployment, so as to realize the shared use of the underlying annual and monthly resources. This model requires long-term holding of resources, which is suitable for scenarios where business is stable and long-term development. not suitable for scenarios where there are sudden resource demands .

3. Building a private pool based on the combination of ECS server volume + Saving

1. Evaluate the capacity requirements of the business for resources
2. Purchase the ECS instance specifications and quantity that match the business, and hold it for a long time according to the quantity
3. Purchase a Saving Plan (saving plan) with a cluster of resource-based instance specifications and a matching quantity

This model is simple to understand: holding a specific resource instance for a long time, this resource instance is not released, thus supporting the deployment and orchestration of the business-oriented specific resource instance.

This model is very similar to the annual and monthly subscriptions, which are all through long-term holding in exchange for preferential purchase discounts, and relying on fixed retained resources to build a'private pool'. This model is a model vigorously promoted by mainstream cloud vendors. In this mode, resources and costs are decoupled, and they are both flexible and low-cost.

At the same time, if there is a requirement for the certainty of resources, it can also be combined with capacity reservations that take effect immediately to ensure certainty, flexibility, and low cost.

IV. Flexible guarantee + SavingPlan combination to build a private pool

The previously constructed private pool has a potential "commitment": long-term retention scenarios; for short-term resource private and deterministic delivery scenarios, elastic guarantees are more suitable.

1. Evaluate the business cyclicality and the duration of use in the cycle (for example, the cumulative duration in a month accounts for less than 40%)
2. Evaluate instance specifications and quantity for periodic parts
3. Purchase flexible guarantee (open resource instances at any time)
4. Purchase SavingPlan (optional)

This model is simple to understand: a private pool is reserved on the cloud, resources are opened when they are needed, and resources are released when they are not needed. The pre-determined fee is charged at one time, and the user controls when to open the resource.

This mode matches the business scenario that is opened periodically. The disadvantage is that it has to bear a certain resource reservation fee (a one-time charge). The current monthly resource usage time accounts for less than 40%. Under the premise of guaranteeing the deterministic delivery of resources, it is more favorable than the annual and monthly cost.

5. Immediately effective capacity reservation + Saving Plan combination to build a private pool

This model is more flexible and has cost optimization.

1. Assess the demand for resources by the business
2. Purchase an immediate capacity reservation that can be released at any time
3. Purchasing SavingPlan that matches the amount of resources

This model is simple to understand: when resource certainty is required, a private pool is booked from the cloud and does not need to be released at any time. Only when there is free capacity in the private pool, the amount of computing resources is charged. When the capacity is all used up, there is no additional cost. When there is free capacity and it is not needed, the capacity reservation can be reduced.

The best practice of this model is to purchase Savings Plan, and at the same time, reserve the capacity reservation immediately, which can obtain the certainty of resources while obtaining the flexibility of expenses.

03

How to improve the price-performance ratio of private pools

The essence of improving the cost performance of private pools is:

1. In terms of purchase methods, long-term holdings can be used to obtain relatively favorable discounts;
2. In terms of resource utilization, time-sharing multiplexing is used to improve resource utilization.

In view of the several methods of constructing private pools introduced above, the corresponding cost-effective optimization measures are given below as shown in Table 2.

Table 2-Cost-effective optimization of private pools

Summary

In the cloud, customers need to guarantee the continuity of their business services, which need to achieve uncertainty clouds get on HR delivery . Combining multiple purchase models, Alibaba Cloud provides a "private pool" product service for different industries and different workloads responsible for the characteristics, supporting users to independently customize exclusive products in terms of flexibility, certainty, cost control and other key elements of resource delivery and sharing. Private pool on the cloud.

Alibaba Cloud's resource guarantee service collection (flexible guarantee, capacity reservation with immediate effect, alternate annual and monthly instance purchases, annual and monthly large-scale resource reporting, large-scale resource reporting by volume, personalized resource purchase plan recommendations, etc.), these The service covers the deterministic delivery of workload resources such as short cycle, long cycle, obvious regularity, no obvious regularity, small amount, large amount, etc.

This is the end of the sharing of the final article of the cloud private pool (virtual IDC) best practice series; the other three articles in this series can be viewed in the recommended reading at the end of this article.

丨Recommended reading

" Best Practice丨How to escort the certainty and continuity of customer business with virtual IDC (private pool) on the cloud "

" Best Practice丨Virtual IDC (Private Pool) Selection Guide on the Cloud in Three Typical Scenarios "

" Best Practice丨How to plan and implement resource capacity after the enterprise goes to the cloud "

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