Author: Andrew Sjoquist

Fluid’s cloud platform will transform your legacy infrastructure from a rigid, unsecure, complex network, to a secure, scalable, multi-cloud platform in a matter of minutes. Too good to be true? We recently tailored a multi-cloud solution for ASE, a data and tech provider, to cut their client onboarding procedure from 2-3 days to only several minutes! 

By deploying a hybrid solution that combines the best of on-premises and cloud environments we can enable unlimited security, scalable, and high-performance solutions for any business demands.

What can Fluid’s Dynamic, Multi-Cloud Solution Offer?
Fluid combines secure, scalable, cost-effective, and high-performance solutions to meet diverse and dynamic business demands. Our tailored solutions offer:

• Rapid Deployment: Deploy production-ready infrastructure faster, saving time and money.
• Cost Effectiveness: Optimise your resources to reduce operational costs and simplify licensing.
• Enhanced Security and Compliance: Have robust security and compliance for sensitive data protection.
• Performance and Efficiency Gains: Deliver high performance and efficiency for reliable service delivery.

Fluid automates infrastructure deployment and management, removing multi-team, manual repetitive tasks. It simplifies on-prem and bare-metal infrastructure deployment and management, automates cloud-scale network and compute provisioning, and offers centralised management via a cloud-hosted portal.

Fluid’s CTO, Alex Turner, emphasises the platform’s portability, scalability, and flexibility, enabling it to exist in environments where traditional cloud solutions may not reach. Fluid brings workloads closer to end-users and customers, facilitating hybrid clouds and hyper-scalable applications.

What’s Included in Fluid Cloud Solutions

• Bare-Metal Zero-Touch Provisioning: Automatic deployment and configuration on physical hardware, enhancing efficiency and reducing setup time.
• Robust Security with Immutable OS and mTLS: Immutable OS and end-to-end mTLS connectivity ensure trust and reliability in every interaction.
• Advanced Load Balancing: Intelligent distribution of network traffic across servers for optimal performance and uptime.
• Enhanced Virtual Machine Capabilities: Virtualised environments for versatile and isolated application hosting, enhancing scalability and resource efficiency.
• Containerisation and Microservices with Kubernetes Support: Modern application deployment strategies through containerisation and Kubernetes orchestration.
• Multi-Cloud Orchestration with Advanced Networking: Full mesh connectivity between nodes in diverse locations, ensuring seamless integration and communication.
• VPN and Secure Relay Services: Robust, encrypted pathways for secure remote access and data communication.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform: Efficient infrastructure management and automation using Terraform.
• Optimised Edge Computing Capabilities: Localised processing and data analysis at the network’s edge, reducing latency for critical applications.

Unlimited possibilities
Want even more? Fluid can extend its capabilities without limits by integrating with thousands of open and extensible Kubernetes ecosystem tools, offering businesses a comprehensive and adaptable solution for their IT infrastructure needs.

Does your legacy IT infrastructure need a makeover? Contact the team at Fluid today and see what we can do for you.

Think of your legacy IT infrastructure, the one that is stagnant, lacks modern security, is so complicated that it requires expert staff just to manage and maintain it, yes that one… now imagine if we could turn that same IT infrastructure into a hybrid, secure, and multi-cloud platform in a matter of minutes!

Well we can! 

Introducing Fluid’s tailored designed, multi-cloud solutions that will transform your businesses IT infrastructure.

Your Secure, Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Solution is Here!
With Fluid, businesses can gain the agility, security, and scalability of the public cloud while retaining control over their data. In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses require infrastructure solutions that can adapt and scale with their evolving needs. Traditional technology infrastructure, designed for static workloads faces challenges in scalability, agility, and innovation due to its inherent rigidity and complex maintenance requirements. Fluid addresses these challenges by automating provisioning cloud-scale compute, networking, and container orchestration, “bringing the cloud back down to earth”.

The Problems with Today’s Infrastructure
Legacy infrastructure poses several challenges, including inflexibility, security vulnerabilities, complexity, and skill shortages. Monolithic and heritage infrastructure vendors rely on slow manual processes and outdated architecture blueprints, hindering efficiency and innovation. Moreover, unsecure infrastructures not only compromise data security but also erode customer trust and confidence in your business, ultimately leading to a loss of business.

Why can’t I just use the public cloud?
While the public cloud has seen rapid adoption, it’s not without its drawbacks. Rising costs, compliance issues, business policy conflicts, and latency concerns in geographically distant data centres, all of these are a few of the many reasons why the public cloud is not a one-size fits all. Fluid’s tailored approach offers the best of both worlds, combining the scalability and agility of the public cloud with the control and customization of on-premises environments.

All the Public Cloud Benefits Tailored for your Business
Fluid’s hybrid and tailored cloud solution embodies a modern shift in IT infrastructure, a shift that views infrastructure as “fluid” and adaptable. This approach combines the elasticity and on-demand availability of the cloud with the control and customisation of on-premises environments, enabling efficiency and agility. Fluid thinking embraces cloud principles, applying them to the entire infrastructure landscape, thereby enabling premium levels of efficiency, agility, and innovation.

What Can Fluid Do for My Business
Fluid combines secure, scalable, cost-effective, and high-performance solutions to meet diverse and dynamic business demands. Our tailored, multi-cloud solutions will empower your business with rapid deployment that is cost-effective, to save you time and money, whilst ultimately enhancing security, compliance, and performance efficiency. 

By adopting Fluid’s hybrid cloud, ASE, a data and tech provider, reduced their onboarding process from 2-3 days to a matter of minutes, significantly saving them a lot of time and money. [link to blog]

Want to level up your business like ASE? Contact Fluid today to discover how our tailored cloud solutions can transform your procedures, security, and ability to scale.

As organisations strive for greater efficiency, flexibility, and scalability in their IT infrastructure, the technology industry is experiencing a revolutionary shift towards containerization.

Gone are the days of traditional virtual machines (VMs) as containers emerged as the new standard for deploying and managing applications. Containers offer a lightweight, portable, and efficient way to package and run software, enabling developers to easily move applications across different environments without worrying about compatibility issues.

The Shift to Containers

Containers provide faster deployment, improved resource use, and simplified management, allowing developers to build, test, and launch apps quickly, helping drive innovation. By isolating applications, they improve security and enable higher application density.

Evolution of Virtual Machines

Traditional virtual machines (VMs) have limitations that hinder scalability and efficiency. Maintaining separate operating systems per application duplicates resources, slows provisioning, and complicates infrastructure security. Modern workloads don’t require isolated operating systems due to advances like compiled binaries and common frameworks.

Benefits of Containers

Containers have lightweight isolation, sharing the host operating system while offering quick deployment and efficient resource usage. This portability fits with DevOps practices, simplifying the process from development to production. Containers’ isolation improves security, increasing application density while reducing infrastructure costs.

Container Orchestration

Managing containerized environments at scale requires orchestration. Kubernetes has become the industry standard, helping automate scaling and deployment. Fluid leverages Kubernetes for optimized resource use, helping organizations improve their infrastructure efficiency.

Legacy Support for Virtual Machines

Legacy systems still have their place. Platforms such as Fluid help integrate them into containerized environments through Kubernetes, scheduling entire virtual machines alongside microservices, enabling a smooth transition.

The Future of Compute

Containerisation offers agility, portability, and resource efficiency unmatched by traditional VM setups. Fluid brings this to organizations seeking streamlined IT operations, increased scalability, and enhanced security​​​.

Introduction:
Virtualization technologies play a pivotal role in modern IT infrastructures, offering organizations the flexibility, scalability, and efficiency needed to meet diverse business demands. Among the leading contenders in the virtualization landscape are VMware, KVM, Proxmox, and emerging solutions like Fluid. Each platform presents unique features and benefits, catering to diverse organizational needs. In this article, we’ll explore the strengths and capabilities of VMware, KVM, Proxmox, and Fluid, providing insights into how they address different virtualization requirements.

VMware:
VMware has long been synonymous with enterprise-grade virtualization solutions, offering a comprehensive suite of products for server and desktop virtualization. Its flagship product, VMware vSphere, provides a robust platform for managing virtualized environments, while VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion cater to desktop virtualization needs.

Key Features of VMware:

1. Type-1 Hypervisor: VMware utilizes a Type-1 hypervisor architecture, running directly on the physical hardware to deliver high performance and resource efficiency.
2. Management Tools: VMware’s suite includes powerful management tools like vCenter Server, enabling centralized management, automation, and monitoring of virtualized environments.
3. Scalability: VMware solutions are highly scalable, allowing organizations to expand their virtual infrastructure seamlessly to accommodate growing workloads.
4. Advanced Features: VMware offers advanced features such as live migration (vMotion), high availability (HA), and fault tolerance (FT), enhancing workload mobility and ensuring business continuity.

KVM:
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open-source virtualization technology integrated into the Linux kernel. KVM allows users to create and manage virtual machines on Linux-based platforms, providing cost-effective and flexible virtualization solutions.

Key Features of KVM:

1. Kernel Integration: KVM tightly integrates with the Linux kernel, leveraging its capabilities for efficient resource management, security, and device support.
2. Performance: KVM delivers impressive performance by directly accessing hardware resources through the Linux kernel, making it suitable for various workloads.
3. Open Source: As an open-source solution, KVM offers transparency, flexibility, and customization options, empowering organizations to tailor their virtualization environment.
4. Compatibility: KVM supports a wide range of guest operating systems, including Linux distributions, Windows, and others, ensuring compatibility with diverse workloads and applications.

Proxmox:
Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source virtualization platform that combines two virtualization technologies, KVM and LXC (Linux Containers), along with management tools, to create a comprehensive virtualization and containerization solution.

Key Features of Proxmox:

1. Hybrid Virtualization: Proxmox VE supports both KVM-based virtual machines and LXC-based containers, offering flexibility in deploying and managing different types of workloads.
2. Web-based Management Interface: Proxmox VE features a user-friendly web-based management interface, allowing administrators to easily deploy, monitor, and manage virtualized environments.
3. High Availability: Proxmox VE provides built-in high availability features, ensuring continuous availability of virtual machines and containers through automated failover mechanisms.
4. Community Support and Ecosystem: Proxmox VE benefits from a vibrant community and ecosystem, with regular updates, plugins, and community-contributed resources enhancing its capabilities and functionality.

Fluid:
Fluid is an emerging platform that leverages Kubernetes for managing and orchestrating containerized workloads. Fluid extends Kubernetes’ capabilities by incorporating virtual machine management through KubeVirt, enabling organizations to run both containers and virtual machines within the same Kubernetes cluster seamlessly.

Key Features of Fluid:

1. Kubernetes Integration: Fluid leverages Kubernetes’ robust orchestration capabilities to provide a unified platform for managing both containers and virtual machines, simplifying deployment and management workflows.
2. Native KVM Support: Fluid utilizes KVM through KubeVirt, enabling the deployment and management of virtual machines on top of its stable Kubernetes platform. This integration ensures stability, performance, and compatibility with existing KVM-based workloads.
3. Scalability and Flexibility: With Fluid, organizations can scale their virtualization infrastructure dynamically, leveraging Kubernetes’ scalability features to meet changing workload demands efficiently.
4. Ecosystem Integration: Fluid seamlessly integrates with the Kubernetes ecosystem, allowing organizations to leverage existing tools, plugins, and resources to enhance their virtualization environment.

Comparison and Conclusion:
Each virtualization platform—VMware, KVM, Proxmox, and Fluid—offers unique advantages and capabilities, addressing different organizational requirements and preferences. While VMware excels in providing comprehensive virtualization solutions with advanced features and management tools, KVM stands out for its performance, flexibility, and open-source nature. Proxmox combines the benefits of KVM-based virtualization and containerization in a single platform, offering a holistic approach to virtualization and management. Fluid, leveraging KVM through KubeVirt within its Kubernetes-based platform, provides a modern solution for running both containers and virtual machines, enhancing agility, scalability, and ecosystem integration.

Ultimately, organizations need to evaluate their specific needs, budget constraints, and long-term strategies to choose the virtualization solution that best aligns with their objectives. Whether opting for VMware’s enterprise-grade environment, KVM’s performance and flexibility, Proxmox’s hybrid approach, or Fluid’s Kubernetes-driven platform, the key is to select a solution that optimizes resource utilization, enhances operational efficiency, and supports business growth.