Automating deep infrastructure operations.
A cloud-in-a-box solution designed to deliver the public cloud experience on-premises without compromising security or control. Using Multicloud API connectivity provides real-time access to most of the public cloud services that a company might need. Their vision is a world where the cloud can be used to empower enterprise IT organizations and not make them obsolete.
The 41st IT Press Tour received a company overview from Siamak Nazari, Co-Founder and CEO, Craig Nunes, Co-Founder and COO, and Tobias Flitsch, Head of Product for Nebulon.
Hybrid cloud era CIOs are targeting cloud-like infrastructure everywhere.
To them, the cloud is an operating model, not a destination:
60% have repatriated workloads on-premises
50% cost savings as a result of cloud repatriation
46% will invest in bringing cloud experiences on-premises
$14B DCIaaS market by 2025
Real-world drivers include telecom’s rollout of 5G, staffing shortages in healthcare, supply and labor shortages in manufacturing, security branches in financial services, and the competitive pressures being felt by cloud service providers.
Enterprises have to adopt the cloud model in the data center but they are unable to because the tech isn’t there.
Cloud Expectations
The standard is the AWS cloud operating platform for hyper-scale infrastructure with the AWS Management Console which provides global automation, non-disruptive operations, and instant updates. AWS Nitro System offloads enterprise data services with a secure platform and isolated fault domains. Amazon machine images have consistent deployments, consistent maintenance, and application variety. All this provides the agility to get anything you want in an instance
Nebulon is the cloud operating platform for on-prem infrastructure. Equipping customers to operate their on-premises infrastructure like a hyper-scale public cloud. The Nebulon ON console provides global automation, non-disruptive operations, and instant updates via zero-trust SaaS delivery. Nebulon SPU & OS is a card that can run on any server to offload enterprise data services on a secure platform with Isolated fault domains with the server supplier of choice. Nebulon machine images have consistent deployments, consistent maintenance, application variety, and immutable instances for Day 1 and Day 2+.
IOPS
A key inhibitor to delivering IaaS cloud efficiencies on-prem is the manual, server-by-server deep infrastructure operation for heterogeneous environments.
Shallow infrastructure operations include: application configuration, VM and container provisioning, urgent OS security patch or upgrade, clustering, OS image installation, and configuring host OS parameters.
Deep infrastructures operations include server BIOS updates, auto-encrypted data, SSD firmware updates, remote server power on/off, erasing boot/local data drivers to decommission servers, remote boot, network firmware updates, server BMC/lights management, component health monitoring, and location services for physical repair/replace.
Smart Infrastructure
Nebulon decided to address these IOPS challenges to enable clients to enjoy the IaaS benefits of the public cloud experience on-premises from the server vendor of choice.
SmartOps reduces operational infrastructure by more than 75% with zero-touch, remote fleet management. AI-assisted, non-disruptive deep infrastructure operations-as-a-service and declarative infrastructure as code. Rack to full-stack in less than 10 minutes with rapid composability of application instances from core to edge speeds time to value.
SmartData enables companies to start up to 33% smaller, stay leaner with cost and density efficiencies via offloaded data services and cloud quorum reduces costs and improves application density. This protects investments today and tomorrow with infrastructure re-usability and future-proofing via standard OS driver support for any application for maximum infrastructure flexibility.
SmartInstance immunizes the infrastructure with infrastructure-level cybersecurity threat protection that provides immutability, zero-trust domains, and end-to-end encryption to protect from malware/ransomware to recover rapidly if necessary. Customers get the same experience every time from day 1 to 1000 with consistent, predictable, and reliable instances driven by discretely versioned immutable machine instances and deep infrastructure standardization.
How customers start with SmartInfrastructure
For operations-focused transformation, Nebulon SmartInfrastructure for cloud repatriation delivers the velocity and operational efficiency for IT while providing simple, fast time to value for DevOps and LOB owners.
Infrastructure-focused transformation use cases include:
SmartCore for VMware to transform a traditional VMware environment into a hyper-scale internal cloud.
SmartEdge to deploy fleet-managed, cost-optimized edge locations with greater endpoint security and control
SmartCore for Kubernetes enables a shift to a simple containerized application environment without leaving virtualized nodes behind
SmartIaaS for CSPs delivers new services at lower cost across both hosted and customer-owned data centers.
Distribution
Nebulon doesn’t sell SmartInfrastructure to customers. It is sold as an option on the servers from Dell, HPE, Lenovo, and SuperMicro. The customer benefits from this model because they buy from their strategic server suppliers. There is no new vendor to qualify with the procurement team and no new contracts to implement with the legal team. Servers arrive pre-enabled with SmartInfrastructure for simple installation. It is covered under the same support agreement that covers the rest of the server infrastructure. Trying new technology has never been easier.
SmartPartner is an invitation-only program for strategic resellers. They receive incentives like
SmartStart accelerates business with rebate incentives, and SmartRewards, a frequent seller program with tiered financial benefits based on partner sales of Nebulon ON.
Customer Spotlight
A global cloud service provider with a current estate of 10 data centers, 3-tier infrastructure with 250 VMware servers, and 60 arrays (2 PB of storage). They are ⅓ of the way through with replacement. The project scope is to decommission their entire current environment and replace it with Nebulon-enabled servers and Nebulon’s infrastructure operations SaaS. The current deployment is nearly 100 Nebulon-enabled servers and over a PB of storage across four data centers in Europe and North America. Customer benefits realized to date include 40% savings in infrastructure, higher margins on existing services, and new customer acquisition benefits.
Recent SmartInfrastructure Solution Announcements
SmartIaaS enables new services in hosted and customer-owned data centers with up to 33% reduced footprint and costs for infrastructure and predictable service delivery with lower operational effort.
SmartCore is a server-based solution for at-scale VMware modernization for faster on-prem K8s and OpenShift deployments.
SmartEdge is single-API centralized fleet automation and monitoring with centralized zero-trust security management and 2-node high availability support with zero configuration.
Upcoming Announcements
Server management integration with centralized server hardware and firmware inventory and management across heterogeneous server vendors.
Nebulon Ansible collection to deploy server-based infrastructure and applications end-to-end through a single automation framework.
Instant cluster recovery eliminates lengthy recovery processes from ransomware or misconfiguration during a crisis and ensures peace of mind.