You need to modernize, but you can't afford to rewrite every application for containers overnight. The common approach creates a costly divide: your modern apps run in one environment, and your traditional VMs run in another. This forces you to pay for two infrastructures, manage two toolsets, and train your staff on two different platforms. It's an inefficient and expensive trap that slows your business down.
What if you could run your virtual machines side-by-side with your containers managed on one platform with one storage service? Why not unify all your applications on the same management platform and provide them all with exceptional storage performance and data management?
Now you can. The diagram below outlines the powerful convergence of three best-in-class technologies to solve this exact problem: Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Google Cloud NetApp Volumes (GCNV), and the intelligence of NetApp Trident.
This blog post details a solution for breaking down siloed infrastructure by unifying traditional Virtual Machines (VMs) and modern containers on a single management platform in Google Cloud with exceptional performance. This is achieved through the convergence of virtualization on Red Hat OpenShift, Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, and NetApp Trident, enabling simplified operations and a seamless path to modernization.
Why Unify Containers and VMs?
Running separate platforms for your containers and virtual machines directly impacts your bottom line. It forces you to pay for redundant infrastructure, separate software licenses, and duplicate support contracts. Essentially, you're funding two IT environments when you could be running one. This unnecessary spending diverts budget away from innovation and other critical business priorities.
Managing containers and virtual machines (VMs) together offers a multitude of benefits that can lead to significant improvements in efficiency, cost savings, and overall business agility. For example, deploying OpenShift Virtualization with GCNV could provide:
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Cost Reduction and Enhanced Efficiency: reduce costs on licenses, better use and allocation of resources and reduced redundancies
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Simplified Operations and Management: single interface for management to improve response times, consistent policies and APIs, reduce complexity with one infrastructure instead of two
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Enhanced Security and Compliance: single security model, reduces compliance risks, Reduce security gaps from incompatible third party integrations.
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Increased Agility and Innovation: faster scaling with Kubernetes, accelerated application development by eliminating barriers between silos and fosters innovation
For too long, organizations have had to run both Kubernetes clusters for containers and a separate, on-premises or cloud virtualization stack for VMs. This dichotomy forces teams to manage two different infrastructures, two sets of monitoring tools, two different operational models, and two entirely separate cost structures.
Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization on Google Cloud
Red Hat OpenShift has been a premier Kubernetes distribution for years. Now, with the availability of OpenShift Virtualization on Google Cloud OpenShift, you can run containers and VMs side by side - all managed by Red Hat OpenShift cluster on Google Cloud. Built on the powerful open-source KubeVirt technology, OpenShift Virtualization allows Kubernetes to manage virtual machines as if they were any other native object, like a pod. OpenShift virtualization runs on Google Cloud Compute Engine C3 bare metal to eliminate over nesting the hardware.
This means you can continue running your OpenShift cluster for your microservices, and by adding OpenShift Virtualization, you can run and manage your legacy VMs right next to them. This instantly breaks down the infrastructure silo, giving your DevOps team a unified view of all their application resources.
The Performance Engine for VMs and containers - Google Cloud NetApp Volumes
GCNV is a first-party, fully managed storage service native to Google Cloud and it is now certified with the Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization version 4.21.2 . It's built on NetApp's industry-leading ONTAP technology and delivers the high performance and low latency required by demanding VM workloads, like databases and specialized legacy applications.
You can take snapshots of golden images from within OpenShift like a breeze, and seamlessly support shared storage use cases with the File based kubernetes RWX access mode, making advanced VM operations like live migration effortless. You can create volumes as small as 1Gi and up, and even resize a volume directly from Openshift if needed. Additionally, you can create volume clones and backups easily with GCNV.
NetApp Trident: The Intelligent Bridge
At the center of it all is NetApp Trident. Trident is the automated CSI-based storage orchestrator that connects the pods and VMs running on OpenShift to the powerful storage provided by Google Cloud NetApp Volumes. It is supported with Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization using Trident v26.02 and later.
Trident supports:
- CSI: Meaning it's fully supported and built on the Container Storage Interface standard, guaranteeing compatibility and future-proofing your architecture.
- Dynamic volume creation: When a VM needs a new disk, OpenShift and Trident dynamically provisions it in seconds from Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, without any manual intervention from your team.
- Resizing & Import: As your VM's data needs grow, Trident can resize its volumes on the fly. And if you have an existing VM in another environment, Trident can import its disk image, making your migration path smoother.
- VM Live Migration: Trident supports RWX access mode with Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, which makes VM migration seamless.
- Volume import: Move your volumes from OnPrem to Google Cloud using Snapmirror or NetApp Data Migrator and import them into your OpenShift cluster using Trident import.
This automation transforms storage management from a cumbersome manual process into a simple, effortless experience.
Achieve a Seamless Path to Modernization
By bringing together Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, and the automation of NetApp Trident, you eliminate the costly divide between managing containers and traditional virtual machines. This solution delivers a truly unified platform on Google Cloud, simplifying operations and management with a single interface and consistent policies whether you are migrating or creating a new environment.
If you are migrating, it removes the need for a disruptive and expensive overhaul, allowing you to move to the cloud faster and on a more predictable budget. You are empowered to move your legacy VMs to the cloud immediately and begin your modernization journey on your own timeline, backed by the enterprise-grade performance and low latency storage required for even the most demanding workloads. For new organizations, it offers a future-proof architecture from day one, capable of running both virtual machines and modern containerized applications without creating complex, costly silos. This unified architecture is the path to maximizing efficiency and innovation while dramatically reducing your total cost of ownership.
Try it today! Find more information about the solution at RedHat Virtualization, Google Cloud NetApp Volumes and Trident.