CloudBox is deployed in an on-premises data center and provides benefits such as zero O&M and low costs. This topic describes the core benefits of CloudBox and its advantages over Alibaba Cloud public cloud, self-managed IT infrastructure, and traditional private cloud.
Core benefits
On-premises deployment
CloudBox deployed in an on-premises data center can meet your requirements for data security, on-premises data processing, and low latency.
Zero O&M
After you purchase CloudBox, Alibaba Cloud installs and deploys CloudBox in the on-premises data center and performs O&M on hardware devices.
When you use CloudBox, you can use the services provided by Alibaba Cloud public cloud, such as version updates, security patch updates, O&M, and monitoring.
Cost-effectiveness
Low startup cost: You need to only purchase CloudBox to use Alibaba Cloud services, including software and hardware. This reduces the associated startup cost. When you purchase CloudBox, you can purchase at least one compute SKU that contains at least 208 vCPUs and 384 GiB of memory and specific Elastic Block Storage (EBS) capacity. This helps reduce the startup cost of your business. The minimum EBS capacity that you can purchase is 12 TiB of PL0 enhanced SSDs (ESSDs).
Quick deployment: CloudBox is pre-installed with software. After CloudBox is delivered to your data center by Alibaba Cloud, you need to only connect CloudBox to power supplies and network and perform simple debugging. Then, you can use the computing and storage resources of CloudBox in the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. This significantly shortens the onsite implementation time and the time that is required by applications to go online.
Ease of use
CloudBox provides the same instance families and delivers the same user experience as Alibaba Cloud public cloud.
CloudBox provides capacity monitoring, performance monitoring, and proactive O&M for CloudBox. This allows you to easily view the status of resources in CloudBox.
CloudBox communicates with the services of Alibaba Cloud public cloud over virtual private clouds (VPCs). You can use the services of Alibaba Cloud public cloud together with CloudBox to provide a wide range of solutions.
Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instances in CloudBox can be cold migrated to an Alibaba Cloud region over a VPC. ECS instances in an Alibaba Cloud region can also be cold migrated to CloudBox.
Security
CloudBox provides various security solutions, including role permission control, isolation over the internal network, protection against virus attacks, and traffic monitoring.
CloudBox supports ActionTrail. You can view all operation logs of CloudBox.
CloudBox supports third-party auditing of network connections.
Advantages of CloudBox over Alibaba Cloud public cloud
Item | CloudBox | Public cloud |
Data storage in the on-premises data center | Data is stored in your data center, which complies with data residency requirements. | Data is stored in Alibaba Cloud. This fails to meet your data residency requirements. |
Data processing in the on-premises data center | You do not need to upload data to the cloud. This significantly reduces costs. | Data must be transferred to the cloud for processing. This process is limited by bandwidth, and you are charged for data transmission. |
Low latency | CloudBox is deployed in an on-premises data center and close to your on-premises devices. CloudBox has near-real-time business interactions with your on-premises devices and applications. | Infrastructure may be deployed in different physical locations, and interactions with on-premises devices are affected by factors such as network connections. |
Exclusive resources | The computing and storage resources of CloudBox are exclusive to users. This ensures sufficient inventory and resource availability. | The resources including computing and storage resources are shared by Alibaba Cloud public cloud users. This results in issues such as insufficient inventory. |
Advantages of CloudBox over self-managed IT infrastructure and traditional private cloud
Item | CloudBox | Self-managed IT infrastructure or traditional private cloud |
Hardware O&M | Alibaba Cloud engineers perform 24/7 monitoring on the hardware of CloudBox based on the O&M standards of Alibaba Cloud public cloud. Alibaba Cloud also provides hardware fault predictions and isolation measures based on a large amount of data and algorithms accumulated in Alibaba Cloud public cloud. | You must manually perform O&M. You must install, monitor, maintain, update, upgrade, and provide technical support for hardware facilities. Managing your platform and IT infrastructure requires time and resources. |
Server access standards and O&M standards are as high as the standards of Alibaba Cloud public cloud. | You must select server types that suit your business scenarios in the market based on your server standards. | |
Costs | CloudBox requires lower startup costs. You need to only purchase CloudBox to use Alibaba Cloud services, including software and hardware. You can purchase a minimum of 1 computing SKU and 12 TiB of EBS devices for CloudBox. This reduces the cost of building your business. | Self-managed IT infrastructure and traditional private clouds require higher building costs. You must spend a large amount of time and manpower in purchasing hardware and software services. You must purchase sufficient resources at a time to meet fluctuating workloads. You must also take the risks that may arise due to hardware incompatibility. |
CloudBox requires less time to be deployed. CloudBox is pre-installed with software and can be used out of the box. After CloudBox is delivered to your data center, you need to only connect CloudBox to power supplies and network and perform simple debugging. Then, you can view and manage the resources in CloudBox in the Alibaba Cloud Management Console. | A long period of time is required to deliver servers and cloud platforms. | |
CloudBox requires lower operational costs. CloudBox uses the same management system as Alibaba Cloud public cloud. You can use the advanced technical systems of Alibaba Cloud public cloud, such as billing and authentication. You can also manage Alibaba Cloud public cloud resources in CloudBox at no additional costs. | Self-managed IT infrastructure and traditional private clouds require higher operational costs. You must invest in hardware to manage the cloud platform, and build a management system for billing and authentication. | |
CloudBox uses the same SHENLONG architecture and hardware facilities as Alibaba Cloud public cloud, which provides high performance and high stability and requires lower costs per unit of computing power. | Performance is compromised due to virtualization. The cost per unit of computing power is high. | |
Ease of operation | CloudBox has built-in mainstream operating systems, such as activated Windows. You can change the built-in operating systems online. | You must manually prepare and install the operating systems. If you want to change the operating systems, you must re-install them. |
CloudBox helps you easily manage resources. CloudBox provides the same user experience as Alibaba Cloud public cloud and allows you to manage the entire lifecycle of instances. You can use the Alibaba Cloud Management Console to manage the computing and storage capacity of CloudBox and customize your network. | Resource management is complex. You must build your console. Building an advanced and easy-to-use system is difficult. | |
Disaster recovery and backup | CloudBox uses a triplicate storage mechanism to store three copies of each piece of data. If one copy is corrupted, the data can be restored from other copies within a short period of time. | You must manually build a disaster recovery environment and use expensive traditional storage devices. |
Hardware redundancy is used. Redundant network switches and power modules are provided. You can deploy multiple CloudBox instances on one site for higher availability. | A higher level of technology is required to implement self-managed redundancy. | |
The snapshot service is provided, which allows you to store snapshots in Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service (OSS) to save storage space. | Traditional self-managed IT infrastructure does not provide snapshot capabilities. | |
CloudBox allows automatic recovery if the hardware is faulty. | You must manually fix the corrupted data in traditional self-managed IT infrastructure. | |
Security and reliability | Third-party auditing of network connections is supported. | Network connection auditing is not supported. |
Flexible scalability | Standardized delivery units (racks) are available out of the box. | The equipment structure is complex and deployment is difficult. |
You can upgrade and scale CloudBox instances online. | The upgrade process is complex and causes business interruptions. Several private cloud vendors do not support hot upgrades. You must separately purchase upgrade services. | |
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