The hardware and software of Alibaba Cloud public cloud, such as cloud computing, storage, and network, are integrated into your data center to meet specific requirements of fully managed cloud services. These requirements include data security, on-premises data processing, and low latency. You can use CloudBox out of the box.
Benefits
| Item | CloudBox | Alibaba Cloud public cloud | Self-managed IT infrastructure or traditional private cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application industries | Manufacturing, medical industry, and non-bank finance | General and Internet | Government and finance |
| Application scenarios | Low latency and enterprise edge computing | Elastic and stable | On-premises data |
| Core features | Small-scale, low cost for construction, and fully managed | Highly elastic | Secure and manageable |
| Consistent cloud capability | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Standardized delivery | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Elastic scale-out | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Fully managed O&M | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Easy construction | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
| Low latency | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Localized data | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Data processed in the on-premises data center | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ |
| Strong physical isolation | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Similar to Alibaba Cloud public cloud, CloudBox provides O&M-free and low-cost cloud services for on-premises deployment. For more information, see Benefits.
- Meet security compliance requirements
- Meet business system requirements
- Sensitive data or a large amount of data exists, which cannot be migrated to the cloud
On-premises deployment
- Managed by Alibaba Cloud public cloud in a centralized manner
- Provide O&M similar to Alibaba Cloud public cloud
- Alibaba Cloud installs and deploys infrastructure, and performs O&M on infrastructure
O&M Free
- Small-scale deployment requires low cost
- Standardized delivery requires a short period of time
- Purchase of cloud services instead of hardware devices requires low cost
Cost-effective
The preceding benefits make CloudBox suitable for scenarios such as on-premises data processing, data security, and multiple branches that have low latency. For more information, see Scenarios.
On-premises data processing
Suitable for scenarios in which data cannot be transferred to Alibaba Cloud public cloud for processing because of bandwidth, cost, data volume, and time limit.
Sample scenarios: AI model training, rendering, and data analysis of traffic videos.
Low Latency
Suitable for scenarios in which on-premises devices need to interact with applications in near real-time.
Sample scenarios: industrial parks, industrial manufacturing, and warehouse management.
Data security
Suitable for scenarios in which data must be deployed in industrial parks, data centers, or regions to meet regulatory, compliance, and security requirements.
ample scenarios: industry associations, airlines, and hospitals.
Multi-branch collaboration
Suitable for scenarios in which centralized O&M is required to reduce costs because IT infrastructure is distributed in different regions or regions that are not convenient for O&M.
Sample scenarios: intelligent community and factory.
Service architecture
Features
- On-premises deployment and data audit capabilities
After CloudBox is deployed on the on-premises data center and connected to Alibaba Cloud public cloud over the network of CloudBox (physical connections or the Internet), CloudBox can meet your business requirements for data security and low latency and provide exclusive resources. Alibaba Cloud supports data audit for CloudBox network connections and third-party security audit to provide secure on-premises cloud services.
- Hyper-converged technology to reduce processing costs
CloudBox uses the SHENLONG architecture of Alibaba Cloud public cloud based on the computing, storage, and network hyper-convergence technologies and reuses the central management and control capabilities of Alibaba Cloud public cloud. CloudBox can be sold in a single rack to reduce costs.
- Extension of Alibaba Cloud public cloud to provide consistent cloud service experience
CloudBox supports O&M and deployment tools, APIs, and full lifecycle management of instances that are provided by Alibaba Cloud public cloud. This provides cloud service experience that is the same as the experience provided by Alibaba Cloud public cloud. You can seamlessly migrate your business code that runs on on-premises devices to Alibaba Cloud public cloud with lower learning costs. You can also migrate business code that runs on Alibaba Cloud public cloud to CloudBox.
- Buy out-of-the-box and fully managed cloud services on-demandCloudBox provides infrastructure such as computing, storage, and network. Alibaba Cloud is responsible for the installation, deployment, and O&M of the infrastructure. You can purchase cloud services on demand. The following section describes the cloud services that are supported by CloudBox:
- Cloud services, such as computing resources and Elastic Block Storage (EBS), are deployed with CloudBox hardware.
- Cloud services of Alibaba Cloud public cloud, such as Security Center and Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS), can be reused.
For more information, see Services that work with CloudBox.
Billing rules
Use CloudBox
- Purchase: You can select CloudBox resources in the Alibaba Cloud console and submit an order.
- Delivery: Alibaba Cloud conducts a data center site survey to install and deploy CloudBox.
- Use: You accept CloudBox and start using cloud services.
- Unsubscription: If you no longer need to use CloudBox, terminate the service after it expires or apply for unsubscription in advance.