Gartner likens composable infrastructures to a structure made of simple building blocks. This modular structure is flexible and can be modified quickly to meet new demand, traffic spikes, material production problems, or supply chain challenges.
Composability is increasingly available. Janakiram MSV, analyst at Janakiram & Associates, says that composability was difficult, costly, and proprietary a decade ago. Failing to make the necessary changes can be costly in this environment. It has the advantage of agility and produces results in both short- and long-term.
‘A Lego brick-like approach’
Composable infrastructure relies on containerization–packaging software individually with just its required OS components–and allows IT to make large and small changes quickly and easily across a common architecture. Kubernetes is a container management tool that IT uses to manage and automate containers.
Kubernetes is an open source platform that unifies the solution into a single pool of resources. IT can modify or swap containers with little to no impact on the ecosystem. Janakiram says containers are a Lego brick-like way to manage infrastructure and applications. “Thanks to open source, Kubernetes has emerged as a universal gold standard for container management.”
By making change simpler, a composable approach reduces technical debt–the cost of extra technical work when teams use shortcuts to meet deadlines, prioritizing speed over design. Janakiram says that composability is a key benefit. “The ability to selectly upgrade, manage and scale individual components are the key benefits of composability.”
A new technical paradigm
Modernizing, based on composable architectural, places legacy software in container units. Modifications at the component level can be made to improve or decrease scale, as well as bug fixes. You can add or remove features in a modular manner.
Splitting infrastructure into smaller building blocks allows you to reuse components for multiple purposes. For example, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies use multitenant applications–where a single instance of software is used by multiple separate customers–for different personas. Janakiram states that multitenant applications can help companies save money and increase performance.
Companies can create multi-tenant environments for one client by using containers. Janakiram explains that multitenant applications can be architected for different customers and personas. This allows for significant cost and performance savings.
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