Making Hybrid and Multi-cloud Applications a Reality with Anthos

Recently, Google launched Anthos platform in its Cloud Next Conference and since then it has been the talk of the town!

With Anthos, users can now run applications on-premise in Microsoft Azure, AWS (Amazon Web Services) and with other providers, and not just
Google Cloud. It happens to be the tech giant’s official entry into
the enterprise data centres.

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai says that the platform is designed with the “write once and run anywhere” notion.

Let’s see what all Anthos can really do for hybrid and multi-cloud
applications:

What is Anthos?

Anthos is a ground-breaking enterprise-grade hybrid and multi-cloud platform developed by Google. It is not a sole product, rather like an
umbrella platform encompassing various micro-services and containers.
These services are all about multi-cloud and hybrid cloud management,
cloud migration, and so on. 

Anthos is an open-source platform built upon GKE that is responsible for containers service of Google Cloud. The biggest advantage of the Anthos platform is that the user won’t be limited to a specific cloud vendor.

But by far, its documentation in the public cloud seems to be
inadequate. 

How does Anthos work?

Anthos allows the user to build, deploy and manage their applications with
different cloud providers, all in a secure environment. It lets you
modernize existing applications running on third-party clouds, whilst
building and deploying cloud-native apps on containers in a
multi-cloud and hybrid cloud domain.

The Anthos platform provides a consistent and secure experience for the development and management of all your deployed apps. This in return also enhances developer productivity and reduces operational overhead
costs. That’s because your developers or admins don’t need to
study functionalities and APIs related to the new cloud, but rather
just Google’s. 

Building Blocks of Anthos

Anthos is built upon Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) which acts as its core
command and control center. GKE along with other significant
components is what really makes Anthos more powerful and efficient in
performance. 

Google Kubernetes Engine

GKE lies at the core of the Anthos platform. With the GKE control panel,
users can manage their entire deployed infrastructure in Google Cloud
or other cloud platforms.

From switching between cloud and on-premise to monitoring applications,
deploying patches, and so on, GKE takes care of it all. It operates
on Container-Optimized OS designed exclusively for Kubernetes. Plus,
the inbuilt dashboard is where you get to manage the resources.

Apart from GKE, other vital components of Anthos are as follows:

GKE On-Premise

The tech behemoth Google is offering a software platform based upon GKE. 

With GKE On-premise service, users can run this platform on any compatible hardware, while its management will be under Google’s hold. Google will handle K8s security patches and the latest version updates.

Cloud Console allows you to manage your on-premise deployments and its
related clusters. Know that GKE On-Premise runs as a virtual
appliance on VMware vSphere 6.5 and the support for other hypervisors
such as Hyper-V and KVM are still in progress.

Istio

Google’s Service Mesh viz. Istio service enables fully managed service meshes to secure service communications, handle mesh telemetry, network management and other such micro-services architectures across the platform. Basically, it acts as an Ansible that brings together different components spread throughout third-party clouds, data centers and GCP. 

Velostrata

Velostrata is a P2K (material to Kubernetes) cloud migration tool developed by Google. It was built to enhance Kubernetes by converting existing VMs
into Kubernetes applications as well as streaming on-premise clouds
and physical machines to create clones in GCE instances.

Anthos Migrate has inherited the same capabilities as in Velostrata, but it
is still in beta.

Anthos Config Management

Users dealing with several Kubernetes deployments operating in
cross-section environments will find Anthos Config Management
extremely convenient. With this service, the user can apply
configuration and handle various deployment clusters at the same
time. Also, it allows for rapid app development across hybrid
container platforms.

All in all, it is a secure, well-equipped central cache for better
administration and configuration.

Stackdriver

This service is solely dedicated to the monitoring of Anthos infrastructure as well as its applications. It acts as a core logging, tracking and
monitoring system where users can keep track of different clusters
throughout the Anthos. Not just that, you can also get to know the
status of individual apps within each group.

GCP Cloud Interconnect 

Cloud Interconnect is capable of clocking speed in the 100 Gbps range,
which is why it can be utilized for high-speed communication between
cloud frameworks and enterprise data centers. Not only that, but
customers can also choose to utilize Telco networks to connect data
centers to GCP.

GCP (Google Cloud Platform) Marketplace

GCP Marketplace enables users to deploy applications from a marketplace
of open-source applications and ISVs that are Kubernetes compatible.
These containerized applications are ready-to-use for quick
development and deployments.

Here you will find lifecycle management tools, databases and various
products that can run On-premise, in clouds, on Anthos and even on
other platforms involving Kubernetes clusters.

Such containerized applications improve user productivity, as they can
focus more on development instead of initial setups. All of these
applications include solid support and maintenance services and are
highly secure.

GKE Hub

GKE Hub is a networking component of Google Anthos. It features GCP
Console through which you can integrate GKE On-premise clusters with
Google Cloud Services Platform. Users can check their work-related
data and Kubernetes cluster data through GKE dashboards. 

Google Anthos: Enterprise Ready 

Kubernetes seems to be a hi-tech complex platform, supposed to be managed by tech-whiz developers and admins. But Google took a step forward to discard this notion with the launch of Anthos- a platform that is
enterprise-grade, secure and reliable for multi-cloud and hybrid
cloud management. 

Make Modern Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Applications a Reality with Anthos

When enterprises consider cloud migration for their workloads and
applications, the first choices they turn to are Microsoft Azure and
AWS. But Google Anthos is here to change the way enterprises approach
the cloud migration process. This open-source cloud computing
platform works across multi-cloud environments, so it is a key tool
for enterprises opting for hybrid cloud deployments and application
migration.

Anthos is a fully-managed hybrid cloud platform that can handle application deployments across public clouds and even on-premise with consistent policies. Enterprises can modernize their existing applications,
build and deploy new apps and securely run them on any platform
of their choice. Due to this, developers and admins don’t need to
learn different APIs and environments other than Google’s.

With Anthos Migrate, organizations can also automatically migrate their VM (virtual machine) apps to GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine). These apps
can be run and efficiently managed through GKE with the help of Istio
service mesh component.