Bare Metal as a Service Software
Overview
In computing, Bare-Metal-as-a-Service Software (or BMaaS) is a type of Software used by Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) for implementing a variant of Infrastructure as a Service, often called Bare-metal-as-a-Service[1][2][3][4][5][6] or Bare Metal Cloud[7][8], either for commercial use or private use by deploying it on-premises.
A BMaaS Software will deploy bare metal servers for tenants by provisioning operating systems onto physical hardware, allocating IPs, performing switch port configurations in order to isolate tenants, performing storage appliance configurations and others. Users (or tenants) of a BMaaS service would deploy their own dedicated infrastructures, isolated from a security perspective and would be able to deploy their own hypervisors, either for commercial use or private use by deploying it on-premises [9][10][11].
BMaaS software aims to simplify hardware management and enable its as-a-service consumption. It handles primarily the layer below a hyper-converged or container-based solution. It often collaborates with the layers above through integrations such as the Kubernetes cluster autoscaler [12].
Use in data centers
BMaaS software typically takes over the lifecycle management of the equipment in a datacenter: Compute, Storage and Network Switches, Firewalls, Loadbalancers and others. It enables datacenter operators to offload much of the manual work typically associated with deploying hardware. It also reduces waste by simplifying reuse and increases security by implementing automatic cleanup and automatic segmentation between tenants at the network level. Increasingly BMaaS software is used internally to reduce the costs associated with lifecycle management of equipment at scale. Enterprises that have large fleets of servers and many datacenters aim to benefit from fully automating hardware in order to reduce time to market, improve SLAs, reduce human error and reduce operational costs.[13]
Use in Edge computing
Due to the scale of deployments, full automation is used to remotely deploy both hardware and software. BMaaS software is often used to deploy the hardware part of the edge nodes and edge network.[14] [15]
History
One of the forefathers of bare metal provisioning is Cobbler_(software) that appeared in the 1990s and was using the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) protocol. Since then various cloud providers have been building their own in-house stacks in order to offer variants of dedicated servers or bare metal cloud offerings such as:
- April 2015 OpenStack Ironic component was launched as part of the Kilo release.[16]
- March 2020, Equinix acquired bare metal cloud provider Packet for $335 million.[17]
- May 2020 Packet released a part of their stack as Tinkerbell[18]
- June 2020 MetalSoft was launched to commercialize the Stack behind Bigstep Cloud.[19]
Examples
Examples of BMaaS Software both open-source and commercial:
- OpenStack Ironic (Open Source)
- Canonical_(company) MaaS (Open Source)
- MetalSoft (Commercial)
- RackN DigitalRebar (Commercial)[20]
- Tinkerbell (OpenSource)[21]
- xCAT (OpenSource)
- RackHD (OpenSource)
- Cobbler (OpenSource)
- Foreman (OpenSource)
- Puppet Labs Razor (Commercial)
References
- ↑ "Making BMaaS more Efficient and Profitable" (pdf). intel.com. 2021-09-21.
- ↑ "The benefits of Bare-Metal-as-a-Service for fintech". itpro.co.uk. 2021-09-21.
- ↑ "Bare Metal: New Opportunities for Cloud Providers". atos.net. 2021-09-21.
- ↑ "Bare Metal as-a-Service, Powered by Pure". purestorage.com. 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Robin Solution for Bare Metal-as-a-Service". robin.io. 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Rackspace Bare-Metal-as-a-Service" (PDF). rackspace.com. 2021-09-01. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "What is Bare Metal Cloud". lightedge.com. 2019-05-06. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Zenlayer Bare Metal Cloud". zenlayer.com. 2021-09-21.
- ↑ Inukonda, Maruthi S & Mittal, Sparsh & Kottapalli, Sai Harsha. (2019). "A Solution Architecture of Bare-metal As A Service Cloud using Open-source Tools". doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.25057.45927.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ "What is bare-metal cloud?" (PDF). rackspace.com. 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Bare metal cloud vs. IaaS – are they the same thing?". redstation.com. 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Kubernetes Cluster Autoscaler implementation for Packet". github.com. 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Bare-Metal Servers Gain Momentum in the Data Center Market". datacenterfronier.com. 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Cloud Edge Computing: Beyond the Data Center". github.com. 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "How bare metal cloud is powering the telecommunications industry". redhat.com. 2021-10-15.
- ↑ "Kilo Release Schedule". equinix.com. 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Equinix Completes Acquisition of Bare Metal Leader Packet". equinix.com. 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Open Sourcing Tinkerbell". equinix.com. 2021-05-04. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "MetalSoft Launches Intelligent Bare Metal Automation Platform to Support Cloud Native Workloads". equinix.com. 2020-06-23. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "RackN Digital Rebar". RackN Digital Rebar. 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- ↑ "Tinkerbell". Tinkerbell.org. 2021-11-22. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
External Links
- Canonical MaaS
- MetalSoft
- Cisco UCS Director
- RackN Digital Rebar
- Equinix Metal
- xCAT
- Puppet Labs razor
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