As innovation has evolved, our relationship with technology has been narrowing. Every year we dedicate more hours to the screens, and not only do the purchase virtually, but also entertain ourselves, we study, do business, friends and even know our partners in the digital world. If we stick to the figures provided by the National Institute of Statistics 1 we see that in Spain the use of the Internet has increased by 37% in the last decade as well as the use of electronic commerce has tripled.
This digital boom, so present in our day to day, is largely based on a often invisible technology: virtualization. Since its inception in the 60s, when it was developed to optimize the use of systems, virtualization has become the base on which modern technological infrastructure has been built.
The AI in the hybrid cloud
By allowing the creation of multiple virtual environments from a single physical resource, not only revolutionized the management of business data centers, optimizing resources and reducing costs, but also became the catalyst in the phenomenon of cloud computing. Without its ability to abstract hardware, the promise of the cloud, that is, access to computer resources on demand, scalable and ubiquitous, would not have been possible.
And precisely this ubiquity of the cloud, driven by virtualization, is the one that has allowed us to initially face the following great wave of innovation: the containers, by the hand of Kubernetes, which has allowed further optimizing the cost and operation of applications both in the public and private cloud. Now, sheltered by Kubernetes, new possibilities are opened to simplify the adoption of the next wave, artificial intelligence (AI).
IA requires flexibility and scalability, but also a fluid integration with inherited systems generally supported in kubernetes, although in many cases, they continue to reside in virtual machines. It is there where, thanks to the Kubevirt project, a giant step has been taken, which liberalizes the management of virtual machines allowing its execution in containers, providing freedom of choice to both traditional applications and new solutions to the AI solutions at the same time that the life cycle of applications and models is unified and simplified thanks to mlops, the natural evolution of Devsecops specialized in the environments.
The coexistence of virtualization and containers promotes the adoption of AI in the hybrid cloud
Many organizations depend on virtual machines to execute critical workloads, and these virtualized environments are essential to maintain stability while IA applications are scaled. In fact, the combination of virtual machines and containers in hybrid cloud environments is unlocking new levels of operational efficiency, especially in AI implementations on containers.
In this context, it is vital to encourage solutions that allow the coexistence of virtual machines and work loads of hybrid cloud environments. This strategy allows companies to modernize at their own pace, without having to abandon existing investments. Either processing in compact containers, which allow sharing and optimizing the use of the expensive hardware resources necessary for AI, or integrating traditional virtual machines into these same environments when necessary. This unified approach is raiding the way for a smarter and more adaptable infrastructure.
Although the future points towards a greater adoption of containers and kubernetes, virtualization will not disappear in the short term. In fact, we are witnessing an evolution where both models live together and complement each other. The challenge is to manage both environments efficiently within a unified platform. The key is in integration, in the ability to orchestrate workloads, whether in virtual machines or containers, fluently and under a single administration frame. This hybrid approach, which takes advantage of the best of both worlds, is the one that will allow Spanish companies, and the rest of the world, make the most of the transformative potential of artificial intelligence and the cloud, public or private.
