Overview

What Is CCI

Cloud Container Instance (CCI) is a serverless container engine that allows you to run containers without creating or managing server clusters.

In the serverless model, a cloud provider runs servers and dynamically allocates resources so that you can build and run applications without having to worry about server statuses. This model helps you improve development efficiency and reduce IT costs. Traditionally, to run containerized workloads using Kubernetes, you need to create a Kubernetes server cluster first.

That is not the case with CCI. Under the serverless model, CCI allows you to directly create and use containerized workloads on the console or by using kubectl or Kubernetes APIs, and pay only for the resources consumed by these workloads.

Figure 1 Using CCI

Functions

One-stop Container Lifecycle Management

CCI allows you to run containers without creating or managing server clusters. With the serverless model, you can directly create and use containerized workloads on the console or by using kubectl or Kubernetes APIs, and pay only for the resources consumed by these workloads.

Various Compute Resources

CCI provides multiple types of compute resources, including CPUs, and GPUs (NVIDIA Tesla V100 and NVIDIA Tesla T4), to run containers.

Heterogeneous Network Access

Various network access modes and load balancing (layer-4 and layer-7) are available to meet scenario-specific needs.

Choices of Persistent Storage Volumes

Data can be stored in various cloud storage volumes, including Elastic Volume Service (EVS), Scalable File Service (SFS), Object Storage Service (OBS), and SFS Turbo.

Fast Auto Scaling

Scaling policies can be user-defined to implement elastic scaling within 1 second. In addition, these policies can be combined flexibly to cope with traffic surge during peak hours.

Comprehensive Container Status Monitoring

CCI monitors the resources consumed by containers, including the CPU, memory, GPU, and GPU memory usage, from which you can determine the running status of the containers in real time.

Architecture

CCI integrates heterogeneous Kubernetes clusters and Huawei Cloud network and storage services, enabling you to easily create and use containerized workloads using the console, kubectl, or Kubernetes APIs.

Figure 2 Architecture

• CCI is deeply integrated with cloud services, including network (VPC/ELB/NAT) and storage (EVS/OBS/SFS) services.
• CCI supports high-performance and heterogeneous computing architectures such as x86, GPU, and Ascend so that containers directly run on physical servers.
• CCI uses Kata containers and its own virtualization acceleration technology to implement VM-level isolation, thereby providing high-performance and secure container services.
• With unified cluster management and workload scheduling, you do not need to manage clusters.
• The Kubernetes-based workload model provides fast workload deployment, elastic load balancing, auto scaling, and blue-green release.