Clients often ask us about the benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). They have heard the term, and are often unsure if it is the right solution for them. They wonder will it address the issues they are having with their legacy infrastructure and if HCI will deliver what they need. Here we talk about some frequently asked questions and outline the benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure.
What is a hyperconverged infrastructure?
Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) is an IT framework that solves a number of datacentre pain points with one single appliance. Separate servers, storage networks, and storage arrays can be replaced with a single Hyperconverged storage solution to create an agile datacentre that easily scales with your business.
How does a hyperconverged infrastructure work?
A hyperconverged platform consists of four integrated software components:
- Storage virtualisation
- Network virtualisation
- Compute virtualisation
- Advanced automated management capabilities
Hyperconverged software-defined infrastructure, virtualises all elements of the traditional hardware stack. It separates infrastructure software from the system hardware and converges them at the hypervisor level. This gives you a single, scalable building block or node. You can cluster several nodes together to create pools of shared compute and storage resources. These pools can be dynamically balanced and allocated to deliver the right amount of capacity, performance and protection needed by a virtual machine to run business applications. This leads to greater efficiency and convenient consumption.
What are the benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure?
There are many benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure but the following are the key benefits:
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Simplified IT management
Hyperconverged is easier to manage than legacy environments. It combines compute, networking and storage in one single cluster. Traditional siloed expertise is no longer needed. You only have to deal with one supplier who has oversight of your entire system.
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Reduced IT and energy costs
Moving to a Hyperconverged Infrastructure delivers strategic cost savings. Not only is IT spend reduced but you will see improvements in innovation and resource utilisation. HCI delivers faster application deployment, better hardware utilisation and reduced licensing costs.
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Backup is included
At ProCloud we recommend HPE's SimpliVity platform which consolidates backup and software into a single architecture, encompassing all the features of a legacy backup appliance. This single integrated system makes it easier to create and manage VMs using existing VMware vCenter web interface. Again you are dealing with a single vendor. It also ensures that backup and restore occurs every minute and allows you recover your entire datacentre in the cloud without ever running a traditional backup or replicating data the way you would in a typical DR scenario.
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Reduces the workload for technical and IT teams
Organisations that move to a hyperconverged infrastructure see a significant reduction in the demands placed on internal IT teams. A traditional datacentre needs storage, compute and networking specialists. With HCI, a smaller team can be trained to handle specific equipment which can help reduce the overall costs of your IT team. It also frees up resources to focus on innovation and strategic business development.
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Improves sustainability
HCI significantly reduces the datacentre footprint and in turn its carbon footprint. Reducing the number of servers reduces energy demands for power consumption and cooling. This in turn lowers CO2 emissions and aids an organisations corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Is a hyperconverged infrastructure right for your organisation?
For our clients, certain triggers have proved key to their decision to move to a hyperconverged infrastructure. Some have reuqired a datacentre refresh as a result of a merger, acquisition or aging infrastructure. For clients in growth and expansion mode the easy flexibility and scalability of HCI has proved critical to their decision. Networking, security and audit requirements have led others to move to a hyperconverged solution. We have looked at why you should choose a hyperconverged infrastructure in another article here.
The increased efficiency and reduced costs of HPE SimpliVity has made it the obvious choice for ProCloud to recommend. As an accredited HPE Gold Partners we are delighted to be among one of the few vendors in Ireland able to bring the HPE SimpliVity solution to our clients.
Are you are dealing with any of these issues? Would like to know if a hyperconverged infrastructure is the best solution for your business? Get in touch with Paul Tiernan and his team at ProCloud, we are happy to have a call with you to discuss how we can help you.
