Hyper-converged infrastructure solutions help simplify IT for SMEs.
IT is equal parts challenge and opportunity for small to midsize enterprises (SMEs). These organizations stand to benefit greatly from tools and services that automate routine tasks, enhance service delivery and improve productivity. However, the increasing complexity of IT is keeping SMEs from implementing new solutions or taking full advantage of the technology they have.
According to Gartner analysts, every 25 percent increase in functionality results in a 100 percent increase in complexity. More complexity means more time spent on repetitive tasks that keep the lights on and offer no real business value.
The old 80/20 rule still applies, as 80 percent of resources go to caring for technology while the remaining 20 percent go to strategic initiatives. This helps to explain why it takes so long to roll out new services. According to IDC, it takes an average of 25 days to deploy a new service and five to six months to deploy new application infrastructure.
What Is Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) has emerged to help organizations overcome these challenges. Hyper-convergence has been referred to as “infrastructure in a box” because compute, storage, networking and virtualization are tightly integrated into a single solution and managed through a common interface. Configuration and testing are handled in advance by the vendor, which shortens deployment times and accelerates ROI.
When more resources are required, organizations simply add nodes that are automatically identified and integrated into the cluster. This modular architecture makes hyper-convergence easy to scale. While older HCI solutions required parallel scaling of compute and storage, newer platforms enable independent scaling of these resources.
HCI solutions are software-defined, meaning that resources are virtualized rather than delivered through hardware appliances. This allows resources to be pooled and allocated as needed. Functionality such as data de-duplication, compression, backup, snapshots, disaster recovery and WAN optimization can also be included in an HCI solution and managed through the same interface.
Benefits of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Legacy IT infrastructure typically involves a wide range of tools that have been pieced together over time. Hyper-convergence allows organizations to replace this complex collection of technology with a simple, flexible solution. SMEs can then manage HCI without highly specialized technical expertise while dedicating more time to high-value business tasks.
The inherent simplicity of hyper-convergence is particularly valuable to SMEs and branch locations. Implementation of new infrastructure is faster, and the cost of purchasing, installing, deploying and maintaining infrastructure is dramatically reduced. HCI also reduces your data center footprint, which brings down power and cooling costs and frees up physical space.
Unlike converged infrastructure, the components of an HCI system are so tightly integrated that they cannot be separated to function independently. This virtually eliminates the risk of compatibility issues and allows for the pooling and sharing of data center resources based on business need.
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Use Cases
Traditionally, HCI solutions have been used for virtual desktop infrastructure because of their ability to scale up or down easily. HCI is also valuable for backup and disaster recovery, enabling fast data restoration and the ability to fail over to the HCI platform in the event of an outage.
As HCI has evolved, use cases have expanded. Today, HCI is widely used for workload consolidation, hybrid IT solutions, and application development and testing. Because it is compact and easy to manage, HCI is ideal for edge data center deployments. Increasingly powerful HCI systems are even being used for enterprise applications, big data analytics and other demanding workloads.
SMEs need simpler IT infrastructure and management if they’re ever going to spend less time keeping the lights on and more time on initiatives that deliver competitive advantages. Hyper-converged infrastructure provides enterprise-class infrastructure in a simple, highly scalable solution.
