Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: A Guide - Sharpecopy

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Hyper-Converged Infrastructure—The New Normal?Yes, IT leaders are recognizing that their datacenter infrastructures need to be agile. They areslowly understanding that legacy infrastructureand operations practices and traditional datacenter architectures are not keeping pace withthe need for innovation and faster times tomarket that their internal customers demand.And, yes, some organizations are looking tohyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) to meettheir demand for agility.But many organizations are reluctant to moveaway from traditional three-tiered architectures.They simply respond to new business demandsthe same old way. They applydecade-old approaches built on three-tieredarchitectures supported by manual approacheson each management layer. This leads to longimplementation cycles and a rockylong-term foundation.So why are some organizations embracing HCIwhile others aren’t? Because they havequestions. Questions like, What is it? Who is usingit? How do I know if I need it? Where do I evenstart?This is why we wrote this guide—to answer thefive most common questions about HCI—theWhat, Why, Who and When and the How ofputting compute, storage and networking inone software-driven appliance.Got questions about making HCI work for yourorganization?Read on to get your answers.“Hyper-converged Systems will bethe fastest-growing segment of theoverall market for integrated systems,reaching almost 5 billion, which is 24percent of the market, by 2019.”- GartnerHyper-Converged Infrastructure01

What ishyper-converged infrastructure?Before we talk about why you might need it,let’s first define what “it” is. Hyper-convergedinfrastructure combines compute, storageand networking in a software-drivenappliance. In doing so, it reduces datacenter complexity and increases scalability.4. Software-defined storageHyper-converged platforms include: hyper-visor for virtualized computing software-defined storage virtualized networking5. Data protectionHyper-converged offers five benefits1. AgilityOrganizations today not only need to createvirtualized systems to support new workloads.They also need to provide the flexibility togrow, shrink and move workloads as needed.In a hyper-converged infrastructure,compute, memory, disk and networkingreside under a single administrative umbrella.Creating new servers and migratingworkloads is simple and quick.Storage in a hyper-converged infrastructureis defined by software. Storage nodes act asone reliable and redundant pool of storage.If one node goes down, the remaining nodesare unaffected.Hyper-convergence delivers object-level andfile-level restoration of databases likeMicrosoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange,giving organizations the ability to restore dataquickly and easily.2. AffordabilityHyper-convergence reduces infrastructurecosts. That’s because there is less equipmentto purchase, maintain and support. Plus, therecurring costs of supporting ahyper-converged data center are lower.3. ScalabilityHyper-converged infrastructure is based onnodes, which makes scaling a data center alot simpler. Simply add or subtract nodes tomatch resource demand.Hyper-convergence translates into quick andsimple deployments, with virtual machines upand running within 15 minutes.Hyper-Converged Infrastructure02

Why are organizations migrating tohyper-converged infrastructure?Forward-thinking organizations are deployinghyper-converged infrastructure because of itssimplicity, ease of management, and costsavings over traditional data centerarchitectures. The main driver behind thisadoption? A cliff.Savvy IT leaders are looking at major refreshcycles and end-of-life scenarios—namelyvSphere 5.5, Windows Server 2008 and SQLServer—as the catalyst for modernizing theirdata centers. They see the cliff as more than justsoftware, and they’re doing something to avoidgoing over it. They are treating theseend-of-life scenarios as a reason for movingaway from three-tiered architectures towardsarchitectures that match their need for agilityand scalability.For IT leaders who are modernizing their datacenters, HCI delivers the agility of cloudinfrastructure without surrendering control ofon-premise hardware. Hyper-convergedinfrastructure is more flexible and simpler tomanage than legacy solutions. It reduces thesize of data’s footprint by combining storage,networking, compute and back up into asingular unit. A unit that is controlled by a pieceof software, which virtualises each of thesecomponents.Hyper-Converged Infrastructure03

Who is migrating tohyper-converged infrastructure?Yes, IT leaders are recognizing that their datacenter infrastructures need to be agile. They areslowly understanding that legacy infrastructureand operations practices and traditional datacenter architectures are not keeping pacewith the need for innovation and faster times tomarket that their internal customers demand.Another workload suited to HCI is hostingtier-one applications. Hyper-convergedplatforms deliver the high availability thatorganizations need for mission-critical workloads.Plus, hyper-converged infrastructure typicallyincludes storage redundancy and the ability tomirror entire nodes or clusters.Some IT administrators and managers are notdeploying HCI. They have theirreasons: “Buying hardware is not in our budget.””We don’t see the need to move away fromthe trusted three-tier model.””We have too many competing inititives.”“We lack the staff and expertise to makesense of all the options available.””We haven’t calculated the total cost ofownership, but we guess it’ll be too high.”Organizations are also migrating their testingand development environments tohyper-converged infrastructure. Testing anddevelopment environments must mirrorproduction environments if tests are to reflectthe way code behaves. Hyper-convergenceworks well in testing and developmentenvironments because HCI systems containcompute, network and storage resources. Plus, ithas the added benefit of discoursing shadow ITbecause it can be provisioned quickly,on-premise.Organizations that have branch offices are alsomigrating to hyper-converged infrastructurebecause of its modular design and ease ofdeployment. An administrator who works inhead office can manage branch officeinfrastructure as easily as if it were local.Hyper-Converged Infrastructure04

When is a good time to explorehyper-converged infrastructure?If deploying HCI makes sense, you’re likely thinking about timing. How do you know when to makethe switch? Unfortunately, when it comes to the advances in HCI and the many options available,most IT departments aren’t equipped to evaluate what’s right for their environment and theapplications that need to be supported. That’s why many of them get stuck and revert to the “buildyour own” status quo.Here are some guidelines for deciding when you should switch to HCI:Major software upgrade: You have no choicebut to upgrade to the latest versions of vSphere5.5, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server. Youmust make these investments. But consideringhow HCI fits into these upgrades is a wise move.After all, why upgrade your software based onan out-of-date infrastructure model? If you’reupgrading your software, why not upgrade yourdata center infrastructure at the same time, andunlock all the benefits of hyper-convergedinfrastructure?Hybrid IT: As most IT leaders now realize, ahybrid cloud architecture is the new normal. Toget there, organizations are leveraging legacydata center hardware investments to supportmore efficient application delivery. Formainstream workloads, HCI is perfect fordelivering applications on a purpose-builtsystem to quickly “leapfrog” end of life datacenter technology.Aging hardware: Some organizations are slowlyreplacing aging virtualization hosts with HCIboxes. All hardware eventually becomesobsolete, and many organizations haveadjusted their hardware end-of-life plans toinclude the purchase of a hyper-convergedsystem in lieu of a hardware upgrade.Hyper-Converged Infrastructure05

How do you migrate tohyper-converged infrastructure?If HCI sounds like a good fit for yourorganization, you are likely wondering whatto do next. After all, how do you moveforward with so many competing initiatives,limited resources and expertise, and so manyoptions available?As a starting point, you should collect anduse data to determine the life span of yourexisting assets, then use this information toplan for a long-term solution. Where possible,continue to leverage existing resources andplot the course towards a modernarchitecture by expanding virtualizationthroughout your data center infrastructure.Next, evaluate purpose-built solutions thatintegrate infrastructure and managementsystems by leveraging HCI, allowing IT to reapfaster results and the full benefits ofautomation.Adopting a methodical lets you make gooduse of legacy investments while steadilytransitioning to the modern solutions andprocesses necessary to support your businessinto the future.About ArubasenseArubasense is an IT solution and managedservice provider. Every day, dozens oforganizations rely on Arubasense toprovide insight and expertise that speedsthe adoption of technology, whilemanaging cost and risk.Hyper-Converged Infrastructure11 - 1 Any StToronto ON M2H 2HCanadawww.arubasense.com@arubasense1 800 123-456706

Hyper-converged platforms deliver the high availability that organizations need for mission-critical workloads. Plus, hyper-converged infrastructure typically includes storage redundancy and the ability to mirror entire nodes or clusters. Organizations are also migrating their testing and development environments to hyper-converged infrastructure.