Hyperconvergence Technology: Understanding Hyperconverged Infrastructure

| Dimitri Antonenko Last updated 2 Apr, 2023

Hyperconvergence Technology: A relatively new method of managing IT infrastructure, hyperconvergence infrastructure technology (HCI), has gained prominence in recent years. It creates an integrated system from virtualization, networking, storage, and computation resources.

By doing away with the need for separate, specialized systems for each of these roles, HCI is intended to simplify IT administration, save costs, and increase performance.

On this page:

What is Hyperconvergence Infrastructure (HCI)?
Components of Hyperconverged Infrastructure
Advantages of Hyperconvergence Infrastructure
Use Cases of Hyperconvergence Infrastructure
Future of Hyperconvergence Technology
Challenges and Considerations
Best Practices for Deploying HCI
What should you consider before choosing Hyperconverged Infrastructure?

What is Hyperconvergence Infrastructure (HCI)?

Hyperconvergence infrastructure technology describes an IT architecture that combines the essential elements of a data center into a single, software-defined system.

These elements include virtualization, networking, storage, and compute. By consolidating all essential resources into a single, simple-to-manage platform, this strategy aims to make maintaining IT infrastructure less complicated.

Purpose of Hyperconvergence Technology

HCI’s main goals are to streamline IT operations and save expenses. Organizations may do away with the requirement for separate, specialized systems for each purpose by integrating the essential elements of a data center into a single integrated system.

As a result, managing IT infrastructure becomes simpler, and maintaining and updating various systems is less expensive.

Brief History of Hyperconvergence Technology

With the introduction of software-defined storage (SDS) in the early 2010s enabled the idea of hyperconvergence to develop. SDS made it possible to separate storage hardware and software, which facilitated the creation of hyperconverged systems.

Since the introduction of the first HCI systems in 2012, the technology has developed to encompass increasingly sophisticated features and capabilities.

Hyperconvergence infrastructure technology is being used by businesses of all sizes and in a wide range of sectors.

Components of Hyperconverged Infrastructure

A simplified and integrated IT infrastructure is made possible by hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), which consists of a number of important components.

Some of these elements include computing, networking, storage, virtualization, and management software.

Computing

The physical servers that make up the system are referred to as the computing component of HCI. The workloads that these servers are built to handle include virtualization, applications, and databases.

HCI systems often make use of x86-based servers that are ubiquitous in business data centers. These servers have high-performance CPUs, memory, and other hardware elements, enabling them to effectively manage complicated workloads.

Networking

The HCI networking component offers the connection necessary for the system’s various parts to interact with one another. This includes internal and exterior networking to link the HCI system to the outside world.

HCI systems often use high-speed Ethernet or fiber channel networks to provide quick and dependable component communication.

Storage

The storage component of HCI must provide the capacity and performance needed to store and retrieve data. HCI systems use software-defined storage (SDS) to decouple the logical storage layer from the physical storage hardware.

As a result, businesses may expand their storage capacity as necessary and manage it from a single interface. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are often used in HCI systems for performance and conventional hard disc drives (HDDs) for capacity.

Virtualization

The HCI virtualization component is in charge of developing and overseeing virtual machines (VMs). As a result, several operating systems and software programs may operate on a single physical server.

HCI systems use a hypervisor to produce and manage VMs. The underlying physical hardware is presented as a collection of virtual resources that may be assigned to VMs as required by the hypervisor, which abstracts it.

Management Software

The tools and interfaces needed to manage the whole system are provided by the management software element of HCI. Creating and administering virtual machines, keeping track of system performance, and setting up networking and storage are all included in this.

IT administrators may easily control the system without specialist expertise because of HCI management software’s generally user-friendly and intuitive design.

Advantages of Hyperconvergence Infrastructure

Compared to conventional IT infrastructure, hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) has a number of benefits.

Improved scalability and flexibility, streamlined management, enhanced performance, lower costs, and better resilience are a few of these.

Scalability and Flexibility: The scalability and flexibility of HCI are one of its main benefits. With HCI, businesses may quickly add or subtract resources as necessary to handle shifting workloads. This is due to the fact that HCI systems are intended to be very flexible and modular, enabling organizations to scale up or down as required without having to buy more hardware.
Simplified Management: By integrating the essential elements of a data center into a single, integrated system, HCI streamlines IT administration. As a result, maintaining the system is simpler for IT administrators since they only have to deal with one interface rather than juggling many dissimilar systems. Since all the data is kept in one location, HCI simplifies data backup and recovery.
Improved Performance: Solid-state drives (SSDs) and other high-performance components are used in HCI, which allows it to perform better than conventional IT infrastructure. These elements enhance application performance by enabling quicker data access and processing and quicker system responses.
Reduced Costs: By reducing the need for separate, specialized systems for each purpose, HCI may lower the expenses associated with IT infrastructure. Consequently, purchasing hardware, software, and maintenance and administration expenditures may be less expensive. As all the data is kept in one location, HCI may significantly lower the expenses associated with data backup and recovery.
Increased Resilience: By offering built-in redundancy and high availability, HCI may improve the resilience of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Data replication and automatic failover are two characteristics that HCI systems often include, helping to guarantee that the system keeps running even in the case of hardware or software problems. By doing this, downtime may be reduced, and users can continue to access important data and apps.

The Benefits of Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Cost savings and operational effectiveness are the two main reasons why businesses employ hyperconverged infrastructure. Businesses want to spend less on IT, and hyperconverged infrastructure is simpler to set up and manage. It’s less complicated than adding each of those point solutions to your overall system.

Businesses may grow their IT resources using HCI by adding more nodes as necessary. HCI offers a streamlined and centrally managed solution that lowers the expenses associated with IT procurement and deployment for businesses.

Small and medium-sized businesses, which often lack specialized IT personnel and have limited financial resources, may benefit the most. Reducing suppliers makes it easier to manage and administer purchases, and simplifying equipment reduces the total cost of ownership while saving energy, space, and cooling—all of which may be beneficial to businesses with tight margins.

HCI does away with the requirement for a server management team and personnel to maintain storage systems. HCI users may combine different IT teams and streamline data center operations. This may free up IT specialists to concentrate on more important business tasks.

Use Cases of Hyperconvergence Infrastructure

In many different sectors, hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) is used to execute a variety of workloads on a flexible and scalable platform.

HCI may enhance performance, save costs, and provide built-in data backup and security while also streamlining administration.

HCI is thus a strong choice for businesses wishing to update their IT infrastructure and boost their overall IT performance.

Typical usage scenarios include:

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

When it comes to provisioning and managing a large number of virtual desktops, HCI is perfect for VDI settings. For performing VDI workloads, HCI offers a scalable, high-performance platform with the flexibility to add or remove resources as required.

HCI may also streamline the provisioning, setup, and maintenance of VDI systems, saving time and effort.

Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO)

HCI works well in remote office/branch office (ROBO) settings where it’s important to deploy IT resources quickly and affordably. HCI offers a small, integrated platform that requires less IT assistance and may be set up in outlying areas.

HCI may also provide integrated data backup and protection, which is essential for maintaining business continuity in ROBO settings.

Private Cloud

When businesses must install and operate cloud services internally, HCI is a natural match for private cloud environments. HCI offers a scalable and adaptable platform that makes adding or removing resources as required for creating private clouds simple.

In order to guarantee the availability of crucial applications and data in private cloud settings, HCI may also include built-in functionality for data protection, backup, and disaster recovery.

DevOps

In DevOps situations, where rapid application development and deployment are essential, HCI is ideally suited. HCI offers a scalable, adaptable platform that is simple to provide and operate, enabling development teams to roll out new services and applications swiftly.

HCI may also provide a high-performance platform for performing test and development workloads, enabling development teams to swiftly and effectively test and verify new applications.

Big Data

When processing and analyzing enormous amounts of data, HCI is perfect for big data situations. Big data workloads may be executed on a high-performance platform with HCI that is simple to scale up or down as required.

HCI may also provide integrated data backup and protection, which is essential for guaranteeing the accessibility of crucial data in big data settings.

Future of Hyperconvergence Technology

The hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) technology is now in a state of fast growth.

HCI is anticipated to continue to be crucial to the future of IT as businesses seek to upgrade their IT infrastructure and improve their overall IT performance.

Here are a few trends and HCI-related future forecasts.

Hybrid Cloud

Integrating hybrid cloud environments is one of the newest HCI concepts. Although HCI systems function well in private clouds, more and more businesses are now seeking to deploy workloads in public clouds.

As a result, suppliers are creating HCI systems that can quickly shift workloads between private and public clouds by integrating them with public cloud environments.

Artificial Intelligence

Organizations are placing more emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), and HCI systems are well-suited for handling these workloads.

The high speed and scalability needed to handle massive volumes of data and build sophisticated models may be provided by HCI systems.

As a result, vendors are creating HCI systems tailored for AI and ML workloads.

Containers

HCI systems are ideally suited for handling containerized workloads since containers are becoming more and more widely used for deploying and managing applications.

HCI systems may provide the high performance, scalability, and flexibility needed to run workloads in containers as well as the simplicity of provisioning and managing containers.

Vendors are creating HCI systems that are designed for running workloads in containers as a result.

Edge Computing

As more devices and sensors are installed at the network’s edge, edge computing is becoming more crucial for businesses.

Since they can provide the high speed and scalability needed for processing and analyzing data at the edge, HCI systems are ideally suited to enabling edge computing.

As a result, companies are creating HCI systems with capabilities like integrated data security and low-latency networking that are tailored for edge computing.

Security

Organizations are increasingly emphasizing security, and HCI systems are ideally suited to provide safe platforms for carrying out crucial operations.

In order to provide a safe platform for executing crucial workloads, vendors are building HCI systems with built-in security features, including encryption, secure boot, and micro-segmentation.

Challenges and Considerations

Although hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) has numerous advantages, there are a number of difficulties and factors that need to be taken into account before HCI is implemented.

Cost: Specialized hardware and software make HCI systems more costly than typical IT infrastructure. In order to expand, organizations may need to buy additional resources. Thus, enterprises must assess the expense of HCI against its potential cost savings.
Complexity: HCI deployment and management are difficult. Multiple hardware and software components might complicate system configuration and maintenance. High integration may sometimes make troubleshooting and identifying faults harder. Thus, HCI systems may need specialist IT staff or training.
Compatibility: HCI systems may not support all applications and workloads. Legacy programs may need specific hardware or software to work on HCI systems. High-performance computing (HPC) tasks may need hardware not accessible in an HCI system.
Performance: HCI systems perform better than conventional IT infrastructure but have limits. HCI systems may not handle high-performance applications and workloads. The number of virtual machines, workloads, storage, and network resources might also affect performance.
Scalability: HCI systems are very scalable, yet scalability has limits. Future expansion may need pricey hardware purchases. HCI systems may also have virtual machine and workload limits.
Vendor lock-in: Since HCI systems are often highly integrated and proprietary, vendor lock-in may result. Organizations may find it challenging to migrate to a new system or move to a different provider without incurring substantial costs and effort. As a result, before deciding on an HCI system, companies should thoroughly assess the provider and product.

Best Practices for Deploying HCI

What is the most effective way for a business to employ HCI? There are several crucial steps in the process.

IT leaders must first educate themselves on the workloads they want to run on HCI. Once they understand the workloads, they should use this information to create a suitable HCI environment.

Enterprises should then go to the market and evaluate each option against those requirements. Several companies, including Dell EMC, HPE, Nutanix, Cisco Systems, and VMware, offer HCI solutions.

After evaluating and selecting the best partner, businesses should start planning the HCI implementation before purchasing and deploying hardware. Starting with a trial project that migrates a specific workload is also a good idea to gauge the success of subsequent migrations and validate the benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure.

What should you consider before choosing Hyperconverged Infrastructure?

There are a few things to think about before deciding on a hyperconverged platform that you may want to go through with your team and vendors.

1. Regular Management

Different hyperconverged infrastructure platforms have different management requirements. You must take into account how your team will use the platform on a daily basis in addition to the upfront costs of the equipment and the deployment fees.

How much training is required for your team to function at its best?
Will your staff be capable of understanding the operational requirements and guiding principles of the HCI platform?
Can you manage knowledge transfer and retraining when workers leave or change roles?

A standalone software is used by some infrastructure management systems, while others make use of the well-known VMware vSphere interface. Make sure you get a full explanation of how to use the system on a daily basis.

You will use your HCI platform for at least three years after it has been built. You should make sure you can handle it regularly and adjust it as your company changes. If you can’t complete the project internally, you could have to make unanticipated additional payments.

2. HCI & Business Continuity

Simple backup and disaster recovery are claimed to be one of the many benefits that HCI offers (DR). It is alluring to claim that your backups will be seamlessly integrated into your system without the need for extra tools and licenses.

This may be a waste of resources if you’re like most businesses. The hyperconverged systems’ backups are snapshot-only and fall short of various other backup requirements, including long-term archiving and compliance.

You will need to grasp how each HCI system handles backups thoroughly. Among the inquiries you need to make are the following:

How long can you retain backups with the available storage space?
What happens if your HCI system fails, and is it conceivable to lose all your backups?
Can you recover files, emails, and database objects at granular levels?

It would be wise to do as much research as possible to see if the backup solution included with the HCI platform suits your needs. Ensure you can carry out your business continuity plans and your regulatory and compliance duties.

You will still need a third-party solution if the hyperconverged infrastructure solution falls short of all of your backup and disaster recovery needs. Ensure your vendor supports the third-party solution you’re thinking about and is compatible with your HCI solution.

3. Technical Support

Support that is provided after the sale and the new infrastructure has been put in place is an essential part of the whole solution. Understanding your support options, costs, and processes upfront is crucial since hyperconvergence comes in a number of flavors.

Does the hyperconverged infrastructure supplier provide full hardware and software support? Or does the manufacturer provide hardware designed specifically for hyperconverged systems, with computing and storage equipment coming from other suppliers?

How happy are you with the hours of coverage that are offered?

Some hyperconverged infrastructure suppliers utilize a completely unique virtualization layer. Verify that the application providers will provide support and that your operating systems and applications are approved to run on these virtualization platforms.

4. Planning for Growth

The seller will often go over and above to get your business and will provide large price discounts. What happens if your system has to be scaled a few years from now?

At this point, pertinent inquiries to make include:

What are the steps to expand your compute, storage, (or both) on the platform? Does this require 3^rd part involvement, or can your team do it?
What are the costs per node to extend, and is more than one needed?
Can the maintenance of the current hyperconverged infrastructure and the newly purchased nodes be combined?
What are the growth triggers? When will you need to increase the system to gain more compute or storage resources?

Keep in mind that expanding your infrastructure could be expensive. In any case, you’ll need to invest in more networking, storage, processing, etc. Without discounts, it’s crucial to be aware that you may buy more of what you already own.

5. Identifying Performance Expectations

Use tools like VMware Aria Suite or Veeam’s VOne to examine all of your hosts, storage, and VMs to get a complete picture of how your systems are doing right now.

Plan for gradual expansion at the beginning to avoid having to expand the platform too quickly unless there is a strong business case.

Any workloads that you intend to migrate demand that you understand their performance requirements. Check to see that your vendor has assigned enough CPU cycles, IOPS, network speed, and storage space in the new environment.

You should carry out this action with each new infrastructure purchase. Develop a set of UAT (User Acceptance Testing) techniques and performance monitors to demonstrate the anticipated benefits.

Final Thoughts

With several advantages over conventional IT infrastructure, hyperconvergence infrastructure (HCI) is a technology that integrates computation, storage, and networking into a single system.

HCI is a compelling solution for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors because it can increase performance, scalability, flexibility, and costs.

HCI has numerous advantages, but it also has certain drawbacks and things to think about. Before investing in an HCI system, organizations should carefully consider the cost, complexity, compatibility, performance, scalability, and vendor lock-in.

Businesses that adopt HCI and use its advantages will likely be in a strong position to compete in and win in the increasingly digital and data-driven business world.