What is hyperconverged infrastructure? Overview

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure: What It Is, What It Does, and How Can It Benefit Us

Modern businesses have always relied on data centers to fulfill their data management needs. Even so, traditional data centers come with their own complexities and intricacies. So, what is the answer to this problem?

If you want to keep up with the current advancements in the tech world, then you learn about hyper-converged infrastructure. This technology allows businesses and organizations to optimize their systems while also cutting down on expensive hardware costs.

In this article, we will talk in detail about hyper-converged infrastructure. Keep on reading to learn about what it is, what it does, and many other important things about it.

The Basics of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

If you are not a tech-bro or someone that constantly works with IT infrastructures, the concept of hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) probably will make you frown. But, don’t go away just yet because we will start with the concept of convergence. 

The concept of convergence in the IT world arose as an approach to address the issues in a heterogenic infrastructure. At its early stage, a single vendor would gather systems from different sources and combine them into a single optimized system, creating a converged infrastructure. Later, vendors took this infrastructure to the next step by including a highly-integrated storage and network kit, giving us what we know as hyperconverged infrastructure. 

Such an infrastructure is made possible by the integration of virtualization technology and optimized management. The presence of virtualization technology in a hyper-converged infrastructure allows for pooled resources. Meanwhile, optimized data management allows for a substantial leap from the heterogenic infrastructure, in which all resources are managed separately.

The integration of virtualization technology and optimized management results in a standalone application that serve as a comprehensive tool for computing, storing, and virtualizing resources. When needed, this application can be combined with other HCI applications to quickly and effectively scale up operations.

The Processes behind Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

There are two premises behind a hyper-converged infrastructure: integration and management. They allow the system to deliver a virtualized environment in which computing, storage, and network resources are easily discoverable and effectively managed.

Beyond the two premises, it is important to understand the concept of hardware and software deployment when learning about hyper-converged infrastructure.

Hardware Deployment

A hardware-based hyper-converged infrastructure allows for improvements in key areas like storage-to-CPU data transfer. Such a tool is the ideal solution for conditions where workloads need high resource performance. However, hardware-based hyper-converged infrastructures tend to have a higher investment cost.

Software Deployment

A hyper-converged infrastructure can be present as a software package. The main goal of this package is often to improve and optimize the process of discovering, virtualizing, and managing hardware components. 

Since it does not need the addition of new hardware, a software-based hyper-converged infrastructure can be more cost-efficient. However, the integration and optimization in this solution will not be as tight as in a hardware-based hyper-converged infrastructure.

How Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Benefits Us

A heterogenic infrastructure may give system owners the freedom of whatever kind of IT environment they want to develop. Unfortunately, each hardware and software in the infrastructure must be integrated and optimized individually.

This is where a hyper-converged infrastructure can be helpful. Whether it is hardware-based or software-based, implementing hyper-converged infrastructure can be beneficial in a lot of aspects for your business. 

1. Simple Deployment

A hyper-converged infrastructure comes as a package, meaning there is no more time wasted on researching whether a product or solution is compatible with your environment. 

And, you are also freed from the burden of working with multiple vendors. Whenever a problem occurs with the infrastructure, you only need to call one number to get it solved.

Another reason that makes a hyper-converged infrastructure very simple to deploy is that every component within the system comes pre-integrated and pre-configured. This saves you the trouble of acquiring and configuring all the components one by one.

2. Simple Management

Your IT guys will be thankful when you adopt a hyper-converged infrastructure in your workplace. This is because it makes it very simple to manage everything from daily operations to resource provisioning to load balancing.

Your administrator also does not need to go to different places or use multiple devices to complete a task. This eliminates the wasted time and energy that is common in a traditional infrastructure.

Moreover, your administrator can manage the infrastructure from a distance away. He or she can easily make backups or restore VM operations with only several clicks. 

3. Scalability

Hyper-converged infrastructure is made up of pre-configured nodes. Unlike in traditional infrastructure, these nodes can be added or removed as needed, giving users high scalability.

Having such great scalability also means that you can start small with a hyper-converged infrastructure. There is no need to invest in a super-expensive solution. Once you think extra capacity is needed, you can add more nodes as you want.

Moreover, because the nodes come pre-configured, you should not find any problem when adding them to your infrastructure. The added capacity can be used right away, minimizing delay and enhancing your effectiveness.

4. Cloud-Friendly Environment

The next plus of adopting a hyper-converged infrastructure is that it was designed with a modern IT architecture in mind. This will help you whenever you decide to go cloud or want to digitize your company.

The resources that are present in a hyper-converged infrastructure are already simplified and streamlined, thus giving you a smoother experience when going cloud. Many vendors also offer a hyper-converged infrastructure solution that supports hybrid-cloud environments.

Conclusion

Hyper-converged infrastructure can be a great help for companies since it can do computing, storage, and management resources in one single platform. Moreover, it saves organizations from the costly processes of running traditional data centers.

If you run a business with evolving data management needs, then you should not overlook hyper-converged infrastructure. It is not only scalable and flexible to work with but also cost-efficient. With all of these benefits, there is nothing stopping you from using hyper-converged infrastructure in your business.