Today, businesses are constantly seeking ways to be more agile, reduce costs, and enhance security. Traditional infrastructure, with its isolated components and complex management, can hinder these objectives. Understandably, many businesses worry about disruptions during migration, data security, and a smooth cutover to a new system.

Migrating to a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution can be a transformative step. HCI simplifies IT by merging compute, storage, and virtualization resources into a single, centrally managed platform. This reduces hardware footprint and lowers operational costs, empowering IT teams to respond more to business needs.

When necessary, a dual-vendor approach can help IT leaders leverage the strengths of providers they are already consuming. Moreover, this strategy paves the way for a hybrid multi-cloud future, ensuring flexibility and optimal performance for your IT needs. Let’s explore this approach in more detail.

Leverage Existing Investments While Embracing Premier Nutanix Innovation

How can Nutanix meet the needs of enterprises consuming other virtualization products? As Nutanix delivers solutions that cater to these diverse requirements, it goes further by offering a broader range of capabilities. For example, Nutanix HCI technology aligns with the needs of customers using VMware vSphere, and how the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) prepares IT systems for the future, supporting critical applications and databases from the edge to the datacenter and into the cloud.

In some cases, a dual-vendor approach is necessary, which allows you to seamlessly integrate HCI systems like Nutanix AHV with your existing VMware environment. This means you can continue using familiar tools like vSphere and NSX for mission-critical applications, while gradually introducing AHV clusters for new workloads. This phased approach minimizes disruption and leverages your existing VMware expertise. As you gain confidence in Nutanix AHV, you can migrate additional workloads, taking advantage of Nutanix’s innovative features and simplified management.

This strategic co-existence fosters a “best-of-breed” environment, allowing you to allocate resources efficiently based on workload needs. Nutanix bridges the gap between traditional data centers and the cloud, offering a springboard to your multi-cloud future.

Embrace The Efficiency Of HCI

Many organizations still grapple with the limitations of traditional three-tier architectures. These siloed environments are cumbersome to manage and hinder cloud adoption. Nutanix AHV consolidates compute, storage, and networking into a single, scalable platform. HCI eliminates the need for complex, separate components like fiber channel storage. This streamlined approach simplifies operations, reduces costs, and paves the way for a smooth transition to the cloud.

A Hybrid Multi-cloud Future Awaits

Nutanix empowers a seamless transition from your data center to the cloud. Whether you choose AWS, Azure, or another hyperscaler, the process is simplified. The consistent management experience across environments, with minimal differences in commands and consoles, makes workload migration a breeze. Nutanix’s affordable licensing structure further sweetens the deal, allowing you to easily move workloads around without encountering significant cost barriers. This hybrid multi-cloud approach offers the best of both worlds: on-premises control and scalability combined with the flexibility and elasticity of the cloud.

Nutanix Is The Platform for Modern Workloads

Nutanix stands out as the ideal platform for powering your modern workloads. Some of its key benefits include:

• Unmatched Hybrid Multi-cloud Experience: Manage your entire IT infrastructure, encompassing data centers, clouds, and the edge, as a single unified entity.
• Fastest Path To Cloud: Effortlessly migrate your applications to the cloud without the need for time-consuming refactoring.
• Modern Platform For AI Success: Leverage Nutanix’s full-stack software-defined platform with integrated services to simplify AI initiatives across your entire infrastructure.
• Simplest Operations: Enjoy consistent management across on-premises, AWS, and Azure environments, with seamless license portability.
• Customer Satisfaction At The Forefront: Nutanix prioritizes customer success, offering industry-leading support and migration tools.
• Cost Efficiency Champion: Realize significant cost savings with Nutanix, achieving up to 61% improvement in total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI).

Nutanix understands the critical need to minimize disruption during IT infrastructure transitions through its user-friendly platform and industry-leading migration tools. Additionally, partners and support like WEI ensure a smooth and efficient migration process. This minimizes downtime, allowing quick benefits from your new HCI environment.

Final Thoughts

The combination of a dual-vendor approach, seamless cloud integration, and a modern HCI architecture empowers you to embrace agility, scalability, and cost efficiency. With Nutanix, you can minimize risk and accelerate your journey to a thriving hybrid multi-cloud future.

WEI, a leading IT solutions provider, can be your trusted partner on this journey. Our team of virtualization experts can assess your current infrastructure to understand your specific needs, and identify the optimal migration strategy tailored to your environment. Contact WEI today and discover how Nutanix AHV can empower you to embrace agility, scalability, and cost-efficiency in today’s IT landscape.

Next Steps: When considering the implementation of unified storage, WEI has identified two main options for enterprises to consider: a web-based sandbox or rolling out on-prem. Each approach offers distinct advantages, and businesses should choose the option that best aligns with specific needs and business objectives. Listen as WEI’s Senior Architect Virtualization Ambassador, explains.

The post Reduce Risk And Simplify Your Cloud Journey With A Modern HCI Solution appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

In today’s hyper business climate, companies need to be faster and more agile in order to stay ahead of the competition. To keep up, IT decision-makers are looking for efficient ways to improve operations and reduce costs. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a popular solution but comes with some compromises such as higher costs or limited built-in data protection. HPE SimpliVity offers an alternative that provides the same hyperconvergence experience without sacrificing performance. Keep reading to discover more about this revolutionary technology!

What Is HPE SimpliVity?

HPE SimpliVity is an innovative HCI solution that simplifies IT operations, from edge to core. As an all-in-one platform for general-purpose workloads and VDI applications at the edges, it offers scalability in deployment so customers can start small and grow as needed – a major benefit in a hybrid-heavy workforce. Its packed data services enable efficient resource utilization while reducing complexity and overhead costs.

Video: Cheers To Backup & Recovery As A Service With HPE

This platform also offers an easy-to-use, two-node, high-availability system with built-in data protection and hyper-efficient storage for edge sites and data centers – all at a reduction of the total cost of ownership. , businesses can simplify the management of virtualized storage and will enjoy unified control over all IT operations in one efficient system.

Benefits Of HPE GreenLake for HPE SimpliVity

is also transforming IT by offering managed services as a pay-per-use model. HPE GreenLake for HPE SimpliVity allows organizations to now build their own VM as a service platform with ease. Additionally, with HPE GreenLake Central, organizations can track capabilities for consumption and costs, and it is easier to accelerate the value of application deployments while avoiding costly upfront investments. This provides an excellent opportunity for digital transformation with no overprovisioning needed, which also saves enterprises 30% in savings.

Four Ways HPE SimpliVity Is Creating A New Standard For HCI

1. All-In-One Solution

With its all-in-one intelligent solution, HPE SimpliVity simplifies the deployment and scaling process, streamlines management tasks through software-defined infrastructure, unifies control systems, and automates policies. The best part? It is powered by AI for a truly seamless experience.

This all-in-one HCI solution also provides an easy and fast way to deploy virtual or container-based workloads across your environment. With its rapid deployment capabilities, zero downtime refresh cycles, and modular systems for scaling up as needed, HPE SimpliVity is the perfect solution for any business looking to quickly adjust their IT infrastructure in response to changing demands.

Furthermore, for HPE SimpliVity enables businesses to predict and diagnose infrastructure issues with powerful telemetry, machine learning capabilities, and automated alerts. It provides a multi-site view of all VMs and backups complete with insights on hardware and software problems and recommendations for corrective action. This reduces operational expenses and alleviates support needs.

2. High Availability With Two Nodes

HPE SimpliVity is designed to enable continuous operations while saving you money and valuable space. This is achieved by using just two nodes, reducing the number of appliances required along with a smaller data center footprint. Furthermore, it meets SLAs through protection against multiple failures and uptime across multiple sites, via stretched clustering technology.

3. Incorporated Data Protection

HPE SimpliVity is the perfect choice for data protection, guaranteeing resiliency and disaster recovery. It has powerful capabilities such as VM backups anytime and anywhere with a or less. Also, with its secure cloud bank backup options to reduce costs and risks, organizations can mitigate ransomware threats while enjoying maximum safety of valuable data.

4. Increased Efficiency

With the help of HPE SimpliVity, expect to experience frequent backups with quick restores in addition to longer retention periods and faster recovery times using lightweight VMs. This innovative HCI solution saves of capacity on storage combined with guaranteed backup. Multi-site disaster recovery becomes more efficient due to a need for ten times fewer WAN links. This ultimately allows businesses to save money by reducing the amount of data sent over the network while minimizing expensive resources used within their data centers.

Final Thoughts

Organizations facing limited resources are turning to hyperconverged infrastructures as an effective solution for their business-critical applications. HPE SimpliVity is the perfect HCI tool that helps organizations save costs while meeting distributed edge requirements with ease. Get in touch with WEI today and consult one of our experts on how to reap the full benefits of a hyperconverged infrastructure.

Next Steps: WEI and HPE/Zerto recently welcomed Rachel Wilson for an exclusive IT security discussion. Rachel currently serves as the director of cybersecurity for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and is a former NSA senior executive. Experts from WEI and HPE also provided data protection and disaster recovery options to help combat cyber threats to your organization, data, and self. Learn more by watching the full webcast below.

The post HPE SimpliVity And The Advantages Of HCI Without Compromise appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Companies have spent the past decade racing to achieve their digital transformation. One of the primary means of achieving this objective is through the cloud – a simple solution to a complex problem.

The problem is that there isn’t just one cloud. The found that “84% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy.” Hybrid cloud environments are challenging enough by themselves, but things have grown even more complex due to the adoption of another IT architecture, edge computing. In a rush to migrate everything to the cloud, we found the cloud isn’t the optimal environment for everything in an enterprise.

Problems With Configuring Modern Environments

When it comes to cloud migration the hybrid cloud environment doesn’t necessarily equate to multi-cloud interoperability. Enterprises face challenges when it comes to integrating all their clouds into a single ecosphere in order to create a framework that routes workflows in an automated fashion amongst themselves.

The practice of uploading all data to the cloud for processing adds too much latency for some mission critical operations. Additionally, many companies have had to face real costs that often exceed those anticipated. While OPEX cost modeling has significant advantages over CAPEX, it doesn’t always equal lower expenses. Now, IT leaders find it cheaper to run things back on-premises. Enterprises need to attain a multi-cloud infrastructure in order to define and create policies to improve efficiencies, accelerate deployments and minimize security risks across their entire cloud portfolio.

How Nutanix Supports A Hybrid Multi-Cloud Environment

It’s obvious that enterprises can’t regress back to on-premise infrastructures. Too many executives have witnessed the enormous impact digital transformation has had in terms of greater innovation and profitability. The solution is a next-generation hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) HCI is cloud-like technology, but it isn’t restricted to the cloud.

is a combination of servers and storage in a distributed infrastructure platform with intelligent software to create flexible building blocks that replace on-premise infrastructure. It consists of separate services, storage networks, and storage arrays. Advanced HCI solutions today can manage enterprise applications in a hybrid cloud environment. No more choosing between public or private cloud. The unifying nature of today’s leading HCI solutions puts you in charge of what goes where. Latency sensitive processes and compliance abiding applications can reside on local infrastructure while other apps can be assigned to their optimum cloud environment. On top of that, admins can then manage both their private and public cloud infrastructures through a single management plane, eliminating the need to bounce between interfaces and portals to manage everything.

Today’s advanced HCI solutions can create a borderless IT estate in which silos are a thing of the past. No need to purchase a bunch of servers and pair them with an external storage solution while connecting it all together with a network switch. Because they were purchased separately you never benefited from purchasing the best of breed for every component. You may have ended up with a complex mesh of compartmentalized equipment that required training and kept you in a proprietary lockdown. Additionally, the implementation and upgrade processes were so expensive, enterprises embraced the practice of oversizing their infrastructures for future growth.

How HCI Continues To Grow

The recent challenges presented by the global pandemic showed how critical the need for great elasticity really is in the . This has accelerated the transition to multi-cloud infrastructures that utilize the appropriate mix of both private and public clouds.

Today’s advanced Nutanix’s HCI solutions are designed for this new era. HCI allows you to create heterogeneous clusters that can accommodate hybrid cloud environments that include multiple CPU generations, all-flash storage, and multiple hypervisors. Additionally, HCI significantly condenses the footprint of your data center or edge computing environment. You also have the ability to choose your hardware preference. You can select the most optimal cloud for your apps and business needs. HCI has the potential to deliver turnkey infrastructure for any app at any scale, across any location, whether it’s an on-premises data center, computing edge location or public cloud service. This cross-platform mobility gives enterprises the duality to run enterprise applications through multi-cloud infrastructures without any code change.

In a world without borders, you need an enterprise hybrid cloud environment that is void of borders as well, one that provides frictionless agility, management simplicity and fractional consumption of services regardless of where they reside, Nutanix’s HCI is innately designed for this.

Next Steps: We’ve helped countless enterprise IT teams transform their business with Nutanix. Leverage our team’s knowledge and expertise to discuss how you can achieve a next-gen HCI solution customized for your business needs. Sign up for a commitment-free conversation with our Nutanix expert, Mark Gabryjelski today!

The post Next Gen HCI: How Nutanix Can Support Your Hybrid Multi-Cloud Environments appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Batman and Superman. Iron Man and Captain America. Everyone loves when two giants in their own right come together for the common good. Simply put, everyone loves a superhero team up. Enter and .

Each offers a variety of solutions that propel enterprises through digital transformation and modernization efforts, including key cloud computing solutions. Through their partnership, HPE and Nutanix have gone one step further by offering enterprises a complete private cloud infrastructure integrated with software.

HPE And Nutanix Are Helping Enterprises Take Control Of The Cloud

As previously mentioned, HPE and Nutanix each stand in their own right when it comes to cloud computing.

In one corner you have , a fully managed, scalable IT infrastructure service, which offers enterprises a cloud-like consumption model for on-premises infrastructure. With GreenLake, HPE has cast aside the one-size-fits-all approach to supported technology by allowing enterprises to choose the most appropriate supported HPE or third-party technology. HPE also offers flexible pay-as-go models and makes it easy for enterprises to scale to their exact needs.

In the other corner is the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform, a complete IT infrastructure which has the agility, scalability, and simplicity of the cloud, and the security, performance, and cost predictability of traditional on-premises infrastructure. Nutanix Enterprise Cloud offers additional benefit by spreading all data and processes across the entire cluster, which improves resource utilization, scalability, and performance predictability.

HPE And Nutanix Combined

Together, Nutanix and HPE are reinventing the way IT organizations build cloud infrastructure by combining the best of public cloud with the security and control of private cloud.

First up is , which feature built in integration with Nutanix software. Engineered to provide an infrastructure stack which is delivered either as an up-front purchase or as-a-service, this joint venture offers support for (VDI), built-in data protection, and additional third-party integrations right out of the box.

In terms of VDI, HPE ProLiant DX systems offer improved user performance and scalability, without the burden of high capital costs. IT organizations also have full remote replication capabilities, as well as backup to local systems, a remote site, or to the cloud.

In addition to the ProLiant DX systems, HPE and Nutanix have also collaborated to offer , which expands HPE GreenLake to run the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud as-a-service to support key areas.

For databases, HPE GreenLake with Nutanix mitigates common management challenges that come about due to the use of traditional infrastructure to support high-performance database operations. By streamlining database deployment, management, and operations, HPE GreenLake frees IT up for more complex and strategic projects.

Amongst its numerous other benefits, offers enterprises faster and easier deployment and management of VDI, as well as desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) infrastructure. HPE GreenLake with Nutanix also simplifies bring-your-own-device and choose-your-own-device programs through the distribution of applications through SaaS models.

Additionally, the focus on private cloud infrastructure, supported by hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), allows enterprises to consolidate siloed workloads into just one management platform. HPE GreenLake with Nutanix also offers one-click database deployment, management, and operations, simplifying the management process even further.

[Featured Video]
The Hype is Real with Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Overall, HPE GreenLake with Nutanix and the ProLiant DX family of systems are offering enterprises additional flexibility, security, and efficiency when it comes to cloud computing, as well as flexible billing options and support for remote workforces.

Ready to Master The Cloud With HPE And Nutanix?

While many enterprises have made moves to adopt cloud computing, truly mastering the cloud is another thing entirely. HPE and Nutanix are both leading the charge in the development of cloud software and through their partnership, they are offering the cloud solutions enterprises need to succeed in today’s digital world. If you’re ready to make the change now, contact WEI to begin building a custom solution for your business.

[Featured Video]
Real Tech with WEI – Episode 1: HPE ProLiant Gen 10 Servers

Take a closer look at the HPE ProLiant family of servers and find out why the HPE Gen10 rack servers have earned the title of “World’s Most Secure Industry Standard Servers” in this episode of Real Tech with WEI featuring WEI Solutions Architect, Jay Cardin.

The post HPE and Nutanix – The IT Modernization Dream Team appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

For today’s enterprises, IT’s role has shifted beyond just keeping the lights on. With the strategic adoption of certain key solutions, enterprises can refocus IT to improve many aspects of doing business and turn IT into a revenue generator, instead of just a source of costs.

For the above reasons, enterprises are increasingly choosing to make use of multiple cloud solutions and deployment models to modernize and improve the agility of the business. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has also grown in popularity as a way to support the integrations between public cloud applications platforms, while also offering a common management platform for the entire hybrid cloud environment.

In this article, we’ll be discussing one such HCI solution, . This is the second article of a two-part series, where we share the proven benefits of this solution, as reported by and based on real customer feedback.

In the first article, we discussed the business and operational benefits of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud. Below, we’ll examine the IT staff and cost benefits.

1. Improved staff efficiency

Due to a variety of features provided by Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, including the single point of management through integration with and efficiencies related to having consolidated and common pools of compute and storage resources, enterprises reap significant staff efficiency benefits when implementing the solution.

In IDC’s study, participants noted that the ease of management offered an opportunity for their teams to spend more time innovating, as well as increasing staff satisfaction for those IT personnel utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud.

IDC’s study noted the following areas where participants saw efficiency gains:

• On average, participants noted deployment required 57% less time with Nutanix compared to other infrastructures.
• On average, participants saw a 61% increase in efficiency for help desk support.
• On average, participants saw a 28% increase in efficiency for security management.

Other areas where participants noted efficiency gains included data protection activities and infrastructure management.

2. Nutanix Enterprise Cloud offers more cost-effective IT infrastructure

As reported in IDC’s study, participants found that Nutanix Enterprise Cloud serves as a “more cost-effective IT infrastructure than study participants’ legacy infrastructure.”

By avoiding the need for SANs, being able to consolidate hardware through running multiple workloads on each node, and additional hardware operational efficiencies, enterprises are able to reduce costs associated with maintaining infrastructure.

IDC calculates that those interviewed in the study will spend 38% less over five years for hardware, maintenance fees, and power and facilities costs when running Nutanix environments compared to other options.

3. Lower operational costs for IT infrastructure

The previously noted features of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, which offer more cost-effective IT infrastructure, also lower overall operational costs. Between hardware, maintenance costs, IT staff time costs, and other areas where Nutanix offers improvements, overall IT costs are heavily reduced, allowing those funds to be reallocated elsewhere or invested back into IT improvements.

In their report, IDC found that study participants were able to run equivalent applications and workloads at a significantly lower cost than with legacy solutions. The average cost reduction among participants was 62%.

IDC’s analysis on the return on investment of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud concludes that the organizations interviewed as part of the study will achieve a “five-year ROI of 477% and break even on their investment in nine months.”

Overall, Nutanix Enterprise Cloud offers strong value for enterprise customers, regardless of the scale or industry the business falls into. Nutanix customers confirm these findings, with many describing increases to IT agility and performance, support for business objectives, and reduced operational risk, while also benefiting from the increased cost savings and efficiency of the solution.

Are you interested in Nutanix Enterprise Cloud?

As a global leader in cloud software and a pioneer in HCI solutions, Nutanix is helping enterprises around the world get the most out of their IT environment. If you’re interested in getting started with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, contact WEI to start a discussion.

This blog post is part of a 2-part series about the actual cost savings from real Nutanix Enterprise Cloud customers. click here to read part one.

NEXT STEPS: Learn more about the benefits of software defined infrastructure and how to get started with hyperconverged infrastructure in our eBook. Click below to start reading.

The post 3 Proven IT Staff and Cost Benefits of Nutanix appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Over the last handful of years, the adoption of private and public cloud solutions has revolutionized enterprise IT and offered a level of operational agility that was previously unheard of.

Today, enterprises are increasingly choosing to make use of multiple cloud solutions and deployment models. To properly manage and administer these hybrid cloud environments, many organizations have turned to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), which offers the ability to support integrations between public cloud application platforms, as well as a common management platform for the entire hybrid cloud environment.

One such HCI solution is . In this two-part blog series, we will discuss the proven benefits of this solution, as reported by and based on real customer feedback.

As part of the research process for the study and subsequent report, IDC interviewed organizations “with experience with or knowledge about (Nutanix Enterprise Cloud’s) benefits and costs. The interviews covered a variety of quantitative and qualitative questions about the impact of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud on their overall IT costs, operations and businesses.”

In this first article, we take a look at the most prevalent business and operational benefits of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud.

1. Improved IT Agility Delivering Storage and Compute ؛£½اض±²¥

In the study conducted by IDC, participants shared that through utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, they saw significant agility improvements when it came to deploying and upgrading core compute and storage environments.

Various capabilities of the solution contributed to enhancing agility in these areas, including “having a common pool of storage and compute resources, the ability to easily add capacity to their Nutanix environments, automated provisioning of resources, and offering self-service to users.”

According to IDC, participants saw the following benefits when utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud:

• Average time to deploy new storage systems was 82% faster
• Average staff time to deploy each system was reduced by 85%
• Average time to update storage systems was 70% faster
• Average staff time for updates was reduced by 66%
• Average time to deploy new physical servers was 53% faster
• Average staff time to deploy new physical servers was reduced by 44%

2. Improved Data Protection and Reduced Operational Risk

IDC’s study also found that participants reported improved business continuity and reduced operational risk when utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud. This was achieved by “reducing the frequency of unplanned outages affecting applications and services running on their platforms and having more robust data backup and recovery environments.”

According to IDC, participants reported:

• An 85% reduction in unplanned downtime
• A 72% increase in the frequency of data backups
• A 29% increase in data recovery efforts completed within the objective

By reducing the frequency and impact of unplanned outages, enterprises utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud are also reducing the costs associated with these business interruptions. This offers an opportunity for organizations to put those cost savings to work by investing it back into the backup environment.

3. Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Offers A Business-Enabling IT Platform

It’s never been more apparent than now how essential business agility and adaptability is to an enterprise. For organizations utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, many of the challenges associated with managing a highly distributed workforce and its data are vastly reduced.

Participants in IDC’s study found that they saw improved customer satisfaction, faster onboarding of new branches and partners, and the ability to increase focus on business objectives when utilizing Nutanix Enterprise Cloud.

IDC identified that the support Nutanix Enterprise Cloud offers to business activities results in a higher average revenue, which IDC quantified to be an average of $932,800 per organization per year.

When it comes to VDI, participants in IDC’s study also reported benefiting from faster VDI application performance and found it was easier to extend their VDI environments with Nutanix Enterprise Cloud. This translates to improved productivity from employees at these organizations.

Are You Interested In Nutanix Enterprise Cloud?

The data in IDC’s study and the feedback from its participants makes it clear that Nutanix Enterprise Cloud makes a positive impact on business and operational activities for the organizations that deploy it. Enterprises of all types and from a variety of industries are adopting this solution to modernize data centers, improve IT response time and refocus IT on activities that generate revenue instead of just keeping the status quo.

NEXT STEPS: Learn more about the benefits of software defined infrastructure and how to get started with hyperconverged infrastructure in our eBook. Click below to start reading.

The post 3 Proven Business and Operational Benefits of Nutanix appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Ever since the mainstream adoption of cloud computing in the enterprise, organizations have been seeking the benefits of public cloud, while still wanting to retain the control of data center operations.

For this reason, among others, many enterprises have worked their way towards a hybrid cloud model, which offers the best of both worlds.

However, for truly successful hybrid cloud operations, enterprises must acknowledge and seek solutions for the pain points that are unique to this technology. A discusses this topic in detail, and we’ve pulled the top 5 strategies for hybrid cloud success to share here.

1. Create a unified infrastructure control plane

As shared in the report, separate cloud environments can have wildly differing management interfaces and expertise in one cloud environment doesn’t necessarily translate to another. Cloud management is typically siloed as well, with each cloud platform having its own management team. All this combined, plus the limited interoperability between clouds, results in a lack of integration throughout the network.

To solve these issues, O’Reilly recommends unifying infrastructure management through a single control plane that can be applied everywhere. Once the control plane is selected, the next step is to modernize data center infrastructure to use that control plane as much as possible and specifically choose public clouds that you allow to use it. More information on this strategy can be found in .

2. Streamline the application lifecycle

Once infrastructure management has been dealt with, the next place to focus attention is the application lifecycle.

As shared in O’Reilly’s report, the utilization of hybrid cloud environments has rapidly increased user expectations for speed and accessibility. Application deployment is also more complex in a cloud environment, with different cloud platforms requiring different tools, processes, and additional effort from IT.

Other complications come from the need for scaling during periods of peak load, and the differing needs between cloud native and traditional enterprise applications.

Overall, the application lifecycle is a major area of improvement for hybrid cloud environments. O’Reilly suggests the use of automation to shorten delivery time and avoid the risk of human errors. It can also help evolve the organizational structures of cloud platforms to be more fluid and less reliant on specialists for the day-to-day management tasks.

3. Simplify application migration

Traditionally, application migration between clouds requires modifying the application to be compatible with the environment to which it’s being migrated. However, if the first strategy recommended by O’Reilly has been put in place, it’s much easier and eliminates the need for complex migrations.

Utilizing the second strategy to streamline application management also positively contributes to application migration, and between the two, the need for re-platforming or refactoring can be reduced or even eliminated.

4. Utilize consistent security policies

Despite all the benefits of cloud computing, it also comes with its own specific security challenges. As shared by O’Reilly, “As with infrastructure management in general, the default for hybrid cloud security is a siloed approach that increases complexity and risk.”

Some of the complexity comes from the need for separate security models and tools for each cloud, while even more comes from not having a global view of security due to the siloed approach.

That said, there are a number of security solutions that are available for hybrid and multicloud environments. To pick the right solution, O’Reilly emphasizes the importance of evaluating your organization’s requirements and the skills of your security team.

5. Track cloud spending

It isn’t news that hybrid cloud environments complicate IT spending and keeping track of it, but it certainly does not have to be complex. While many organizations make use of spreadsheets or other traditional methods to track of costs, O’Reilly suggests making use of a specific cost management tool to get spending optimized and under control. These solutions often come with tools that offer costing analysis and the ability to identify areas where you can reduce spending.

Similar to the fourth strategy, it’s important to evaluate your requirements and the skills of your team before choosing a solution.

Are You Looking For Hybrid Cloud Solutions?

Now that we’ve discussed the steps that can put you on a path of hybrid cloud success, we’d like to suggest as a solution provider for your hybrid cloud needs. Better known as the leader in hyperconverged infrastructure and the premier enterprise cloud solution provider, Nutanix offers a large (and evolving) portfolio of tools to simplify your hybrid cloud deployment and reduce overall IT costs.

NEXT STEPS: Where does hybrid cloud fall in your list of priorities as you digitally transform your business? How virtualized is your data center now? In this eBook below we invite you to take a closer look at software defining your infrastructure as part of your digital transformation journey. Software defined infrastructure reduces complexity as you introduce new advanced technologies in your IT environment, including building and managing a hybrid cloud architecture and/or supporting a multi-cloud model. Check out the eBook below, “The Journey to a Digital Enterprise with Software Defined Infrastructure.“

The post Top 5 Strategies for Hybrid Cloud Success appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The data needs of today’s enterprises continue to evolve and to keep up, many IT organizations are turning to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). The benefits of HCI, which include rapid deployment, reduced physical space requirements, and streamlined infrastructure, match perfectly with the immediate priorities of IT organizations looking to modernize legacy systems to increase agility, improve the management experience, and simplify scalability.

That said, HCI is continuing to evolve as does the needs of the enterprise. As shared by IDC, it’s predicted that by 2023, 70 percent of enterprises will run varying levels of processing at the IoT edge, and the compound annual growth rate of edge infrastructure spending on compute and storage will grow to hit $21.2 billion in 2023.

As companies modernize their infrastructure and adopt HCI, they realize workloads at the edge are different from typical enterprise workloads. These workloads are creating and processing data at the edge, they are small and resilient, and they require friction-less deployment, connectivity and mobility. HCI must evolve to service the world we are living in, the world at the edge. Let’s take a look at the next steps needed for your organization to extend HCI to the edge, and the reasons why HPE SimpliVity just might be the right choice.

Achieving Edge-Optimized HCI

To optimize and bring HCI all the way to the edge, IDC specifies that enterprise requirements include:

• More efficient technologies for capturing and processing data
• Local resiliency and no-touch IT
• Built in security
• Automation to simplify management and automate day-to-day activities
• Simplified deployment, connectivity, and operations
• High availability (HA) in the smallest physical footprint possible

HCI at the Edge with HPE SimpliVity

is edge-optimized HCI. This leading HCI solution offers enterprises the simplest and most efficient all-in-one appliance (including data protection) with HA in as little as two nodes, remote and multi-site management, and artificial intelligence (AI) and automation through .

Four differentiators of HPE SimpliVity:

1. Easy to deploy – Low-entry price point and packaging for compact, highly available, all-in-one HCI with built-in data protection
2. Efficient data movement – global dedupe, space efficient replication and rapid multi-site DR for fast recoveries in low bandwidth settings
3. 2-Node high availability – Achieve resiliency with 2 nodes in small footprint with built-in data protection and disaster recovery features to help keep data safe at the edge
4. Simple to manage – Remote, multi-site infrastructure management with integrated data services and backup/recovery through VMware vCenter

Research by IDC shows that 75 percent of customers saw better storage utilization and 57 percent saw improved staff productivity when utilizing HPE SimpliVity.

Why are Enterprise Leaders Choosing HPE SimpliVity?

Businesses are moving to more data-centric business models; they are capturing and analyzing more data than ever before. This faster pace of business and the immense volume of data are forcing organizations to modernize IT infrastructure at a rapid rate. They require increased agility, improved manageability, and the ability to scale when needed. Turns out, HPE SimpliVity is solving the need.

A recent PeerPaper Report by IT CentralStation titled, , captures real user reviews of HPE SimpliVity. Of the many factors these companies considered before deploying HCI, here are the top reasons they ultimately went with HPE SimpliVity:

• Simplicity
• Manageability
• Efficiency
• Faster, more highly available applications
• Fast backup and Restore
• Footprint consolidation
• More Cloud options

The other major factor is data intelligence and is part of what makes HPE SimpliVity different from competing HCI solutions. comes with the benefit of AI-driven intelligence with HPE InfoSight, providing visibility and predictive analytics across your infrastructure. With VM-centric management and mobility, built-in , and unparalleled data efficiency in an architecture that’s already optimized for the edge, HPE SimpliVity has truly evolved from the HCI solutions of the past.

It’s Good for Remote Workforce Initiatives, Too!

We would be remiss if we didn’t stop for a moment to call out HPE SimpliVity’s ability to support your remote workforce. In an article on HPE’s Community platform titled, , HPE reports that HPE SimpliVity is a proven architecture for VDI, with running virtual desktops on the platform (that was from May 2020, we estimate it to be significantly higher by now given the implications of the pandemic). HPE customers are already benefiting from the powerful, built-in data protection and single-click lifecycle management of HPE SimpliVity, but the solution goes further to support the evolving needs of a remote workforce. Here’s how:

1. Easily scalable: Customers can start with a small, medium, or large configuration and easily add new nodes in small, powerful increments from pilot to production scale with no disruption.Powerful capabilities in a compact form factor: Starting with the very first appliance, customers can take advantage of the full software capabilities of HPE SimpliVity including guaranteed data efficiency, built-in data protection, and global VM-centric management and mobility.
2. Lower dollar per desktop cost: Doubling the virtual desktops per server provides businesses a 50% savings in cost per remote worker.
3. Seamless integration into existing IT environment: Customers can mix HPE SimpliVity 325 with HPE SimpliVity 380 and 2600 models in the same federation across many sites, easily integrating the new HCI nodes into existing environments.

Highly dense HPE SimpliVity 325 is a powerful hyperconverged infrastructure for space-constrained IT. The 1 rack-unit model is ideal for remote sites, Edge, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

Are You Interested In Utilizing HCI At The Edge?

As a global, edge-to-cloud company, HPE is helping enterprises around the world upgrade from legacy systems and experience the benefits of a new generation of HCI. With a variety of use cases, and powered by the industry’s most advanced AI for infrastructure, HPE SimpliVity is offering the HCI experience at the edge, without compromising performance.

If you’re considering a move to hyperconverged infrastructure, rest assured that WEI can help you along the way. Ask us about our experience implementing HPE SimpliVity for mid-market to enterprise companies across several industries. We are there by your side to consult, design and architect a solution, as well as implement and support your organization beyond deployment. Contact us today to talk more about how HPE SimpliVity can fit in your environment.

NEXT STEPS: Modernizing your IT infrastructure? Sure, we all are! Dig into the differences between Converged and Hyperconverged Infrastructure and find out the key questions to ask before investing in an HCI solution in our white paper below. Read it today!

The post Extend HCI to the Edge with HPE SimpliVity appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The basic function and expectation of IT is to fulfill the day-to-day technology needs of the enterprise, support innovation and ensure a positive user experience for employees and customers. This requires a certain amount of time, money, and resources to be done correctly, but the unfortunate reality is that many IT teams are being asked to do more with less these days.

To meet these budget requirements without sacrificing performance, many enterprises have turned to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). Through HCI, enterprises can simplify IT infrastructure, speed up deployment and reduce operational costs with efficiency gains.

The HCI solution we’ll highlight today is , which can deliver savings of up to 66 percent over a three-year period compared to public cloud, 43 percent when compared to traditional three-tier infrastructure, and 28 percent when compared to other HCI solutions, according to a .

Top 5 areas of value from HPE SimpliVity

As shared in the ESG report, HPE SimpliVity 325 brings tangible value in five important areas:

1. 1. Cost of Acquisition
2. 2. Data Protection
3. 3. Administration
4. 4. Data Center Costs
5. 5. Support

1. Cost of acquisition

HPE SimpliVity 325 offers immediate value by reducing the minimum deployment requirement from three nodes to just two, offering instant savings when compared to other HCI offerings. Other cost savings come in the form of data efficiency through software-optimized inline deduplication, compression, and optimization of I/O and network traffic. In addition to offering significant storage and bandwidth efficiency, these advantages also improve performance.

2. Data protection

Several core features come standard with HPE SimpliVity 325, including built-in virtual machine backups, multi-site replication, recovery and cloning, and disaster recovery. In terms of monetary value, these features reduce costs associated with security. HPE also offers benefits through its partnerships with other technology vendors, including Veeam, making it simple for enterprises to acquire solutions for specialized data situations.

3. Administration

HPE SimpliVity 325 builds upon the standard administrative benefits of HCI by facilitating all aspects of management through the interface and requires no specialized training. This means IT teams only require a single generalist to handle management tasks for the entire deployment.

4. Data center costs

For data centers, HPE SimpliVity 325 offers cost savings because of its two-node minimum, meaning the infrastructure takes up less floor space, needs less power and less cooling. This equates to environmental cost savings of up to 16 percent when compared to other HCI offerings, according to ESG.

5. Support

In terms of support, HPE SimpliVity 325, which requires less hardware and features built-in data protection, has lower support costs and has a single support center for infrastructure, software, and backups. This significantly reduces the resources and time IT teams have become used to from years of dealing with support delays and challenges with legacy hardware.

Additional

In addition to the cost savings, HPE SimpliVity delivers self-managing, self-optimizing, and self-healing infrastructure through artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning predictive analytics through elevates the solution above other HCI offerings and give enterprises a truly intelligent HCI solution.

As a global, edge-to-cloud Platform-as-a-Service company, HPE is helping enterprises around the world upgrade from legacy systems and experience the benefits of HCI. With a variety of use cases, HPE SimpliVity can transform any IT operation and reduce costs, improve efficiency, and boost performance.

Find out how HPE SimpliVity fits in your environment. Contact us to start a conversation and learn how your business can start realizing these benefits from HPE SimpliVity.

The post Top 5 Areas of Value Brought by HPE SimpliVity appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Today, work doesn’t just happen at the office. To stay competitive and increase productivity, enterprises around the globe are looking to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) with VM support to provide increased flexibility compared to conventional hardware-defined infrastructure.

The most effective HCI solutions provide management simplicity, cloud options, efficiency, increased availability, fast backup and restore, in addition to the consolidation of the data-center footprint.

, a leader in HCI solutions, provides all of the above and more.

The benefits of HCI

As a solution, HCI relies on virtualization for compute, storage and network. Underlying storage and compute hardware are abstracted from software-defined controls and functionality.

This is in direct contrast to traditional hardware-defined infrastructure, or converged infrastructure (CI). HCI tends to be less complex and costly to mange due to being software-defined.

An HCI system also typically includes a hypervisor for virtual machines (VMs), a virtual storage area network (SAN), and software-defined networking. As an additional bonus, HCI instances can run on commercial “off-the-shelf” server hardware.

Considerations when selecting an HCI solution

When selecting an HCI solution, there are three aspects that should be considered above all else: simplicity, manageability, and efficiency.

As previously stated, when compared to CI solutions, HCI is typically less complex to manage. HPE SimpliVity offers increased management simplicity through components such as , which makes use of telemetry and machine learning. Together, these simplify the experience with predictive resource planning to anticipate and correct infrastructure problems.

When compared to similar solutions, HPE SimpliVity offers enterprises an all-in-one solution that is easy to manage and scale, reducing the management burden on IT, and increasing their productivity.

Additionally, HCI solutions should drive efficiency across the enterprise. By having all of the infrastructure running on a software-defined basis, applications are both faster and more highly available. In terms of data efficiency, HPE SimpliVity’s always-on inline deduplication and compression guarantees 90 percent capacity savings across primary storage and backup saving costs.

The freedom provided by VM solutions

Enterprises are increasingly looking for flexible solutions that offer additional productivity and facilitate communication regardless of where users may be. HPE SimpliVity supports this by allowing remote workers to access data and applications from anywhere via VM connectivity.

In fact, that SimpliVity’s built-in backup capability can complete a local backup or local restore of a 1 TB VM in less than one minute, on average. Additionally, from the HPE SimpliVity interface, which is fully integrated with the hypervisor, it only takes three clicks to back up, restore and move, or clone a VM, all from a single console.

The user interface, from a central location, can also be used to create or update backup policies for thousands of VMs, across dozens of sites, in only minutes.

Additionally, adding or replacing HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged systems will not create downtime for local or remote sites, will not disrupt local or remote HPE SimpliVity backups, require reconfiguration of SimpliVity, or backup policies for local or remote sites.

IT can also make use of HPE InfoSight for additional visibility into VM neighbors, and insights into VM storage utilization, to allow IT to identify high consuming VMs and implement corrective actions.

All of this combined means that users experience a smooth and uninterrupted VM solution that is as easy for them to use as it is for IT to manage.

Ready for a new kind of HCI solution?

HPE SimpliVity brings cloud agility, scalability, and simplicity to the enterprise data center. It streamlines IT operations for a fast, simplified, and efficient hyperconverged platform that combines IT infrastructure and data services into a single, integrated solution. Enterprises searching for a VM solution will discover the increased productivity and flexibility that HPE SimpliVity offers, as well as uninterrupted access at all levels of the enterprise. All at a fraction of the cost of traditional CI solutions. If you’re ready to make the change now, contact WEI to begin building a custom solution for your business.

The post Work Wherever and Whenever You Need to With HPE SimpliVity appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

The administrators of today’s virtual machines are tasked with what may seem practically impossible. The complex system requires multidomain experience under the constant pressure of supporting both traditional and modern applications, the nonstop battle against VM sprawl, and the ever-present need to cut costs.

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) addresses many of these challenges, enabling compute, storage, and networking functions to be decoupled from the underlying infrastructure. It’s an ideal infrastructure for workloads with predictable growth, scaling compute and storage together. But what if your growth is unpredictable?

Introducing HPE Nimble Storage dHCI

What is it?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI extends the hyperconverged experience for workloads with unpredictable growth, where future apps and consolidation require different amounts of compute or .

What are the key benefits of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is:

• Intelligently simple, with native, full-stack intelligence from storage to VMs and policy-based automation for virtualized environments
• Absolutely resilient, with over six-nines of measured data availability and sub-ms of low-latency at consistent, high performance
• Efficiently scalable with the ability to independently scale compute and storage non-disruptively with industry-leading data efficiency guaranteed

Isn’t the term Dis-aggregated HyperConverged conflicting?

Not at all. Dis-aggregated refers to the ability to independently scale compute, network, and storage. HyperConverged refers to the flexibility, ease of use simplicity of HCI as well as the ability to converge multiple types of workloads. In 2019, IDC created a new category called Dis-aggregated HyperConverged.

What are the outcomes enabled by HPE Nimble Storage dHCI?

This intelligent platform disaggregates compute and storage, letting VM administrators accelerate time to market on a platform that flexibly scales while still integrating the hyperconverged control for simple management. To combat the firefighting that comes with always-on and always-performing applications, HPE Nimble Storage dHCI uses the most advanced artificial intelligence for infrastructure in the industry, to quickly diagnose performance problems and identify the root cause, automatically resolving 85-percent of problems without human intervention.

HPE Nimble Storage also breaks free from the rigid, inflexible infrastructure that leads to waste and anchors applications to either on-premises or public cloud – instead of a hybrid cloud solution. Independent scaling of performance and capacity provides flexibility for varying workloads, from transactional databases need more performance to data warehouses needing more capacity, avoiding costly overprovisioning.

What are the product lines that are included as part of HPE Nimble Storage dHCI configurations?

The product lines included with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI would be standard product lines for:

• HPE ProLiant DL (4Qx86 entry/value rack)
• HPE Nimble Storage (H5-H7)
• HPE switches depending on the switch type: HPE StoreFabric M-Series (1Y), Aruba 8325 (35), FlexFabric (NT)

How is HPE Pointnext Services involved in the dHCI offering?

HPE Pointnext Services is involved in two ways: for deployment services, where HPE Pointnext Services will be offering a deployment service and there will be a deployment SKU, and for support services (HPE Nimble Storage support and HPE Pointnext Services are currently working out the details on how best to ensure a good customer experience).

Does the new product solve a new customer problem, or does it serve existing customer segments?

For new customer problems, HPE Nimble Storage dHCI extends the hyperconverged experience to uses cases, complementing HPE SimpliVity.

For existing customer segments:

1. Customers who want HCI from an appliance perspective for workloads with predictable growth will win with HPE SimpliVity.
2. Customers who prefer disaggregated compute and storage for workloads with unpredictable growth will win with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI.

Begin Your dHCI Transition Today With WEI

HPE Nimble Storage dHCI is intelligently simple to use, ready for demanding applications, and built for efficiency at scale.

It extends the benefits of HCI to support workloads with unpredictable growth. Bring up full stack infrastructure in minutes and enjoy easy ongoing management through complete vCenter integration. You can also realize all-flash speed, native data integrity, guaranteed availability, data efficiency savings, and more.

Get the flexibility of converged with the simplicity of HCI by contacting WEI today.

The post Seven FAQs about HPE Nimble Storage dHCI appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Modern data centers are more efficient and high-performing than ever, but problems and failures still occur. The goal is to leverage the software defined data center (SDDC) to achieve optimal efficiency for the business. Incompatible hardware and an overabundance of solutions often prevent true convergence. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) links the entire data center to one comprehensive management system. HCI creates a seamless, robust data center environment, eliminating many virtualization challenges. With HCI, you can maximize performance and efficiency, and get a better return on your data center investment.

Simplify Data Center Management

HCI turns the data center into a cohesive environment with one management console. Formerly isolated devices are linked together to form a single system with a shared resource pool. IT administrators can manage the entire system from a central interface. This convergence is not limited to a single location. With HCI, enterprises can connect multiple data centers and manage them as one system. HCI eliminates the need for a divided IT with a specialized group managing each aspect of the data center.

Support Virtualization

Virtual machines (VMs) are a key part of the software-defined infrastructure (SDI). With HCI, IT can shift to a VM-centric approach to data center management. HCI provides integrated policies and management options that are implemented at the VM level. In a hyperconverged system, the VM is always the main focus. Policies and resources are implemented and managed in a way that best supports the VM.

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The goal of virtualization is to create a shared resource pool that helps maximize performance and resource utilization. However, many data centers face the performance-killing input/output (IO) blender effect. HCI connects the hypervisor and storage resources in a way that prevents the IO blender. Enterprises can eliminate their resource islands and still meet individual application needs. HCI allows for true resource pooling, resulting in increased capacity and optimal performance.

Maximize Scalability and Efficiency

HCI provides granular scalability, simplifying expansion. Enterprises no longer need to make sizable infrastructure investments to increase their resources. The infrastructure can be scaled up by much smaller amounts, allowing companies to only invest in the resources that they actually need. HCI also makes it easy to implement new resources. The comprehensive system can identify and configure each device as it is added.

Create Effective Automation

Incompatible, unconnected hardware has always rendered data center automation impossible. HCI’s central management interface turns the data center into a unified environment where automation is not just possible; it is simple to achieve. With HCI, IT can finally automate many routine processes. The management interface even provides tools to make automation easy and effective. Automation increases IT efficiency and reduces the manpower needed for basic operations. IT can focus on business needs rather than routine procedures.

Provide Better Data Security

Data security is a complex challenge that many enterprises do not adequately address. Legacy systems rely on third-party solutions that are often ineffective and hard to integrate. HCI provides built-in comprehensive security tools that offer greater protection. Efficient backup and recovery solutions maximize data protection and availability without creating a drain on the system. The central management platform allows IT to immediately recognize and resolve security issues.

Increase Agility and Responsiveness

Business needs rapidly change, requiring IT to be more agile and responsive than ever. The simplified management, automation, and scalability HCI provides help maximize IT agility. Administrators can easily move workloads and allocate resources as needed while automated processes allow IT to focus more on meeting business needs. With HCI, IT can function as a valuable business service, improving performance and efficiency throughout the organization.

HCI eliminates many of the issues that modern SDDCs face. With HCI, data center management is simple and efficient. Automated processes allow IT to focus more on business objectives and maximize their agility. Easy scalability and resource pooling ensure optimal resource utilization. Built-in tools ensure that data is always secure without sacrificing system performance. HCI does not require an expensive upfront investment as it can be implemented over time. HCI is a cost-effective solution that can help you get more from your data center investment. When every part of the data center is linked to form a cohesive infrastructure, virtualization can reach its full potential.

[Featured Video]

Real Tech with WEI: Getting Started with Hyperconverged Infrastructure

NEXT STEPS: Explore the key differences between converged and hyperconverged infrastructure in our white paper: Future Ready Data center: Converged vs Hyperconverged infrastructure.

The post What Can Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Do for Your Business? appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Over the past decade, drastic changes have taken place within the data center. Technological advances and innovative new products have revolutionized the way data centers operate. Virtualization is now a vital part of the modern software-defined data center (SDDC). While virtualization is enormously beneficial, it comes with a new set of challenges. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) resolves many of the efficiency, security, and scalability issues facing today’s data centers.

What is HCI?

HCI is a next-generation architecture designed to meet the needs of the modern SDDC. Created to support cloud and software-first methods, HCI unites every aspect of the data center. Servers, hypervisors, storage, and data management are controlled from a central platform. HCI provides high scalability and agility while simplifying data center management. With HCI, enterprises can take a cloud-first approach without sacrificing availability and performance.

Data center convergence is not a new idea. There are many comprehensive solutions that link storage, networking, and computing devices. However, many of these solutions only serve to simplify infrastructure development and upgrades. Modern SDDCs require a solution that also addresses day-to-day management and operational needs.

Virtualization has become a key data center element. HCI simplifies the management of virtual machines and workloads, and solves many virtualization challenges. With HCI, IT can manage the entire data center from a single interface. HCI permits the clustering of systems, even across separate sites, creating shared resource pools. In turn, this helps maximize availability, agility, performance, and scalability.

Challenges and Industry Trends

Virtualization has redefined the data center, but it has its own challenges. New products and solutions are available each week. Enterprises often rush to employ every new device to ensure that their data centers are state-of-the-art. Many of these solutions are highly beneficial and meet specific needs. For example, deduplication appliances can significantly cut down on the storage space required for backups. The downside is that these devices are not all designed to work together. Each product must be managed separately, and each part of the IT department requires a dedicated specialist. This disconnect has made data center management complicated and inefficient.

IT departments often employ several solutions to maximize data efficiency and storage capacity. However, many of these products utilize the same methods, resulting in CPU intensive redundancies. For example, data sent to storage is deduplicated to maximize storage space. To create a backup, the data must be hydrated or returned to its original state. It is then deduplicated again when the system sends the backup to storage. This repeated deduplication and hydration results in extensive CPU and bandwidth costs. The intended benefits of the solutions are neutralized by the increased demands on the infrastructure.

Virtualization has revolutionized the way enterprises use and manage their servers. Unfortunately, few companies are using virtualization as intended. True virtualization should unite all resources into a single pool that users can access as needed. When IT departments use separate incompatible hardware and software components, the benefits of virtualization are reduced. Each component must be managed through its own interface. The result is separate groups of specialists managing different aspects of the data center. This creates a complex management system that limits the data center’s potential.

Benefits of HCI

HCI seeks to simplify data center management and optimize resources. With HCI, enterprises can eliminate the need for separate management systems and staff. HCI works by linking each aspect of the data center to create a single physical system with one comprehensive management interface. Data center management is drastically simplified, resulting in increased performance. HCI helps enterprises maximize:

• Data efficiency
• Scalability
• Data protection
• Application and workload mobility
• Data availability

Resource and management optimization also lowers operating costs and reduces IT expenses, making HCI a cost-effective solution. With HCI, companies can get more out of their data center investments.

HCI allows enterprises to realize the true potential of their modernized data centers. Tech innovations and changing business needs have transformed the data center and brought on new challenges. Incompatible devices and solutions are managed separately and often create intense system demands. IT becomes a multi-department division, with each group managing a different aspect of the system. This separation cancels out the unity that virtualization should bring. With HCI, every part of the data center is connected to and managed by a single interface. HCI turns the modern data center into the comprehensive, streamlined environment it is designed to be.

NEXT STEPS: Explore the major differences between converged and hyperconverged infrastructure in our white paper: Future Ready Data center: Converged vs Hyperconverged infrastructure.

The post The Basics of Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.