Hyper-converged systems

The data center of a business tra­di­tion­ally consists of multiple com­pon­ents: Network, storage, computers, and (in the best case) backup/disaster recovery. All of these aspects run sep­ar­ately from one another on different hardware and with in­di­vidu­al software solutions. Ad­min­is­trat­ors manage the com­pon­ents in­de­pend­ently. The com­plex­ity and in­di­vidu­al­ity of each piece make the use of spe­cial­ists required. A network ad­min­is­trat­or is not able to perform storage man­age­ment at the same time.

Corporate IT that’s built in such a way is a solid system that works very well if it’s managed and main­tained properly. At the same time, though, it’s also very rigid and can only be changed with a great deal of effort. New com­pon­ents are expensive, which is why those in charge usually only purchase them in longer cycles. If it becomes clear that the existing means no longer meet re­quire­ments, then the newly acquired equipment should be used for at least the next few years. Ca­pa­cit­ies need to be provided in advance, not just when they are required.

Such a system also reacts sens­it­ively to changes. When setting up IT, ad­min­is­trat­ors use a great deal of energy and nerves to co­ordin­ate all of the elements so that they can work together smoothly. New com­pon­ents need to be added with caution because they could disrupt the technical equi­lib­ri­um.

In com­par­is­on, converged struc­tures have in­di­vidu­al com­pon­ents that are more closely combined in a common framework or ap­plic­a­tion. The com­pon­ents generally remain in­de­pend­ent of one another, however, work together hand-in-hand. They’re co­ordin­ated in advance by the provider of the complete system, which guar­an­tees smooth in­ter­ac­tion. IT no longer has to deal with painstak­ingly adapting in­di­vidu­al hardware com­pon­ents.

It also has or­gan­isa­tion­al ad­vant­ages: Converged systems generally ensure more order in the server room. The different hardware com­pon­ents are ac­com­mod­ated in server cabinets with direct con­nec­tions to one another. However, they’re still in­de­pend­ent, in­di­vidu­al parts that have to be main­tained – and by the ap­pro­pri­ate personnel. When it comes time to upgrade the hardware, ex­ten­sions aren’t easy to add on. The entire system must be modified. In this aspect, converged systems don’t differ from their tra­di­tion­al pre­de­cessors.

HCI reduces the com­plex­ity of data centers, resulting in an increase in ef­fi­ciency and pro­ductiv­ity on various levels.

• Ad­min­is­tra­tion: The com­pos­i­tion of the IT team is fun­da­ment­ally changed by the setup of a hyper-converged in­fra­struc­ture. A tra­di­tion­al data center is char­ac­ter­ised by many in­de­pend­ent solutions. Network, storage, and computer activ­it­ies are all handled sep­ar­ately - not just when it comes to supplying the ap­pro­pri­ate hardware. The man­age­ment of this system is also divided up among various IT experts. Each task has its own spe­cial­ist staff member. With HCI, everything runs on the same interface. All mon­it­or­ing op­er­a­tions can take place in the same location. At the same time, this ensures that gen­er­al­ists are in demand instead of spe­cial­ists. They have to deal with the in­fra­struc­ture as a whole, rather than ex­clus­ively handling partial aspects. Ul­ti­mately, this also means that the IT de­part­ment’s staffing re­quire­ments will decrease.
   
• Setup: HCI is an all-in-one solution. This is based mainly on the idea of plug-and-play: The system arrives, is connected to the power supply, and works. Further setting ad­just­ments are still necessary, of course, but the provider takes care of the lion’s share before delivery. This also helps ease the trans­ition from a tra­di­tion­al system to a hyper-converged solution.
   
• Modi­fic­a­tion: Hyper-converged systems are simpler to customise than a tra­di­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture. For this, it’s necessary to scale the size of systems to suspicion. This means that com­pon­ents are created with the intention that they won’t fully exploit per­form­ance in the future. At the time of setup, the con­di­tions for an effective util­isa­tion are often not yet available, so resources remain unused for a long time. If everything then needs to be upgraded again, it’s a very expensive and labor-intensive process. HCI, on the other hand, can be ret­ro­fit­ted much more easily: Ex­ten­sions can be purchased re­l­at­ively easily for the system and in­teg­rated without IT failure. You simply need to integrate another node into the system. This can be done within a few hours, instead of over several weeks.
   
• Cost: By reducing the number of admin staff, being set up more quickly, and being easier to expand, HCI reduces costs when compared to a tra­di­tion­al system. Ac­quis­i­tion is also much cheaper in most cases. There are also fewer operating costs since the process saves energy. The price of in­di­vidu­al solutions varies, though: The hardware itself isn’t a major expense, but providers can be paid to set it up. The software, which needs to be extremely powerful to run the HCI vir­tu­al­isa­tion, has its price. In the long run, though, it should pay off.
   
• Security: It’s been shown that hyper-converged systems have much less downtime than tra­di­tion­al systems. In addition, the necessary con­di­tions for backups and restores are already installed and automated. Re­dund­ancy is created with the coupling of two nodes. Since all com­pon­ents are virtually rep­res­en­ted within the in­fra­struc­ture, you can exchange entire ap­pli­ances without data loss or system failures.
   
• Speed: Hyper-converged in­fra­struc­tures also offer the advantage of higher speeds in par­tic­u­lar areas. The de­du­plic­a­tion process, in par­tic­u­lar, can be more ef­fect­ively con­trolled. Since all virtual machines use the same code, it’s easier to eliminate duplicate data. The problem of I/O blender effects is also minimised because the systems are fully com­pat­ible and designed for vir­tu­al­isa­tion.

Time and time again, IT teams that rely on tra­di­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture find them­selves without solutions when problems arise - the providers simply blame each other for the error instead. Whose fault it is hardly matters to the affected company, as they just want to get the problem resolved as quickly as possible. This situation can’t occur with hyper-converged all-in-one solutions. There’s only one provider re­spons­ible for system functions. Even if they use com­pon­ents from other man­u­fac­tur­ers, they remain the person of contact and are solely re­spons­ible for solutions.

Space and energy re­quire­ments are minimised, es­pe­cially for small op­er­a­tions. Hyper-converged servers are built very small and have nothing to do with the tra­di­tion­al giant storage cabinets. The energy con­sump­tion is also lower, which is why these systems are con­sidered to be en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly - keyword: Green IT.

If you decide on a hyper-converged system, you receive an all-in-one solution - everything from one provider. But this also means that you’re com­pletely dependent on that server (vendor lock-in). If the man­u­fac­turer should turn out to be un­re­li­able or even dis­con­tin­ue operation, it can be cata­stroph­ic for the company’s IT in­fra­struc­ture. You also won’t be able to simply switch to a new man­u­fac­turer for ex­ten­sions. Chaos in the server room would be in­ev­it­able.

This also goes for when companies try to upgrade their existing in­fra­struc­ture with hyper-converged systems. This is not how the system is designed: HCI should replace existing hardware, not extend it. The transfer from one solution to another is re­l­at­ively easy to manage but for companies that have been working with tra­di­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture for years, it means making a clean break. The hardware into which a great deal of energy and money was invested becomes obsolete along with the move. You have to be aware of this when choosing HCI.

One alleged benefit of the system can also be construed as negative: the flexible ex­tend­ib­il­ity. To customise the data center to fit increased re­quire­ments, a complete appliance is added to the in­fra­struc­ture. This product does include a complete package computer, storage, and network, though. If you really only need more storage space, though, you still have to order an entire package - and this can’t be cus­tom­ised. Providers of hyper-converged systems offer products of various sizes, but this type of data center is exactly the type that is supposed to avoid precisely fitting custom settings.

HCI and cloud tech­no­logy look very similar at first glance since they’re based on the same principle of vir­tu­al­isa­tion: Better use of resources and easier work for users. Both tech­no­lo­gies function with virtual machines that provide services. But the dif­fer­ence is primarily in the location and the given ad­vant­ages and dis­ad­vant­ages of the products. While the cloud service is oc­ca­sion­ally located far away from the customer (depending on the provider, even on a different continent), the hyper-converged system is found in its own nearby room and is under the company’s own control.

The question of whether your company should choose to have its own data center with hyper-converged in­fra­struc­ture depends on the re­quire­ments of the company in question. Small companies that don’t have their own IT de­part­ment are already in good hands with cloud providers. HCI is the right solution, though, for those who think on a larger scale as far as IT is concerned and don’t want to hand the control of their data over to others under any cir­cum­stances.

The major advantage of hyper-converged in­fra­struc­ture is the sim­pli­fic­a­tion of IT: more room, less man­u­fac­turer chaos, less man­age­ment effort. The new systems, which are based on the familiar tech­no­logy, follow the goals of converged in­fra­struc­ture and extend it by vir­tu­al­ising all com­pon­ents. This no longer has much to do with a tra­di­tion­al data center, so the change can sometimes upset the entire system and personnel structure.

The benefits of hyper-converged in­fra­struc­tures are very tempting for small as well as large companies. Good scalab­il­ity paired with sim­pli­fied mon­it­or­ing and man­age­ment makes it reas­on­able for all users. For founders and any company that’s just starting up its IT op­er­a­tions, HCI should be the right choice. The situation is different if there’s already a fully equipped data center with a well-trained IT team. The out-of-the-box systems aren’t intended for in­teg­ra­tion and require no tech­no­lo­gic­al knowledge. If you have to com­pletely replace existing storage, server, and network hardware while sim­ul­tan­eously re­struc­tur­ing the team, then the migration isn’t as appealing.

De­vel­op­ments in the IT market are difficult to predict, otherwise, there wouldn’t have been such frequent mis­cal­cu­la­tions regarding demand and de­vel­op­ment speeds in the past. It’s quite probable, though, that vir­tu­al­isa­tion processes won’t lose their im­port­ance in the future, so HCI shouldn’t simply be dismissed as current hype. A step in this direction - which doesn’t ne­ces­sar­ily mean hyper-con­ver­gence - is essential for any company in the long term. The right time for making such a trans­ition, though, is up to the in­di­vidu­al company and IT spe­cial­ists, who ought to exercise plenty of caution.