{"id":35608,"date":"2019-11-21T09:10:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T09:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=35608"},"modified":"2019-11-21T09:10:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T09:10:12","slug":"scale-computing-expert-debunks-four-common-hci-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/11\/21\/scale-computing-expert-debunks-four-common-hci-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"Scale Computing expert debunks four common HCI myths"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Despite the fact that hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has gone mainstream in the last few years, there are still myths that circulate and lead to misconceptions and confusion, even for those that have various HCI solutions already deployed. Here, Alan Conboy, Office of the CTO, Scale Computing, debunks the four most popular HCI myths.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>HCI costs more than building your own\nvirtual infrastructure<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Firstly, the upfront cost of HCI solutions differs\nbetween vendors and often by the brand of hypervisor used in the solution. Not\nto mention, while it is often true that purchasing the individual parts needed\nto make a virtualisation infrastructure might be less expensive than purchasing\nan HCI solution, that\u2019s only part of the cost of the solution. The true and\ntotal cost of infrastructure goes far beyond the initial purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HCI solutions make virtualisation easier to deploy,\nmanage and grow in the future, which is their most compelling virtue.\nThe ease of use and simplicity it offers make for a dramatically lower total\ncost of ownership over time. From deploying in hours rather than days, to\nscaling out seamlessly without downtime, HCI eliminates many of the major\nheadaches that come with traditional DIY virtualisation solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HCI handles a lot of the daily tasks typically\nassociated with managing and maintaining virtualisation infrastructure using\nautomation and machine intelligence. The ease of use and reduction of\nmanagement time frees up resources to work on other tasks and projects. Savings\ncan also include eliminating hypervisor software licensing, depending on the\nhypervisor deployed by or supported by the HCI vendor. The savings may vary by\norganisation, but nearly always, the numbers bear out that the good HCI\nsolutions are less costly over a three to five-year period or less.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>HCI is just software-defined storage\nwith a hypervisor<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Software-defined storage (SDS) vendors have been\ncoming out of the woodwork with questionable HCI solutions that meet the\ncriteria for this myth ever since HCI went mainstream. But, while the true HCI\nsolutions may include SDS, they are a whole lot more than just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The signature of HCI solutions is its\nsimplification of virtualisation. SDS solutions might help to simplify storage\nto a certain extent, but they often aren\u2019t much more than an emulated SAN\/NAS\nsolution. Many SDS solutions use Vendor Specific\nAttributes (VSAs) to emulate SAN for the hypervisors they support. This\nmeans that SDS solutions are ultimately very similar to a SAN in the overall\ncomplexity of the solution, defeating the point of making it simpler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>True HCI solutions will automate a lot of the\nconfiguration and management tasks that make traditional DIY virtualisation so\ncomplicated and hard to manage. That\u2019s why many HCI solutions are delivered as\npurpose-built appliances where the knowledge of the hardware supports even\ngreater automation. Automation such as automatic storage pooling, rolling\nupdates and self-healing go far beyond the simpler SDS solutions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those HCI solutions that also directly integrate\nhypervisors, rather than using third-party hypervisors, are the best option.\nThis level of integration allows for more efficient data pathing and resource\nutilisation. SDS solutions were already supporting third-party hypervisors long\nbefore the term HCI was even invented and that simply doesn\u2019t make the grade\nfor HCI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>HCI doesn\u2019t work for the entire\nenterprise to Edge Computing spectrum<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Many HCI vendors came out the gate and charged\nstraight at enterprise computing and the enterprise market is definitely the\none in which to make a lot of noise and be noticed, whether good or bad. But,\nwith the rise of Edge Computing, we now see a greater emphasis on HCI as a\nvehicle for Edge infrastructure. Some, but not all, HCI vendors have the right\narchitecture to answer the call of Edge Computing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>VSA-based HCI solutions can consume large amounts\nof resources, making it nearly impossible to use on the smaller form factor\nappliances needed for Edge Computing use cases. With Edge Computing, the cost\nis key and requiring resource-rich appliances to run the storage and hypervisor\nwill increase the cost of the solution at each Edge site.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you wanted to install HCI on appliances with a\nsmall resource footprint even up to 64GB of RAM, using a VSA-based solution\nthat\u2019s going to consume half that RAM per node. This is simply not\ncost-effective. Instead, HCI solutions with hypervisor-embedded storage use fewer\nresources and can install and run on smaller appliances efficiently, making Edge\nComputing a cost-effective reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>HCI is a bad idea because it\u2019s a\nsingle-vendor solution<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>As the well-known saying goes \u2018don\u2019t put all your\neggs in one basket\u2019. In the same sense, some don\u2019t like the idea of having\ntheir entire infrastructure stack come from one vendor. They might want to\ndiversify their infrastructure portfolio among many vendors, perhaps to avoid\nthat single vendor not living up to its promises. But, while managing risk is\nimportant in running any organisation, business leaders may not have fully\nthought through the risk vs. reward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HCI came into existence in order to overcome a\nvariety of challenges facing traditional virtualisation infrastructure \u2013 challenges\nwhich are mostly caused by combining multiple vendors solutions into a single\nstack. The most egregious of these challenges, or at least the one felt most\npersonally by IT pros, can be the finger-pointing between vendors when a customer\ncalls for support. Vendors may spend days or longer debating who owns the\nproblem while the customer is left without resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The increased integration and automation\ncapabilities that can be achieved is a massive benefit of one single vendor owning\nthe whole stack. This is especially clear in HCI solutions that\nuse third-party hypervisors where, when system updates need to be performed,\nthey must be done separately for the hypervisor from the rest of the system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Handling these system updates separately isn\u2019t\nideal because any one vendor\u2019s updates have the potential to cause issues with\nother vendor solutions. This is why system updates across a multi-vendor\nsolution have historically been arduous tasks usually performed over long\nnights and weekends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A properly integrated HCI solution really will fly\nin the face of these common myths, as it will enable IT administrators to focus\non apps and workloads, rather than leaving them chained to simply managing\ninfrastructure day-in, day-out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite the fact that hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has gone mainstream in the last few years, there are still myths that circulate and lead to misconceptions and confusion, even for those that have various HCI solutions already deployed. Here, Alan Conboy, Office of the CTO, Scale Computing, debunks the four most popular HCI myths. HCI costs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":35611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,55,9442,93],"tags":[7242,13560,5263],"class_list":["post-35608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud","category-data-centres","category-digital-transformation","category-top-stories","tag-cto","tag-hci","tag-hyperconverged-infrastructure"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35610,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35608\/revisions\/35610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}