The Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Appliance: The Fastest Path to Software-Defined Data Center Benefits and Hybrid Cloud Efficiencies

Featured article by Megan McMichael, Principal VxRail Product Marketing Manager, Dell EMC & Wayne Pauley, Senior Director for Global Alliances, VMWare

Though barely out of its infancy, hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) has become a golden child within the IT ecosystem. Its simplicity and scalability have opened the door to software-defined data center (SDDC) capabilities at companies of all sizes, providing performance capabilities that once required enterprise-level resources to implement. It has become the great equalizer for hybrid cloud access.

HCI’s ascent has been remarkable; it was only a few years ago that IT organizations were cautiously experimenting with such compact and powerful appliances – taking small, measured steps toward integrating these cloud-ready devices into data center operations. HCI appliances were private cloud sandboxes for pioneering IT personnel to play with by picking and choosing workloads to virtualize.

Low-threshold, non-mission-critical workloads, of course. You don’t just go and dump a company’s vital operations in the sandbox.

But fast forward a year or so, and HCI adoption is on a tear, sweeping into data centers and powering more – and more varied – workloads by the day. Equally impressive is how HCI adoption has spread from the big guys – enterprises that were maturing their virtualized environments and could afford to dabble in new, unproven technologies that promised a fast path to cloud – down to businesses of all sizes.

Today, the HCI appliance is a proven veteran of the data center, a core infrastructure component with a modest price tag and more than enough horsepower under the hood to deliver mission-critical data center capabilities to enterprises large and small.

HCI Appliances Support Enterprise Mobility Initiatives

HCI appliances still are a favorite choice for enterprises looking to address specific IT initiatives, and the fast growth of mobility makes for an ideal use case.

Millennials are the largest generation in today’s workforce, digital natives who grew up with technology at their fingertips and expect to be able to access information wherever and whenever needed, on any device. At the same time, today’s enterprise is likely to either employ a distributed workforce and/or utilize flexible staffing plans with contract workers. In response to these combined pressures, IT organizations in companies of all sizes are instituting mobility initiatives featuring bring your own device (BYOD) programs. The HCI appliance, with its engineered ability to support SDDC agility, is the ideal foundation for the mobile-first workforce.

When the HCI appliance is paired with a tightly integrated desktop and application virtualization client, roll-out of mobility initiatives can be fast and easy. The self-service and automation of many fundamental IT tasks allows for rapid scaling as the end-user pool grows and shrinks with changing business requirements. And with centralized management a prominent feature, the HCI appliance can be deployed locally, wherever the distributed workforce is concentrated, without requiring an on-site IT presence. Whether the enterprise is supporting warehousing and distribution facilities, manufacturing sites or regional offices, this all adds up to efficient operations and streamlined OpEx.

For the IT administrator, it’s the management and orchestration software that can make an HCI deployment such a pleasure. In addition to providing an end-to-end view into data center operations, the most robust HCI software can automate many common administration tasks and provide proactive alerts to help admins keep operations running within optimal parameters.

The other top-level advantage of HCI is how it helps address data center vulnerability. As too-frequent headlines remind concerned CIOs and CTOs, damaging cyber attacks are a persistent threat. But when data centers are powered by the right hyper-converged software stack, the baked-in security and reliability attributes of todays’ leading HCI appliances means IT administrators can have confidence that greater mobility does not also mean greater data center vulnerability, while workers will enjoy an uncompromised user experience.

HCI Means Any Business Has Access to SDDCs

Moving beyond application-specific scenarios, a new trend in HCI adoption is emerging among small and medium sized businesses: HCI as the building block for the complete software-defined data center. The flexibility, agility, power and security of today’s HCI appliances make them an ideal choice for companies looking for a complete private cloud deployment but don’t require the capacity of HCI’s enterprise-grade converged infrastructure predecessors. HCI affords companies a low-threshold entry to cloud-first data center operations, allowing them to start small and scale as rapidly as needed.

This is a true show-stopper when it comes to highlighting the advantage of the HCI appliance. When we say “start small,” we mean really small. With a single appliance, it’s now cost effective to run as few as 200 virtual machines. This gives small- and medium-size businesses access to SDDCs without the enterprise-grade economics necessary in the days before HCI.

And the best news is that starting small doesn’t have to mean staying small: Rack up these appliances as business requirements change, and if you ever need to, you can support up to 3,200 VMs. This is the nimble approach that today’s highly competitive companies need to address customer and workforce requirements and stay ahead of their competitors’ maneuvers.

The beauty of the HCI appliance as the building block of the software-defined data center lies in the factory-engineered integration of the hardware and software components. When deploying a leading HCI solution, IT organizations can reap the benefits of the great efficiencies stemming from this tight factory integration. With engineered interplay between hypervisor and the virtual storage array, for example, the resulting optimized data path gets a gold star both for fantastic performance with better memory efficiency and for improved CPU performance.

The flexibility, agility, power and security of today’s HCI appliances make them an ideal choice for companies looking for a complete private cloud deployment but don’t require the capacity of HCI’s enterprise-grade converged infrastructure predecessors. HCI affords companies a low-threshold entry to cloud-first data center operations, allowing them to start small and scale as rapidly as needed. When you start small, you pay small, permitting companies to approach funding from an entirely different budgeting model.

And that’s a pretty impressive showing for something that came out of a sandbox.

Megan McMichael
Megan McMichael is a Principal VxRail Product Marketing Manager focused on enabling sales teams to win with VxRail. She joined EMC in 2014 to help lead global partner marketing efforts for VSPEX BLUE, and transitioned into a Product Marketing role for VxRail in 2015. Prior to EMC, Megan spent 3.5 years at one of EMC’s top partners managing marketing and alliance relations for all of the EMC Federated companies.

Wayne Pauley
Wayne Pauley is Senior Director for Global Alliances at VMware, driving go-to-market strategies in support of VMware and Dell EMC joint solutions. He has over 30 years of experience combining business and technology skills in Engineering, Product Marketing/Management, Sales and Professional Services roles.