In recent years, there has been an accelerated increase in the number of organisations implementing flexible computer infrastructures to support the exponential expansion of the computer infrastructures required by the digital era.
Traditional computer infrastructures require organisations to plan growth 3-5 years in advance. However, within the transition to the digital era, organisations are now required to respond quickly to resource-intensive and capacity-intensive demands that cannot use the existing infrastructure. The Hyper Converged Infrastructure solution enables rapid expansion in small blocks focusing on aspects of price and floor space, each of which adds processing, memory and capacity resources as needed.
Prior to adopting the Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI), organisations must adhere to the following guidelines:
Scaling
HCI vendors committing to Scale Up with no real constraints. Is that so? They do not bother to detail what the direct and indirect requirements or aspects are. Organisations often do not plan properly, and when they want to expand, they need to be ready for many requirements, such as software licensing, switches, power, downtime, resource balancing, and more. In addition, to avoid being misled, make sure to ask for references from customers who have already expanded in order to clarify what challenges they have faced as a result.
Sizing
Solution manufacturers do not replace the need for careful performance and capacity planning, therefore organisations must make sure the solution is compatible with their application needs. Keep in mind that big data and digital applications evolve at a rapid pace.
Integration
A variety of softwares are included by the HCI vendors as part of the offered solutions, such as management, virtualisation, backup, control and monitoring, and more. Organisations need to make sure that there is sufficient integration with the traditional environment in order to enable continued unified management, backup, recovery, control, and monitoring.
Redundancy and Availability
An organisation's service level agreement policies are defined according to business needs and traditional infrastructure limitations. Before adopting flexible infrastructures and the digital revolution, an organisation's needs for new era applications are different from that of traditional policy, therefore they must make sure that new SLA requirements are aligned with the proposed solution, such as disaster recovery.
Price (ROI)
When comparing HCI solutions to traditional infrastructure costs, organisations must include all software and hardware required and included. For example, IP switches are intensively required by HCI vendors in comparison to traditional SAN switches, floor space and power requirements. Furthermore, software licensing compare whether a hypervisor, backup software or other software included by HCI vendors needs to be compared to the same capabilities in traditional infrastructure. Organisations must make sure to compare all aspects when considering HCI solutions against traditional solutions, and demand vendor commitment to the future cost of expansion units. Moreover, don't forget to include direct and non-direct costs required for expansion.
Conclusion
Hyper Converged Infrastructure solutions are an excellent and flexible option to support the transition to the digital era while offering simplicity, economic expansion, and capabilities that support the business pace. Furthermore, HCI solutions do not require extensive infrastructure expenses in advance, as already mentioned - PAY AS YOU GROW.
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