It’s often the case that one technology can solve multiple problems. This is particularly true for hyperconverged infrastructure, which is a technical solution that brings together multiple technologies—compute, storage, and network—into a single unit.
The primary benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure that many focus on are lower costs due to commodity components and the ease of support that follows from using standardized configurations supported by a single vendor.
If those benefits aren’t enough to make companies seriously consider using hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, there are other benefits to consider, as well. Don’t overlook the way hyperconverged infrastructure can solve your storage problems.
Problem 1: Storage Silos
Storage silos keep your company from making full use of its storage capacity and the data it houses. Storage devices are dedicated to business groups or even applications, with separate support teams based on business units of the storage technology. The lack of shared storage and central oversight makes managing capacity more expensive than it should be and limits the opportunities to use data for new purposes.
Hyperconverged infrastructure includes storage that is easily extendable at low cost. Storage is managed as a shared resource pool that applications access as needed. Some hyperconverged infrastructure is designed for secondary storage, providing copy data management and support for analytics jobs that means data is no longer locked in place but can support multiple purposes.
Problem 2: Storage at Remote Offices
Meeting the technology needs of remote offices is a challenge when the site isn’t big enough to justify a dedicated onsite IT team. Offsite storage can create latency issues and poor application performance that frustrates employees at the remote site.
Using hyperconverged infrastructure brings storage into the remote location and improves the performance while allowing remote management of the devices. Since support is provided by a single vendor, there’s limited need for onsite support expertise.
Problem 3: Data Protection
Making sure data is protected against tampering and loss is one of the most difficult challenges facing any IT department. Multiple products may be needed to achieve backup and recovery. Often the process isn’t monitored for success or maintained to ensure completeness of the backups.
Hyperconverged infrastructure includes built in data protection, including backup, recovery, and high availability features to minimize the risk of data loss.
Problem 4: Complicated Storage Capacity Planning
When adding capacity to storage is complex, complex storage planning is required to make sure that capacity is available in advance. That means that either funds are spent to purchase storage devices long before they’re necessary or you run out of space and either take stopgap measures to free up space or violate procedures to add capacity fast.
With hyperconverged infrastructure, storage is easily added on demand, eliminating the need for capacity planning that’s often nothing more than a “guesstimate.” The devices are easily added to the pool and allocating the storage is managed by the hyperconverged infrastructure software.
Problem 5: Lack of Storage Expertise
Many organizations have separate IT teams dedicated to server, network, and storage support; these teams are often further divided to focus on specific technical solutions or specific business units. When new technology is added or when employees leave, you may lack expertise in a particular storage technology.
Hyperconverged infrastructure allows you to consolidate your various support teams into a single team that needs to understand only one vendor’s product. Complicated design decisions are eliminated because hyperconverged infrastructure uses modular systems with components pre-validated by the vendor.
Which storage problems are the most challenging for your organization? dcVAST is experienced with hyperconverged infrastructure solutions including Nutanix and Cohesity. We help our clients utilize hyperconverged infrastructure to achieve goals including webscale IT, hybrid cloud, and simplified storage solutions. Contact us to learn how you can use hyperconverged infrastructure to solve your storage challenges and achieve your business goals.
