Uncovering the Truth About Hyperconvergence

Hyperconvergence is the latest tech trend in the data center world, and as with every new trend, the market is flush with unverified or false information. As conventional infrastructures change, those whose business is tied to those traditional operations will have knee-jerk reactions either strongly for or against the newest trends, depending on how it will affect them.

Last year, Gartner created a list of hyperconvergence integrated system (HCIS) myths to help better educate buyers and prevent them from making poor decisions. The myths look at both positive and negative aspects of deploying this model. These include:

• “All Implementations Comprise Standard and Open Architecture”
  • Gartner points out that standardization and openness largely depends on the codebase and who is in control of the code. Standards may vary from vendor to vendor.
• “All Implementations are Destined to Fail Mission-Critical Scalability and Resiliency Tests”
• While HCIS is designed primarily for high-availability and virtualized workloads, there is a lot of variation to how these environments scale.
• Initial investments can dramatically increase over time as use-case demand rises and additional nodes are needed.
• Due to improved scaling, data protection, efficient/ease of deployment and overall improved performance, HCIS is ideal for more general-purpose workloads in addition to VDI.
• This is true for highly virtualized environments, but less so for large mission-critical applications which need more predictability and reliability.
• While HCIS does force tradition infrastructure into silo deployments, it also demands collaboration to tackle specialty integrations that differ from legacy solutions.
• Gartner’s focus group research has shown vendor loyalty will depend on ability to adapt to HCIS, stray from conventional solutions and be both agile and innovative.
• “HCIS Costs Represent the Least Expensive Deployment Model”
• “The Most Important Use Case is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI”
• “HCIS Spells the Demise of Traditional Storage Arrays”
• “HCIS Eliminates Data Center Interoperability and Silos”
• “Traditional Vendor Selection Preference Will Remain the Same”

Lenovo also covered a similar list of HCIS myths in a video published more recently (last month). It covers how hyperconvergence can help simplify your data center and increase its agility. Many of the points remain the same:

• They review the myth of openness and standardization, explaining that you can run the OS Of your choice but are often locked into the same vendor when you want to expand.
• They also cover how VDI is most synonymous with HCIS right now, but that new uses are emerging and will continue to do so over time.
• Issues with interoperability should be treated the same way as it would in other systems
• HCIS is not the end of SAN as believed by many. The need is “still fairly robust.”
• While Gartner highlighted the myth of HCIS being more cost-efficient, Lenovo took on the opposite myth that it is too expensive. They both agree that it really depends on the individual situation, and Lenovo points out that cost savings can be achieved with efficient deployment (and that the company’s converged infrastructure can be deployed in just two hours versus weeks).

While there is much to be seen of this latest data center craze, many agree that HCIS is creating new efficiencies with greater flexibility and scalability than what we’ve ever seen in the past. While some surmise that total cost of ownership (TCO) decreases in HCIS environments, and most everyone agrees that there are short-term cost savings that are hard to ignore, the verdict is still not in for if this is truly the most cost-effective solution for every organization in the long-run.

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