HYPERCONVERGED. One of the many buzzwords thrown around today amongst the litany in the IT industry. What is Hyperconverged and how can it help revolutionize your daily business operations?
Many years ago, the need for more and more applications caused data centers to grow, so did the need for additional servers. Servers were standalone, single points of failure for data availability. Since the hard disks resided in each individual server, any failures that occurred on that server would cause data to become unavailable until the issue was resolved. This resulted in extended periods of application inaccessibility and loss of productivity.
To help solve the issue of a single point of failure, administrators turned to external storage arrays for better utilization of computing hardware and data availability across the compute stack. Enabling data availability to multiple compute resources, the external storage array became common place in the data center and remains so to this day. The storage array solved the problem of data availability for the compute but introduced the added complexity of daily management tasks and maintenance of the array. Many datacenters today still rely on multiple arrays for data accessibility and often from many different vendors resulting in multiple points of contact for problem resolution causing frustration and downtime.
A Hyperconverged solution does away with the need for an external storage array and brings your compute and storage hardware back under one roof. Hyperconverged allows local disk storage on servers to be accessible amongst all the servers in the stack.
How is this possible?
VMware vSAN
VMware is the industry leader in virtualization and has continued to mature with a multitude of products and features. Out of that evolution, VMware vSAN was introduced to solve the problem of having to utilize a traditional external storage array.
The Dell|EMC VxRail leverages the vSAN technology and has brought storage back under the same roof by utilizing the local disk drives in the latest generation of Dell|EMC PowerEdge servers. The days of separate physical servers and a separate storage array have been replaced. The introduction of VMware vSAN brought the standalone physical server populated with local hard disks back full circle and allows for continuous uptime and availability.
As for day-to-day management, this is all orchestrated by an interface many administrators are familiar with, VMware vCenter.
VxRail architecture is built on a scale up and scale out methodology. As additional compute and storage resources are required, additional nodes are added to the existing stack allowing your virtual infrastructure to grow with your business needs, all without interruption to daily operation.
The Dell|EMC VxRail solves numerous problems commonly found in datacenters today.
Ease of updates
Now that the storage array is no longer necessary, updates are contained in one easy to install package. All firmware and patches are combined by Dell|EMC and VMware for a hassle-free update process. No need for separate software packages for disparate hardware and possible maintenance windows. It really is the easy button for keeping your virtualization stack up to date.
VMware vCenter – Minimal learning curve
Many system administrators are right at home with this tool. VxRail leverages vCenter as the main interface for your day-to-day operations. VxRail is built utilizing the VMware vSphere platform, there is next to no learning curve when bringing VxRail into your data center, just continue operations as usual. If you have yet to embark on the VMware journey, the intuitive tools and user-friendly interface turn the learning curve more of a slight incline.
Single point of contact for support
Sometimes just keeping the lights are the biggest challenge a system administrator can face. Nothing can make this more difficult than having to deal with multiple vendors who might not take responsibility when an issue arises. The VxRail solves this problem by having a single point of contact for issue resolution. No longer do you have to contact separate vendors for software or hardware issues as the VxRail is all inclusive. The hardware and software support process has been streamlined by Dell|EMC technical support.
Contact the VxRail experts at Abtech Technologies to further discover how the Hyperconverged VxRail platform from Dell|EMC can solve some of the most difficult challenges in your datacenter.
