(Hyper) Converged Infrastructure

In a traditional infrastructure deployment, compute, storage and networking are deployed and managed independently, often based on components from multiple vendors. In a converged infrastructure, the compute, storage, and network components are designed, assembled, and delivered by one vendor and managed as one system, typically deployed in one or more racks. A converged infrastructure minimizes compatibility issues between servers, storage systems and network devices while also reducing costs for cabling, cooling, power and floor space.

The technology is usually difficult to expand on-demand, requiring the deployment of another rack of infrastructure to add new resources. The following picture shows an example of a converged system.

2016-09/converged-system.jpg


While in a converged infrastructure the infrastructure is deployed as individual components in a rack, a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) brings together the same components within a single server node.

A hyperconverged infrastructure comprises a large number of identical physical servers from one vendor with direct attached storage in the server and special software that manages all servers, storage, and networks as one cluster running virtual machines.

The technology is easy to expand on-demand, by adding servers to the hyperconverged cluster. The following picture shows an example of a hyperconverged system.

2016-09/hyperconverged-system.jpg

Hyperconverged systems are an ideal candidate for deploying VDI environments (see section 12.3.3), because the storage is close to the compute (as it is in the same box) and the solution scales well with the rise of the number of users.

A big advantage of converged and hyperconverged infrastructures is having to deal with one firmware and software vendor. Vendors of hyperconverged infrastructures provide all updates for compute, storage and networking in one service pack and deploying these patches is typically much easier than deploying upgrades in all individual components in a traditional infrastructure deployment.

Drawbacks of converged and hyperconverged infrastructures are:

  • Vendor lock-in – the solution is only beneficial if all infrastructure is from the same vendor
  • Scaling can only be done in fixed building blocks – if more storage is needed, compute must also be purchased. This can have a side effect: since some software licenses are based on the number of used CPUs or CPU cores, adding storage also means adding CPUs and hence leads to extra license costs.

This entry was posted on Friday 21 October 2016

Earlier articles

Quantum computing

Security at cloud providers not getting better because of government regulation

The cloud is as insecure as its configuration

Infrastructure as code

DevOps for infrastructure

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

(Hyper) Converged Infrastructure

Object storage

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV)

Software Defined Storage (SDS)

What's the point of using Docker containers?

Identity and Access Management

Using user profiles to determine infrastructure load

Public wireless networks

Supercomputer architecture

Desktop virtualization

Stakeholder management

x86 platform architecture

Midrange systems architecture

Mainframe Architecture

Software Defined Data Center - SDDC

The Virtualization Model

What are concurrent users?

Performance and availability monitoring in levels

UX/UI has no business rules

Technical debt: a time related issue

Solution shaping workshops

Architecture life cycle

Project managers and architects

Using ArchiMate for describing infrastructures

Kruchten’s 4+1 views for solution architecture

The SEI stack of solution architecture frameworks

TOGAF and infrastructure architecture

The Zachman framework

An introduction to architecture frameworks

How to handle a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack

Architecture Principles

Views and viewpoints explained

Stakeholders and their concerns

Skills of a solution architect architect

Solution architects versus enterprise architects

Definition of IT Architecture

What is Big Data?

How to make your IT "Greener"

What is Cloud computing and IaaS?

Purchasing of IT infrastructure technologies and services

IDS/IPS systems

IP Protocol (IPv4) classes and subnets

Infrastructure Architecture - Course materials

Introduction to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

Fire prevention in the datacenter

Where to build your datacenter

Availability - Fall-back, hot site, warm site

Reliabilty of infrastructure components

Human factors in availability of systems

Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)

Performance - Design for use

Performance concepts - Load balancing

Performance concepts - Scaling

Performance concept - Caching

Perceived performance

Ethical hacking

The first computers

Open group ITAC /Open CA Certification


Recommended links

Ruth Malan
Gaudi site
Esther Barthel's site on virtualization
Eltjo Poort's site on architecture


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The postings on this site are my opinions and do not necessarily represent CGI’s strategies, views or opinions.

 

Copyright Sjaak Laan