Taking Hyper-converged Infrastructure to a New Level of Performance, Efficiency and TCO

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1 Taking Hyper-converged Infrastructure to a New Level of Performance, Efficiency and TCO Adoption of hyper-converged infrastructure is rapidly expanding, but the technology needs a new twist in order to improve its economic story. Now, a unique approach to HCI portends well for buyers who want high performance for sophisticated workloads and an even more attractive financial benefit. If you ve adopted or are evaluating hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), you re not alone. HCI is rapidly gaining steam for use cases ranging from data center modernization and remote office/branch office to small and midsize businesses. How much momentum is HCI enjoying these days? Consider the following data points: Global HCI revenues are projected to hit $18 billion by 2023, a compound annual growth rate of more than 43%. 1 Nearly 30% of storage buyers have already deployed HCI, and another 32% are piloting or plan to deploy HCI in the near future. 2 The percentage of storage buyers planning to invest in HCI is up 50% in the past 12 months. 3 1 Hyper-converged Infrastructure Market Research Report Forecast to 2023, Market Research Future, September H18 Storage Market Landscape Study, TechTarget, July IT Priorities survey, TechTarget, July 2018

2 WHITE PAPER 2 HCI s ease of deployment, nearly infinite scalability, small form factor and simplified management have made it attractive to IT decision-makers looking to get away from monolithic data centers that require substantial staffing investments for management, monitoring and periodic infrastructure refresh. But early iterations of HCI carry a downside: inefficient hardware resource utilization that spikes both Capex and Opex costs. That s because existing solutions typically come with fixed ratios of CPU, storage, memory and network bandwidth, which means that in order to upgrade any one infrastructure element, the entire HCI appliance must be upgraded or replaced. The result: HCI appliance sprawl, including more cabling, more physical space, higher power and cooling costs and more complex management. This makes HCI a less attractive option for workloads that demand peak performance, but relatively low Capex investment, such as big data, DevOps, hybrid cloud infrastructure as a service, OLTP and high-end databases. There is a new option, however. This paper looks at new HCI solutions that combine a unique hardware design with the efficiency and functionality of a well-established and familiar storage software platform. Together, it results in HCI solutions that offer improved performance, easier management and an impressive economic story measured in lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and faster return on investment (ROI). The limits of traditional HCI Hyper-converged infrastructure isn t a new technology development; in fact, it s a logical extension of converged infrastructure technology that has been around for well over a decade. HCI took converged infrastructure a step beyond the simple integration of compute and storage into a single appliance to include networking, virtualization hypervisor and, often, security. Besides this high level of infrastructure integration, what has made HCI extremely attractive is the ability to optimize HCI appliances for specific workloads, such as VDI, remote office/ branch office infrastructure and private clouds. But what might be called first-generation HCI has clear limits, and various challenges have caused some organizations to take a wait-andsee attitude toward HCI adoption. These include: While initial Capex investment may be relatively low, expanding HCI solutions to address its applicability for additional workloads typically has come with higher Capex and Opex costs.

3 WHITE PAPER 3 Early HCI implementations have required a uniform scaling of all infrastructure components, rather than the ability to scale individual capabilities, such as adding only storage or only memory. As a result, scaling HCI has often meant ending up with more HCI appliances, which adds cost and complexity. As a result of this infrastructure sprawl, HCI Opex savings may be limited or wiped out completely, while HCI environments typically become harder, rather than easier, to manage. Defining the ideal next-gen HCI solution Now that the industry has had a number of years of HCI deployment under its belt, a picture is starting to emerge for how to make HCI even more useful to organizations. Against the backdrop of a need to keep IT costs under control, make IT more responsive to business needs and to reduce IT complexity, HCI solutions that can deliver a number of enhanced functions and features are poised for wider adoption. These include: Improved hardware density to align with skyrocketing data volume, performance-hungry workloads and an easy transition to a cloud-first architectural strategy. Lower Capex at scale, in order to deliver robust scalability in an era of digital transformation and the recasting of IT as a business enabler, rather than as a cost center. Lower Opex, in the form of smaller physical footprints, lower cooling and power costs and less cabling. Easier management/automation to embed more intelligence into HCI solutions, and to reduce dependency on IT staffs to handle tactical functions such as patching, configurations, network monitoring, security alerts and capacity utilization. Faster performance at all levels compute, storage and networking especially in hyperscale environments. Software-defined architecture philosophy that reduces complexity, trims Capex and facilitates scalability. Leverage a familiar storage software platform tied to popular hypervisor, in order to take advantage of IT familiarity with tried-and-true solutions. Introducing FabricXpress from Axellio Now that the industry has had a number of years of HCI deployment under its belt, a picture is starting to emerge for how to make HCI even more useful to organizations. Axellio, a division of storage and IT infrastructure innovator X-IO Technologies, has developed the FabricXpress HCI computing solution for performance-intensive workloads such as analytics, VDI, private cloud, financial modeling, cybersecurity and the Internet of Things.

4 WHITE PAPER 4 FabricXpress HCI (FX-HCI) is designed according to principles of high density, low latency and high bandwidth for hyperscale performance for Tier 1 and other performance-centric use cases. It utilizes the ultra-high-performance NVMe/PCIe architecture for workloads where low latency and high IOPS are must-have requirements. It also uses high compute density, supporting up to 88 CPU cores and 2 TB of RAM, for applications marked by extremely high numbers of inputs that are processed for real-time insights and responses. Axellio s FabricXpress platform is designed from the ground up to support dual-ported NVMe flash storage with an integrated PCIe fabric for extremely high performance all in a lowprofile converged compute/storage 2U form factor. This allows organizations to transform their data center into extremely high-density environments without expanding the data center footprint. It can also be expanded to a near-infinite unlimited capacity through the use of six modular slots per appliance, which can be used for any combination of flash storage, CPU, graphics or networking. This design makes it easy and fast to upgrade, expand or reconfigure infrastructure to meet changing workload requirements. The result is a solution with optimized flexibility, low TCO, fast ROI, easier management and the elimination of infrastructure sprawl that has plagued earlier HCI implementations. Leveraging the Windows Server Software-Defined Datacenter Solutions (WSSD) If next-generation HCI is all about simplicity and efficiency, then a key enabler is supporting the principles of a software-defined data center. But what if you don t have the resources to architect and deploy a software-defined approach?

5 WHITE PAPER 5 One way X-IO is trying to help organizations do that is by partnering with Microsoft in the software company s Windows Server Software-Defined (WSSD) solutions program. By adopting WSSD architectural principles, Axellio s FX-HCI solution can vastly simplify traditional data center functions and deliver enhanced functionality without incurring big Capex or having to hire scores of IT administrators. FabricXpress HCI is certified by Microsoft for the full range of WSSD solutions, meeting quality standards, accelerated time to value, out-of-the-box optimization and expedited problem resolution. This helps organizations deploy HCI solutions faster and more efficiently. This enables a single point of contact for implementation and support services. The Axellio/Microsoft solutions partnership also facilitates enterprises journey to the cloud, because it allows hyperscale data centers to be created and managed through Microsoft s broadly adopted Azure public cloud environment. If your organization is already using Windows Server 2016, looking to move to Windows Server 2019 or Azure or is contemplating doing so Axellio s partnership with Microsoft makes your road smoother and more predictable to navigate. Conclusion To fully leverage the high-performance workloads of today and tomorrow, organizations need to rethink their IT architecture around simplicity, performance, agility and cost efficiency. HCI has emerged as an exciting and promising technology even in its earliest iterations, but it s now time for a new approach to HCI that overcomes its limitations and is optimized for evolving enterprise workloads. To fully leverage the highperformance workloads of today and tomorrow, organizations need to rethink their IT architecture around simplicity, performance, agility and cost efficiency. Modernized HCI implementations are emerging that deliver enhanced economic value, business agility, hyperscale performance and the flexibility to build out infrastructure only as much as is necessary or desired at a point in time. By avoiding the infrastructure sprawl that tamped down on HCI acceptance in the past, organizations can take advantage of new capabilities that transform the traditional data center as well as all compute centers in the modern, distributed enterprise. Axellio s FabricXpress HCI, an optimized hyper-converged solution, delivers enterprise-class performance at price points previously not attainable by legacy HCI vendors. FabricXpress allows IT organizations to deploy cutting-edge technology at extremely attractive price points and with lower Opex to achieve a lower TCO and faster return on investment. For more information on how the X-IO Technologies Axellio division can help your organization use technology more efficiently and for more concrete business benefits, please visit