Hyperconvergence + Cloud: A Match Made in IT-Efficiency Heaven

Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you’re familiar with hyperconverged infrastructure. And you’re probably also aware of the value that a cloud solution can deliver. But you may not be aware of the great synergies that you can achieve by combining these technologies and what that can do for your data center. Let me put it this way: Hyperconvergence plus Cloud is a match made in IT-efficiency heaven. Here’s why: 

1. Hyperconvergence gives you an easy way to dip your toes in the cloud. With a hyperconverged system, you can start small and fast with cloud and see how it can add value for your organization. This is important because, as with any other technology change, the complexity lies not just in the infrastructure, but in the people and processes around it. Starting small allows you to weave the right organizational processes and get the lines of business/developers to use it--before embarking on “cloudifying” the whole datacenter. 

2. Hyperconverged infrastructure is compact and cost-effective. The typical price tag of cloud implementations puts it out of reach of many small and midsize businesses. With a hyperconverged system, everything you need is in one box, and the upfront investment is more manageable. You can get up to four times the compute in 75 percent less space than with traditional servers, along with reduced energy consumption for power and cooling.

3. You can achieve rapid time-to-value. Standing up a full-blown, cloud-capable infrastructure can be complex and time-consuming. With hyperconverged systems, you get one integrated, virtualized platform that ships already configured, pre-populated with the basic service catalog, and are able to bring it onsite and into production in one day.

4. You can put application development into overdrive. With extreme IT efficiency comes greatly increased agility. Hyperconvergence plus cloud gives you an ideal development and test environment for new apps, whether they’re for your business end users or for the marketplace. And that includes cloud-native apps.

5. You get to choose: private, public or hybrid cloud. The ease and convenience of the pay-as-you go public cloud model is attractive to many SMBs, but IT leaders still worry about security, compliance and data sovereignty. A hyperconverged private cloud, while involving an up-front investment, offers an alternative that is not as hefty as what’s typically required for traditional cloud infrastructures. At the same time, you’re not restricted to private cloud because a hyperconverged solution supports a public cloud strategy, too, or anything in between.

HPE Hyper Converged systems are simple, innovative, all-in-one virtualization solutions that integrate compute, software-defined storage and software-defined intelligence so you can deploy VMs at cloud speed. HPE Hyper Converged systems provide a pathway to composable infrastructure and are the ideal virtualization platforms that can be extended to private and hybrid cloud.

For more details on hyper convergence and cloud, check out this white paper: Top 10 Things You Need to Consider When Buying a Hyperconverged Infrastructure.

Gary Thome is the Vice President and Chief Engineer within the Converged Datacenter Infrastructure business at HPE. He is responsible for the technical and architectural directions of converged datacenter products and technologies including HPE Synergy.