With the push to public cloud, multi-cloud, and the edge advancing, IT leaders must manage increasing complexity and escalating costs across their infrastructure. In response, decision makers continue to turn to Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) to simplify IT operations, accelerate IT modernization, and boost return on IT investment – in fact, Hyperconverged Integrated Systems investment is expected to grow at a 8% CAGR from 2022-20271. Within the HCI market, there are multiple solution types, each with unique benefits that meet different use case requirements and customer needs. This ever-broadening ecosystem provides IT leaders a vast menu to choose from but can sometimes make it difficult to discern which solution is the just-right fit.
To provide a source of guidance, analysts and industry influencers have begun to segment and define categories—and their unique value propositions and trends—within the market. For instance, Gartner®, in their recent Market Guide for Integrated Systems2, divides the Integrated Systems Market into four segments: integrated infrastructure system, integrated reference architecture, integrated stack system and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) segment. Within the overall HCI segment, they further subdivided into Hyperconverged Integrated Systems (HCIS) and the software-only segment.2
As we’ve surveyed our customers, we see similar HCI categories: HCI integrated systems/appliances (HCIS) and HCI software on certified servers (ReadyNodes). We define HCIS as hardware integrated with a software-defined, unified system for compute, storage, and management and ReadyNodes as jointly-certified servers, tested and configured for HCI deployments. In this blog post, we’ll focus on data center and edge solutions, briefly highlight the benefits of each and considerations when selecting a HCI deployment option.
Hyperconverged Integrated Systems (Appliances)
Hyperconverged Integrated Systems come pre-integrated and pre-tested from the OEM, which can accelerate HCI adoption. HCI systems also come with lifecycle management tools, which can ease day two operations and provide additional confidence that updates will complete quickly and successfully. Appliance vendors provide high levels of support for both hardware and software for a unified support experience. Increasingly, vendors have started to offer use-case specific options, such as edge-focused appliances.
Within the HCIS subsegment, VMware customers can choose from a jointly-engineered VMware-Dell HCI appliance (VxRail) or partner-built HCI appliances from Lenovo, Fujitsu, and Hitachi. For customers that desire integrated lifecycle management, operational simplicity, and single source support, Dell VxRail – jointly-engineered by Dell and VMware – is the ideal choice. VxRail customers get the highest levels of support – L1/L2/L3 – all from a single source, and VxRail customers get a fully-integrated lifecycle management tool, VxRail Manager, for simple lifecycle management for every HCI component, both hardware and software. VMware works with Dell to ensure that the VxRail team validates new vSAN releases within 30 days of a VMware release, so customers can take advantage of the latest vSAN features quickly and confidently. The update bundle includes the entire HCI stack for a seamless update experience. In addition, OEM partners Lenovo, Fujitsu, and Hitachi developed vSAN-based HCI appliances that converge storage and compute in pre-tested, pre-integrated solutions with lifecycle management tools for simplified infrastructure management. HCIS solutions are increasingly certified with vSAN Express Storage Architecture, our next generation storage platform that boosts performance, availability and resiliency while lowering TCO. To see the list of options that support vSAN ESA, view the Dell VxRail Support Matrix or visit the VMware Compatibility Guide.
Hyperconverged Software on Certified Servers (ReadyNodes)
VMware has worked extensively with 15 server OEMs to jointly certify vSAN on over 500+ servers – what we call vSAN ReadyNodes. This breadth of ecosystem provides customers the greatest number of options to choose from, allowing them to pick the server vendor they prefer and precisely match hardware to their workload requirements. VMware and the vendors’ extensive testing provides confidence that the hardware can meet the performance demands of vSAN without compromising data availability or integrity. ReadyNodes support many all-flash configurations, including all-NVMe, and some are certified with vSAN Express Storage Architecture, our next generation storage platform that boosts performance, availability and resiliency while lowering TCO. ReadyNodes can be highly-performant, storage-dense, or even edge-focused – built to run outside of a data center in austere conditions.
In conclusion, IT leaders increasingly turn to HCI to accelerate their IT modernization, and with a growing number of on-premises solutions, decision makers have more choices than ever to find the just-right fit for their environment. Start your journey at our website for HCI Deployment Options.
There’s More to Explore
See what’s new with vSAN and Express Storage Architecture.
Join us at VMware Explore and be the first to see our upcoming innovations.
Take a vSAN technical deep dive at Tech Zone.
Try vSAN free for yourself with VMware’s Hands-on Labs.
Sources
1. IDC Converged Systems Tracker Forecast,2022Q4, Published March 2023
2. Gartner®, Market Guide for Integrated Systems, Published 3 April 2023 – ID G00740794
Footnote:
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
