Many businesses chose to use hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) because they needed technology that made it easier to manage their virtual desktops, apps and data remotely. The promise was that HCI would make it easy to scale both infrastructure performance and storage capacity, flexing to meet organisational needs without wasting any resources — that it would be cheaper, simpler and more efficient.

Conventional HCI isn’t making things simpler, or cheaper

The reality is that the first generation of HCI often forces an unacceptable trade-off between performance and simplicity. Behind its breakthrough ease-of-use are architectural limitations that can’t support business-critical apps and mixed workloads without adding risk. Businesses find themselves on a tightrope, trying to balance performance, availability and cost. The smooth, cloud-like experience promised is not delivered.

Traditional HCI is well suited to virtual desktops and lower-tier workloads, but it lacks power and efficiencies to support mission-critical applications.

HCI vendors say “just add a node” to take care of this, but there is no such thing as just adding a node. With some traditional HCI solutions, it takes time and expertise for the IT department to install VMware vCenter Server, manually add servers, install VMware, add a cluster, add a data centre, create data stores and then align them to the hosts. With other vendors, there is the hidden cost of not utilising your whole investment when you buy aggregated compute and storage, just to get extra storage. Read more here.

There’s a solution: HPE HCI 2.0

The good news is that HCI has evolved. HCI 2.0 truly can scale compute and storage independently, so no resources are wasted. It guarantees 99.9999% uptime, so those tier-1 workloads run smoothly. Configuration is automated and completed in minutes, not hours or days. AI-powered intelligent monitoring helps your data centre run faster and more reliably, predicting issues and fixing them before they become problems. The bottom line: six-nines uptime with no compromises (see more of the technical details here).

International Data Corp analyst Eric Burgener says HPE Nimble Storage dHCI “combines the unified and simplified management paradigm of HCI with the capabilities of true enterprise-class disaggregated storage… These features, combined with enterprise-class performance, availability and storage management functionality, also differentiate this platform from other HCI and converged offerings in the market… There is no doubt that the platform will broaden the types of larger, more mission-critical workloads that HCI platforms can effectively support.”

Visit HPE’s website to find out how HPE HCI 2.0 can really make doing business simpler.