George Crump

Designing A Compliant IT Infrastructure

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While it used to be a project for highly regulated industries, designing a compliant IT infrastructure is now on the project list for many organizations. We saw this evidence in the InBrief session with TruthInIT a few weeks ago. Questions around compliance were some of the most commonly asked.

The top three requirements for designing a compliant IT Infrastructure are:

  1. Security and Privacy
  2. Data Protection and Retention
  3. Disaster Recovery

One of the challenges faced by IT is the varying compliance requirements within an organization, with some departments having stricter needs than others. Addressing the compliance needs of each department can be a significant challenge. Additionally, creating a compliant infrastructure can be both expensive and complex, often requiring multiple products.

Securing a Compliant IT Infrastructure

When designing a compliant IT infrastructure, the initial step is to ensure its security through the implementation of strong authentication mechanisms and robust access controls. Occasionally, a department with stringent compliance requirements may require customized networking or storage configurations.

Certain departments may have unique data privacy needs and must ensure that their data is not accessible to other departments. Privacy measures may include dedicated computing and storage resources for specific departments or ensuring a certain level of performance.

Security without Silos

Many organizations are required to create secure environments by building separate infrastructure silos, each tailored to the unique needs of a department or use case. However, silos of infrastructure are costly and lead to additional compliance requirements for protection, retention, and disaster recovery.

Fortunately, VergeOS offers a solution with its Virtual Data Center (VDC) technology. Similar to how a virtual machine encapsulates a physical server, a VDC encapsulates an entire data center. By utilizing VergeOS, customers can establish a VDC for each department, meeting all the aforementioned needs. Each VDC can have its own access controls, authentication requirements, and user management functions.

Nested VDC makes managing Compliant IT Infrastructure easy
Create multiple nested compliant virtual data centers with VergeOS

The Power of Virtual Data Centers

VDCs also allow for allocating specific computing and storage resources to particular departments, preventing other departments from accessing those assets. IT can effectively create a unique compliant IT Infrastructure for each department as needed. Plus, the VDC provides flexibility to reallocate resources when the department or workload no longer needs them. or IT can allocate more resources as a project ramps up. Organizations can create a highly compliant VDC for regulated functions and a more general-purpose VDC for other use cases.

A key benefit is that IT can manage all VDCs from a single user interface and run on the foundational operating environment, VergeOS. This reduces complexity by using a single piece of software and enables the management of all VDCs through a single interface. It also lowers costs through more efficient resource allocation and higher utilization.

Perfect Compliant IT Infrastructures with Recipe Marketplace

Another key benefit of VergeOS is it also includes a Recipe Marketplace, which enables customers to pre-build complete data centers and then deploy them with the click of a button. This makes quickly deploying HIPAA or PCI-compliant VDCs easy. Also, because of the recipe engine, you can deploy them perfectly every time without worrying about missing that one setting that could otherwise move your VDC from compliant to non-compliance.

The combination of VDCs and the Recipe Marketplace makes IT more agile. Usually, if the organization needs a PCI environment and a HIPAA environment, IT would normally build two separate silos and then have them independently audited for compliance. If the organization needs another compliant environment, then they have to stand up another separate silo and then have that silo audited. IT must resubmit a compliant silos for another round of auditing if it needs to scale by adding additional computing power or storage capacity.

Without VDC and the Recipe Marketplace, IT must build each environment to handle the capacity and throughput of where it will end, which may take years to scale to, if ever. With VDCs and the Recipe Marketplace, IT can share resources across a variety of compliant environments. Once IT creates a“golden” VDC for each use case and it passes the audit (PCI/HIPAA), then IT can spawn nested VDCs each time the organization has a new request. No additional auditing is required.

To learn more, check out this VergeOS Architecture Deep Dive with our CTO, Greg Campbell.

Protecting and Retaining Data for a Compliant IT Infrastructure

It is essential to protect the IT resources of every department within an organization from data loss or hardware failure. When designing a compliant IT infrastructure, however, some departments may have more stringent requirements than others. To meet these needs, IT often has to use multiple products. In most cases, separate backup and retention products are necessary, even if the processes can be applied across departments. It is common for data between departments with different compliance needs not to intermix. As a result, each silo requires a sub-silo of data protection.

Protection and Retention without sub-silos

With VergeOS, you can customize data protection and retention strategies for each VDC, and the platform includes built-in tools to meet the unique needs of every department. While many solutions offer snapshot capabilities, most are limited by performance issues, restricting the number of active snapshots and how long they can be retained. Deleting snapshots to free up disk capacity can also be a tedious and lengthy process.

As a result, many customers opt for data cloning, creating copies for backup and archiving purposes. However, managing multiple copies is time-consuming, costly, and requires additional storage capacity. It also increases the likelihood of errors since IT needs to integrate two or three separate processes.

VergeOS’s IOclone, combines the best capabilities of snapshots and clones by leveraging our unique Global Inline Deduplication technology, which is at the core of VergeOS instead of a bolted-on afterthought. IOclone enables each snapshot to be independent of the VM or Virtual Data Center it is copying. Still, because of the deduplication process, these copies are made in milliseconds and are space efficient. IOclone snapshots are also immutable so that nothing can alter them, which is often another compliance requirement.

Compliant IT Infrastructure must include data protection
IOclone delivers the best of snapshots and clones with no performance impact

The independence of IOclone’s snapshots means that VergeOS customers can have an almost unlimited number of snapshots. IT can repurpose those snapshots for other use cases or applications and can retain them indefinitely without impacting performance.

To learn more about the differences between snapshots, clones, and how IOclone brings the best of both technologies together, watch our on-demand TechTalk, “TechTalk: Deep Dive on Virtual Infrastructure File Systems.”

Recovering a Compliant IT Infrastructure After Disaster

There are strict disaster protection regulations that apply to data centers. Designing a compliant IT infrastructure requires additional measures to ensure preparedness, which can be quite demanding. IT may need to establish a separate DR silo with specific products to meet compliance requirements. Moreover, the DR site must meet the same standards as the primary site, which adds more complexity and cost.

A DR Strategy Minus DR Silos

VergeOS’ IOprotect also leverages our Global Inline Deduplication to provide Wide Area Network (WAN) intelligent data movement between locations. Multiple physical data centers can replicate to a single DR data center, but redundant data between them will not be sent.

Virtual Data Centers (VDCs) play a crucial role in disaster recovery. With each department’s data center encapsulated within a replicated VDC, all the necessary information is readily available for quick recovery in case of a disaster. This makes it possible for IT to bring departments back online within minutes after a site failure without the need to consult a DR runbook or the need for ad-hoc fine-tuning to reconfigure network, security, or storage policies. VergeOS’ IOprotect capability is so cost-effective you can have an on-premises DR and an off-premises DR for 50% less than the cost of your current DR strategy, enabling you to be prepared for both major and minor disasters.

Compliant IT Infrastructure must include DR.
VergeOS-DR is so affordable you can create an on-prem and DR site recovery environment for at least 50% less than your current solution

To dive deep into VMware disaster recovery (DR) Sign up for our Video Learning Guide – Each week, our experts take you through a critical part of making your infrastructure environment more resilient.

Conclusion

Designing a compliant IT infrastructure usually means a significant increase in IT spend and consumption of IT administrative time. Creating separate silos for compliant departments within the organization also leads to increased long-term costs and the inability to adapt the infrastructure to the organization’s future demands flexibly.

VegeOS, through its VDC technology, enables IT to create compliant IT infrastructures while leveraging existing hardware dynamically. It also provides capabilities like IOclone and IOreplicate to meet the data protection, data retention, and disaster recovery requirements for IT.

You can try out the full power of VergeOS right now without having to borrow hardware. Signup for a test drive, and we will create a VDC just for you. You can then create your VMs and even compliant and non-compliant VDCs.

HCI as a VMware Alternative

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VMware’s recent price increases, a singular focus on large accounts, and declining support quality have IT professionals within small to medium-sized data centers looking at HCI as a VMware alternative. To provide that alternative hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), solutions must deliver on a set of crucial requirements, or the organization may find itself in a worse position than putting up with the state of VMware affairs.

Top Three Requirements for HCI as a VMware Alternative

  1. Use a non-VMware Hypervisor at a lower cost
  2. A seamless VMware Exit
  3. Provide a superior data protection experience

    HCI VMware Alternatives Can’t Run VMware

    While it may seem obvious that using HCI as a VMware alternative requires not using VMware as your hypervisor, most HCI solutions on the market require VMware. These HCI products are not HCI at all; they are software-defined storage solutions (SDS) that run as a virtual machine (VM) within VMware.

    These SDS, as HCI solutions and their customers, are still entirely at the mercy of VMware’s pricing and support antics. In addition, by running storage as a VM instead as an equal citizen to the hypervisor, the storage performance on these solutions is subject to the same virtualization tax as any other application running within a VM. This tax can impact I/O performance by as much as 25%. Even HCI solutions that don’t use VMware, if they are running storage as a VM, which most do, are subject to a similar tax.

    The Impact of the Virtualization Tax on Storage

    This tax requires IT professionals to spend more money on hardware. They must configure more nodes with more powerful processors, cores, and the highest possible performance flash drives. The requirement to buy more nodes with more processing power also increases the HCI software license cost. HCI solutions that require VMware, or use an alternate hypervisor, or run storage as a VM may not be cheaper than VMware.

    VergeOS Minimizes the Virtualization Tax

    VergeIO took a different approach than other vendors. Instead of creating a storage solution within a VM, we created a data center operating system (DCOS). This data center operating system, VergeOS, integrates the hypervisor, storage, and networking into a single code base. Storage and networking are equal citizens to the hypervisor. VergeOS is an Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) and is superior to standard HCI solutions.

    The result is a highly efficient operating environment that requires less physical hardware. We repeatedly hear from our customers that they see significantly better performance and can increase VM density after switching to VergeOS, even though they are running on the existing hardware that used to run VMware. To learn more about the efficient VergeOS architecture, watch this on-demand LightBoard session with our Founder and CTO, Greg Campbell.

    HCI VMware Alternatives Require a Seamless Exit

    Using HCI as a VMware alternative to save money and improve performance is very appealing. Still, the project will never take off if the effort to transition the infrastructure is too great. HCI solutions must provide a seamless transition to the new hypervisor. Besides potential performance differences, the user and application experience is mostly unchanged. They still run the same operating system within a VM, now managed by a different hypervisor.

    It is essential, though, that the transition to a VMware alternative is also easy on IT. Most HCI VMware alternatives require a complete shutdown of the VMware environment while migration occurs. Also, since most HCI solutions require that you purchase the vendor’s hardware or they have a rigorous hardware compatibility list (HCL), IT needs to make room for and install new hardware.

    The Impact of Disruptive Migration

    While most organizations can complete this migration over a weekend, there is some significant impact from the process. First, it is, for the most part, an all-or-nothing process, which places much more pressure on pre-purchase evaluation. There is also the impact of being down for a weekend, which an increasing number of organizations can no longer tolerate. Finally, if the conversion does not go according to plan and extends past the weekend maintenance window, IT has to quickly roll back to the VMware environment and try the conversion again next weekend.

    VergeOS Makes VMware Exits Smooth and Gradual

    VergeOS can directly communicate with VMware and make scheduled copies of each VM as frequently as IT chooses. Also, because VergeOS can run on existing hardware, the customer can use VergeOS by using a few extra servers or carving a few nodes out of their VMware environment. The process is so seamless that many customers use VergeOS as a disaster recovery copy of their VMWare environment using our IOprotect capability. Then when you are ready, you can gradually move VMs to be solely hosted in the VergeIO environment. This process takes the pressure off the evaluation phase and provides an extended “test” of the solution while adding value and lowering costs. Most customers that start by using VergeOS for DR realize a 50% cost reduction in the DR process.

    HCI VMware Alternatives Must Improve Resiliency

    Given the ever-increasing risk to and value of data, using HCI as a VMware alternative can not come at the expense of lowering resiliency. Most solutions are surprisingly weak in these terms. The latest DCIG analysis, “Top 5 Rising Vendor HCI Software Solutions,” shows that HCI vendors are all over the place regarding data protection. Most provide some snapshot or clone capability, but not all have VM-level granularity. Most also did not provide any form of immutability to their snapshot capabilities. Finally, many solutions didn’t have asynchronous replication, which is critical for disaster recovery planning and recovery.

    HCI as a VMware Alternative

    Join DCIG and VergeIO tomorrow for our live webinar, “Overcome The Not-So-Magnificent Seven IT Challenges,” to learn how hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI) can solve the current challenges IT organizations face, including limited resources, management complexity, and providing IT services at the Edge.

    VergeOS Improves Resiliency

    VergeOS UCI based storage services are built on a foundation of Global Inline Deduplication. Starting with deduplication instead of adding it later means you can get all the benefits without the significant overhead, the deduplication tax, that other solutions impose. As a result, our IOclone, in one feature, delivers the speed and efficiency of snapshots with the independence and resiliency of clones. They are immutable, and IT can retain and repurpose as many of them as they choose.

    HCI as a VMware Alternative

    Global Inline Deduplication combined with VergeOS’ network integration also enables powerful disaster recovery capabilities and Edge protection. Watch our on-demand virtual whiteboard session to learn more about using VergeOS for VMware Disaster recovery.

    Conclusion

    As IT professionals in small to medium-sized data centers explore alternatives to VMware, VergeOS emerges as the compelling choice. With VMware’s recent price increases, focus on large accounts, and declining support quality, organizations seek an HCI solution that meets crucial requirements while providing a seamless transition and superior data protection experience. VergeOS’ UCI design distinguishes itself from other HCI solutions by offering a non-VMware hypervisor at a lower cost, ensuring a smooth exit from VMware, and delivering a superior data protection experience.

    Overcome the Aging IT Hardware Challenge

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    IT Professionals, especially those working within mid-sized data centers, must overcome the aging IT hardware challenge. In years past, the solution was to buy new hardware, which is more complicated than it sounds since it sets off a whole round of research and vendor evaluations. Today’s flat or shrinking IT budget compounds the challenge, making it even more difficult to overcome.

    Dealing with aging IT hardware and flat IT budgets are just two of the seven challenges that mid-sized data centers must overcome. Next week, IT analyst firm DCIG will join VergeIO for a live webinar where we will detail these seven challenges and how converged solutions can help overcome them.

    Tuning Software Extends the Life of Aging IT Hardware

    You must improve the efficiency of the software to extend the life of aging IT hardware, especially when you don’t have the option of throwing more or newer hardware at the problem. Tuning the application code is an option, but most organizations need access to it or don’t have the on-staff expertise and time required to optimize the code.

    Another option is to tune the foundational software like the operating system or the hypervisor. Again, tuning the operating system is also out of reach for most organizations. The hypervisor, though, is a different story. IT can change a hypervisor without impacting the user experience. The problem is that most hypervisors are no more efficient than those currently used.

    An exception is VergeOS. The VergeOS is an Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) solution with a highly efficient hypervisor and integrated storage and network services. Thanks to its efficiency, your existing hardware performs noticeably better than the current hypervisor and storage solutions. This efficiency means you can extend the life of that hardware by years while also increasing load. CPU efficiency, storage performance, and network operations improve substantially when using VergeOS.

    Affordable Availability Extends the Life of Aging IT Hardware

    The second requirement to overcome the aging IT hardware problem is availability. IT hardware has been very reliable for over a decade but still fails occasionally, especially as it reaches five years of use. Until the point of failure, though, you want to use that hardware for all its worth. Affordable redundancy is critical.

    The problem is to get higher availability with most hypervisors, operating systems, and external storage systems requires a massive investment in additional hardware and software, which is the opposite of extending the life of aging IT hardware.

    Once again, VergeOS’ efficiency makes delivering higher availability affordable and straightforward. Its ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI) means that workloads can transition between nodes seamlessly. Also, the servers (nodes) within the environment can be vastly different from each other so that IT can consolidate servers from disparate workloads, and those nodes can support each other’s workloads in case of failure. The efficiency of VergeOS provides unrealized headroom so that there are enough available resources on other nodes to move workloads to them if a node fails.

    VergeOS protects data automatically, so a drive failure within a node won’t result in data loss. VergeOS’ IOprotect and IOclone features enable IT to set up affordable secondary systems locally or remotely in case of disaster. Again the ability to mix node types plays a role. The DR site can use a completely different server type for its nodes. It can have fewer total nodes and use a different form of storage media.

    Overcome the Aging IT Hardware Challenge

    Preventing the Massive Hardware Refresh

    One of the problems of extending the life of aging IT hardware is that it compounds the impact of a forklift upgrade. As Chris Evans explains in his article “The Great Cloud Repatriation Debate – Compute on ArchitectingIT, forklift upgrades are the practice of including maintenance/support for the first three years after a new sale but significantly increasing this cost from year four onwards to “encourage” a refresh. Solving for availability solves part of this problem, but eventually, with most vendors, you will have to replace most, if not all, of the solution to get a new one.

    With VergeOS, you can add just a few new servers or pieces of storage media to the same environment without replacing the assets you are sweating. Thanks to our virtual data center (VDC) technology, IT can even go so far as to allocate those new assets to specific applications or workloads that can take advantage of them. Watch our CTO Greg Campbell explain VDCs in our architecture overview LightBoard, deep dive.

    Overcome the Aging IT Hardware Challenge

    With VergeOS, you can upgrade your environment gradually, over the course of years, even decades, while continuing to use the aging IT hardware until it fails. As a result, VergeOS saves you money today by making your aging hardware perform better, and it reduces your eventual replacement cost because you only have to replace what absolutely must be replaced.

    Conclusion

    Usually, there is no viable solution for IT Professionals wanting to overcome the aging IT hardware challenge; you must deal with it and keep your fingers crossed that nothing will break. With VergeOS, you can improve the performance of existing hardware and avoid expensive application software rewrites. Most of our customers see an immediate 50% reduction in software costs, avoid hardware upgrades for years, and improve availability and data resiliency while simplifying IT operations.

    You can learn more by watching our upcoming webinar, “Overcome The Not-So-Magnificent Seven IT Challenges,” or sign-up for a test drive. Within a few minutes, we can create a complete VergeOS operating environment for you to work with. In it, you can create your own virtual data centers and virtual machines, use our IOclone to protect data, and learn the software inside and out.

    VergeIO Named a ‘Rising Vendor’ in DCIG TOP 5 HCI Software Solutions Report

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    Ann Arbor, Mich, May 15, 2023 — VergeIO, the Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) company, today announced its inclusion in the 2023-24 DCIG TOP 5 Rising Vendors HCI Software
    Solutions Report    . The company was awarded placement on this list based
    on an evaluation of VergeOS features in the categories of deployment
    capabilities, data protection, product and performance management, and
    technical support.

    VergeIO is a Top 5 HCI Solution

    DCIG evaluated 15 software solutions for hyperconverged infrastructure
    (HCI) use cases across these four different categories. The report
    provides guidance on the TOP 5 Rising Vendors that organizations should
    consider for HCI software solutions, including a profile of VergeIO and
    the notable features that earned it a DGIG TOP 5 award. The report is
    available for free download.

    “IT organizations have a number of issues to consider these days, such
    as funding challenges, limited resources, management complexity, and
    providing IT services at the edge,” writes report author Todd Dorsey,
    Senior Storage Analyst at DCIG. “IT leaders look for solutions that
    solve problems and provide positive outcomes in many ways. HCI software
    fulfills these goals while addressing current IT challenges.”

    VergeOS moves beyond legacy HCI configuration with its
    ultra-converged infrastructure (UCI), which integrates virtualization,
    storage, and networking into a single piece of software. This
    integration provides a high degree of efficiency that enables VergeOS to
    deliver more performance from existing hardware and a wide range of
    scale. VergeOS can scale up to meet the needs of the enterprise and
    scale down to fit the constraints of the edge.

    UCI provides superior efficiency, performance, simplicity, and scalability

    This ability to create a data center operating system from a single
    piece of software was among the “Distinguishing Features” listed in the
    report for VergeOS, as were the benefits of data center agility and
    unified management of disparate clusters. These characteristics were
    included with the benefits provided by HCI software, in general, to
    offer IT leaders a solution that they can deploy to adapt to the
    changing needs of their organization to ensure that they can respond to
    new business requirements and opportunities.

    A Single Data Center Operating System delivers superior efficiency, performance and scale

    “I am thrilled that Verge.IO has been recognized as a DCIG TOP 5 HCI
    solution,” said Yan Ness, CEO of VergeIO. “Our goal has always been to
    deliver a simple, efficient, and scalable IT infrastructure solution
    that is easy to use and provides superior performance and value to our
    customers. This recognition is a testament to our team’s hard work and
    dedication and the impact that VergeIO is having on our
    customers’ businesses.”

    Dorsey joins DCIG’s Principal Storage Analyst Ken Clipperton and
    VergeIO’s CMO George Crump for a live, 1-hour webinar discussing how to
    overcome “The Not So Magnificent Seven Challenges of Small to Medium
    Sized Data Centers” on May 24 at 1 p.m. EDT. Part of the event covers
    the DCIG evaluation of the 15 HCI/UCI software solutions from the report
    and how they narrowed down the list to the DCIG TOP 5 solutions. The
    full webinar agenda with a registration link is available here.

    About DCIG

    The Data Center Intelligence Group (DCIG) empowers the IT industry with
    actionable analysis. DCIG analysts provide informed third-party analysis
    of various cloud, data protection, and data storage technologies. DCIG’s
    audiences include C-level executives, IT managers, IT professionals,
    magazine editors, bloggers, analysts, and providers within the IT and
    cloud service industry.

    About VergeIO

    VergeIO is the Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) company. Unlike
    hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), it rotates the traditional IT stack
    (compute, storage, and networking) into an integrated data center
    operating system, VergeOS. Its efficiency enables greater workload
    density on the same hardware with high levels of data resiliency. The
    result is dramatically lower costs and greatly simplified IT.

    Media Contact:
    Judy Smith, JPR Communications
    818-522-9673
    [email protected]

    Overcome The Not-So-Magnificent Seven IT Challenges

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    On-Demand Webinar:

    According to the latest DCIG report, small to medium-sized data centers must overcome seven challenges to keep pace with the demands of their organizations.

    During the webinar, experts from DCIG and VergeIO reviewed each of the seven challenges facing small to medium-sized data centers and discuss how modern infrastructure, like hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI), can solve the current challenges IT organizations face, including limited resources, management complexity, and providing IT services at the Edge.

    By watching the on-demand webinar you will learn how to overcome

    The Not-So-Magnificent Seven using UCI

    1. Decreasing Budgets
    2. Limited Resources
    3. Aging Hardware
    4. Ransomware Threats
    5. Complexity
    6. Massive Data Growth
    7. IT services at the Edge
    Ultraconverged Infrastructure for Medium Sized Data Centers

    We will also discuss the DCIG evaluation of fifteen HCI/UCI software solutions and how they narrowed down that list to the Top 5. VergeIO will then discuss UCI and how it differentiates from HCI.

    Register to Watch

    Agenda

    • Review of the Seven Challenges Facing Small to Medium-Sized Data Centers
    • Why Converged Infrastructure Software (HCI/UCI) is ideal for addressing these challenges
    • DCIG evaluation of HCI/UCI current software solutions
    • How HCI/UCI addresses each challenge
    • Q&A session

    Duration: 60 minutes

    Target audience

    IT leaders, CIOs, IT administrators, infrastructure managers, and anyone interested in understanding how HCI software can solve current IT challenges.

    Presenters:

    • Todd Dorsey, Senior Storage Analyst, DCIG
    • Ken Clipperton, Principal Storage Analyst & Partner, DCIG
    • George Crump, CMO, Verge.io

    The Public Cloud as a VMware Alternative

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    If you are frustrated with VMware’s high prices, exorbitant renewal fees, stalled innovation, and declining support, you may be looking at the Public Cloud as a VMware alternative. Public Cloud providers like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud have their use cases. Still, as we’ve seen in the recent rash of cloud repatriation moves, the Cloud is not necessarily the ideal solution for all use cases.

    The first question is, “Does the Public Cloud meet the requirements of a VMware Alternative?”

    Requirements for a VMware Alternative:

    • Have a lower upfront cost
    • Lower long-term costs
    • Provide superior performance and capabilities
    • Offer world-class support

    This blog will explore how the Public Cloud stands up to these requirements.

    The Upfront Costs of the Public Cloud

    Upfront costs are an area where most analysts suggest that the Public Cloud has an advantage over VMware and other VMware alternative solutions. But does it? In the VMware alternative use case, you already have the hardware! The bigger question is, can the potential VMware alternative use your hardware? In most cases, the answer is “no” or “not very well,” so in those cases, the Public Cloud has an upfront cost advantage because you only have to pay the first month’s “rent” for the hardware and software you need.

    VergeOS is an Ultraconverged Infrastructure that rotates the traditional IT stack (hypervisor, storage, and network) into a linear plane and a single software code base. This integration is essential because it creates a data center operating system that is 50% or more efficient than legacy, fragmented solutions. Unlike traditional Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), VergeOS can run on existing hardware and deliver more capacity and performance. See our HCI to UCI comparison page for more details.

    The Long-Term Costs of the Public Cloud

    An area where the Public Cloud as a VMware alternative does not fare well is in the long-term cost calculation. The repeated monthly rental of the same infrastructure adds up quickly, which is why we see a rash in Public Cloud departures. The Public Cloud is ideal for short-term projects that you will spin up quickly and then tear down after getting the answers you need or validating a concept. It is not ideal for long-term, relatively static environments that will run for years, even decades.

    Most customers we speak to looking for a VMware replacement have been running their VMware infrastructure for five years or more. The servers that support that environment are typically three to five years old. Even if you are very judicious about cloud resource utilization (which most people don’t have the time for), over five years, you will spend significantly more for the cost of renting that compute from the Public Cloud versus owning it outright, especially in the VMware or VMware alternative use case.

    VergeIO has a long-term cost advantage over the Public Cloud, VMware, and VMware alternatives, thanks again to the extreme efficiency of VergeOS. Our software allows you to extend the life of IT infrastructure further than you ever thought possible. Many VergeOS customers are running on servers and storage that are over six years old.

    The Performance of the Public Cloud

    In theory, the performance of the Public Cloud should be an advantage when IT Professionals consider it a VMware alternative. If you need more processing power, rent more processors; if you don’t, deactivate them. This theory may hold if your application is scalable across multiple processors and cores. Most applications are not that threaded, and throwing more processing power at them doesn’t help. Additionally, performance isn’t just about processor performance. In most cases, the bottleneck is either poor application code or storage I/O performance.

    Storage performance is an area where the Public Cloud struggles. High performance is costly and often far more challenging to configure. The built-in capabilities of the Public Cloud, especially in terms of storage, are so weak that there are dozens of products from third-party software developers that organizations need to sift through to try to fill the gaps.

    VergeIO’s approach directly integrates a complete suite of storage services into VergeOS. Storage is an equal citizen alongside the hypervisor and network capabilities. The storage capabilities of VergeOS are so powerful that many companies begin their VMware Exit Strategy by selecting VergeOS instead of going through yet another SAN replacement.

    World Class Support

    The Public Cloud as a VMware Alternative

    The quality of support from both VMware and the Public Cloud varies wildly. With VergeIO, all customers, regardless of size, experience high-quality support with quick resolution to your questions. VergeIO also provides customers with a world-class support experience. We know that VergeOS doesn’t live in a vacuum, and we go above and beyond, even helping customers resolve issues with non-VergeOS-related challenges. Quality support is easy to claim but harder to deliver. Take our product for a test drive, experience our support firsthand, or speak with our customers.

    How to Start Your VMware Exit

    VergeOS is usually 50% less than the price of VMware, and it leverages your existing hardware so you can benefit from those savings almost immediately. Our efficiency will extend the life of your current hardware, further increasing your savings. Finally, the operating system delivers better performance, data protection, and greatly simplified operations.

    You can start by scheduling a test drive. Using our Virtual Data Center technology, we create a virtual environment. Within minutes you’ll be up and running without having to deploy hardware.

    Your next step might be using VergeOS as a disaster recovery copy of your VMware environment. If you have a few different servers, you can load our software on them and create a complete VMware disaster recovery plan without a substantial financial outlay. This option allows you to take an inexpensive extended use of our solution while adding value to and reducing the cost of your current infrastructure.

    While using VergeOS as a VMware DR solution, you might also want to use your VergeOS infrastructure for new workloads. Then when you’re ready, you can use our DR technology to move your VMware environment to VergeOS seamlessly. Again, transition at your pace, knowing we will be there every step of the way.