HCI

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the impact of VMware's inefficiency

Licensing costs contribute to VMware’s total costs, but IT professionals almost always underestimate the impact of VMware’s inefficiency. They listed licensing costs as their primary concern in our recent survey. Still, other concerns, like required premature server and storage upgrades, lack of virtual machine density, and continual investments in backup infrastructure, highlight its inefficiency.

VMware’s inefficiency is brought on by years of plugging holes in the product through a never-ending series of bolt-on fixes, which often increases licensing costs and requires more hardware than necessary and more IT professionals to manage an increasingly complex environment. Even if VMware were to freeze its prices or even lower them, the ripple impact of its inefficiency makes a VMware exit to a more efficient alternative platform a wise strategy.

Understanding the Layers of Data Center Infrastructure

Most vendors divide the data center infrastructure into three layers. A hypervisor like VMware ESXi virtualizes the compute layer. A storage layer that in most medium to large-sized data centers is a dedicated storage array because of the shortcomings of virtualized storage products like VMware’s vSAN, and a networking layer that is built using proprietary networking hardware because of the expense of software-defined networking solutions like VMware’s NSX.

While it isn’t forgotten about, there is a fourth layer that is, for some reason, not included in the typical infrastructure discussion: backup and disaster recovery. In theory, with the right hypervisor software and storage capabilities, there should be no need for this to be a separate layer. Still, because of shortcomings, most organizations invest a large part of the IT budget into it.

The Impact of VMware’s Inefficient HCI

VMware started as a server virtualization and consolidation solution. Before VMware, each application ran on a dedicated server. VMware made it so IT could safely run multiple applications on a single server as virtual machines (VM). The idea behind hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is to extend that concept and eliminate the need for dedicated storage arrays and network appliances by moving the software that drives these dedicated appliances onto the same set of servers that VMware was using.

the impact of VMware's inefficiency

In the same way that VMware lowered costs by eliminating the need for a server for every application, HCI should lower costs by eliminating the need for a dedicated set of appliances for every aspect of storage and networking. The impact of VMware’s inefficiency means that most data centers have chosen not to use HCI and instead continue to use a legacy three-tier architecture. The problem is that most HCI vendors continue to use ESXi and run their storage or networking software as a virtual machine under ESXi, meaning they must navigate through the same VMware tax overhead as virtualized applications.

The result is HCI has not achieved the price advantages nor the operational simplicity that the original entrants into the market claimed. As a result, the legacy three-tier infrastructure is still the most common architecture in data centers.

HCI’s Inefficient Networking Problem

HCI also has an east-west inter-node network issue since storage and network operations must coordinate separately across all the cluster servers. Since each of these services is separate from the hypervisor, it triples the amount of inter-node communication, which limits scalability.

Because of the impact of VMware’s inefficiency, HCI networking limitations go beyond east-west traffic issues. In most cases, HCI vendors offer almost no additional network functionality besides what is embedded into the hypervisor. Or, in the case of VMware’s NSX, which is reasonably robust, it is not included as part of the hypervisor, and the add-on cost significantly increases the VMware license cost. In a recent blog, VMware suggested the best way to overcome its ransomware vulnerabilities was to deploy NSX, which, not coincidentally, almost triples the cost of the license.

VergeOS Eliminates the Layers

VergeIO is Ultraconverged Infrastructure; instead of re-creating the data center layers in software, VergeOS unifies them, including secure data protection, into a single code base that dramatically increases efficiency. Its efficiency lowers costs, enabling IT to do more with its existing resources while simplifying operations. Most customers can reduce physical server demand by 30% or more, which means running existing servers longer and ordering new servers less frequently.

VergeOS provides complete Layer 2 and Layer 3 network functionality, eliminating the concerns over east-west traffic contention and the need for separate network appliances. It also eases administration as network management becomes a seamless part of the data center infrastructure.

The Impact of VMware’s Inefficient Storage

Most HCI vendors are storage vendors in disguise. They make a storage software solution that can run as a VM within a hypervisor, typically VMware. These solutions, including vSAN, suffer from performance issues, partly because of vendors’ VMware performance tax and odd development choices.

Like HCI in general, storage, specifically in this architecture, should deliver rather significant cost savings and deliver better performance with the right architecture design. IT should be able to add capacity to their existing servers for a fraction of the cost of a “shelf upgrade” using a dedicated storage array. However, the impact of VMware’s inefficiency is felt most severely when HCI tries to provide storage performance and services comparable to a dedicated storage array.

In the survey above, we spoke to a customer looking to add about 300TBs of storage to their three-year-old All-Flash Array. HCI, if it had an efficient storage capability, should eliminate the AFA from consideration because the customer had several servers with twelve or more available storage expansion bays.

A 15.36TB NVMe SSD can be easily had for about $1,500. That means the customer can get 300TB of raw NVMe capacity, delivering well over one million IOPS for about $30,000, and insert them into the empty drive bays in their existing servers. When asked what it would cost to add 300TB of raw capacity to their Pure Storage array, they said at least 10X that cost.

As you can see, storage should be the area where HCI enjoys a significant price advantage, but again, like in other areas, it falls short:

  1. Since most HCI vendors are storage vendors, charging by the amount of capacity in use, the cost to add storage to HCI quickly rivals that of dedicated storage arrays.
  2. Most HCI solutions can’t add storage to available drive bays on just a few servers in the HCI instance. The capacity must be added to all the servers, or the customer must buy additional servers that match those in place.
  3. HCI inefficiencies mean the solutions can’t reach anything close to the performance potential of NVMe flash drives.
  4. Using storage services like deduplication, data protection, and snapshot retention times, further impacts storage and compute performance.

As an example of how storage services impact HCI’s efficiency, look no further than deduplication. While most HCI solutions support deduplication for capacity efficiency, in most cases, it is a bolt-on solution and not part of the original code base. VMware vSAN, for example, added deduplication years after it first appeared on the market. Nutanix’s deduplication appeared almost a decade after the product first shipped.

As a result, using deduplication from these vendors typically requires the addition of more powerful processors, additional memory, and, in some cases, changes to data protection strategies.

Limitations and compromises are the impact of implementing almost any storage feature as part of a virtualized environment:

  • Snapshots are limited to 32 total, and the best practice is not to have a snapshot that is older than a few days.
  • Data protection from media failure is complex and takes an undue toll on inter-node connectivity.
  • Replication for disaster recovery almost always requires a separate product.

VergeOS Supercharges HCI Storage Performance

Storage services are built into VergeOS and run as an equal citizen to the hypervisor instead of a subservient VM. Storage capacity can be inserted into nodes “post-facto” or storage-mostly nodes (a couple of processors and storage) can be added to the existing instance.

VergeOS provides a complete suite of storage services like deduplication, replication, and unlimited snapshots that can act as backups because they are more like clones, than traditional snapshot technology. Because storage is an equal citizen in VergeOS, our storage software is equally efficient and overcomes the challenges IT faces with VMware’s inefficient approach to storage. All these services can run without impacting performance, limiting their use, or forcing IT to make compromises elsewhere.

It is essential to highlight the VergeIO common sense licensing model. VergeOS is licensed by the physical server, not the number of processors, cores, amount of RAM, or storage capacity. In the above example, the customer can add 300TB of capacity with zero additional licensing charge.

The Impact of VMware’s Inefficient Data Protection

VMware also provides a very inefficient means of data protection, forcing all customers to create a separate backup and disaster recovery infrastructure. While it has basic protection from media failure and the ability, at an extra cost, to migrate VMs if a physical server fails, its snapshot capabilities are anemic at best. And their own best practices state, “Do not use VMware snapshots as backups.” For the most part, VMware’s snapshots are only used one at a time to provide data to a backup application and then quickly removed for fear of negative performance impact.

As a result, most customers implement separate backup software, which sends data to a separate backup storage area, which then must send it to another immutable backup storage area to protect against ransomware. These customers typically have a separate disaster recovery (DR) solution replicating data to a DR site. VMware’s inability to adequately protect itself is the cause of all of this additional investment in data protection.

The backup and recovery infrastructure becomes a separate cost and management point, often requiring specialized IT personnel. However, this additional investment does more than add to the total cost of VMware’s inefficiency. It complicates other tasks, such as patch upgrades.

For example, in our survey, we spoke to a VMware customer using HPE Zerto as a more powerful disaster recovery tool because of concerns about VMware’s ransomware vulnerabilities. There is an obvious cost concern with Zerto, but this customer’s current experience highlights a concern with the bolt-on approach caused by VMware’s inefficient approach to data protection.

In this case, the customer had a critical patch from VMware that closed a vulnerability in ESXi to a known ransomware exploit. However, they found that Zerto was not yet compatible with this latest release of VMware, and it would be at least three months before they were. The use of bolt-on technologies forces the customer into an awkward position. Do they deploy the VMware update and go without disaster recovery for three months, or do they keep disaster recovery working but put the organization at risk for a known ransomware exploit? While this situation does not increase the customer’s hard cost, the impact of VMware’s inefficiency certainly increases their mental overhead and anguish.

VergeOS is Secure and Resilient

Unlike VMware’s inefficient ransomware protection, VergeOS was built from the start to be a secure infrastructure software. The OS itself is hardened against attack. When combined with virtual data centers, immutable snapshots, and rapid alerting of encryption activity, customers can bounce back from ransomware threats in minutes with no data loss.

Conclusion

While licensing costs are a valid concern, the total cost of VMware’s inefficiency goes well beyond the surface. Inefficient HCI, storage, and data protection layers contribute significantly to operational complexity and expenses. VergeIO’s innovative approach with VergeOS offers a comprehensive solution that eliminates these inefficiencies, reducing costs, and simplifying operations. As data centers evolve, it’s essential to consider alternatives that optimize efficiency and empower IT professionals to do more with existing resources.

To learn more about how VergeOS can revolutionize your data center, watch our on-demand webinar as we discuss the results of our survey of almost 200 VMware customers and provide a live demonstration of VergeOS recovering from a ransomware attack.

Filed Under: VMwareExit Tagged With: , ,

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Hyperconverged Infrastructures (HCI) were supposed to ease IT professionals’ management burdens, but flaws in their design explain why HCI doesn’t simplify IT. These flaws have led HCI, which should be the one infrastructure for the enterprise, to be a niche solution for corner use cases within the data center. Instead of simplifying through convergence, HCI solutions from companies like VMware and Nutanix exacerbate complexity.

The HCI Flaws

  1. HCI Isn’t Scalable
  2. HCI Isn’t Flexible
  3. HCI Isn’t Secure

Because of these three flaws, complex and expensive three-tier architectures with dedicated storage arrays, restrictive compute tiers, and proprietary network switches continue to flourish despite their own challenges. Can HCI be fixed so it can finally deliver its full promise?

HCI Isn’t Scalable

How can an architecture like HCI that is scale out by design, not scale? It’s true, though; HCI can’t scale large, and it can’t scale small. Most HCI vendors force you to start with three nodes, making HCI impractical for Edge and small offices. The inability to scale small and scale large is one reason why HCI doesn’t simplify IT.

Lack of a unified code base is one reason Why HCI doesn't simplify IT
HCI Doesn’t Converge, It Squeezes

At the same time, most HCI solutions can’t scale beyond eight or so nodes without serious performance concerns. These performance concerns stem from the fact that HCI solutions don’t actually converge the three data center tiers (networking, computing, and storage). They are three separate software packages, often from three separate vendors. HCI squeezes the three separate software-based tiers onto a single server. Each of these tiers has different lanes of communication between the servers. As a result, internode communication is exponentially increased by a factor of three.

UCI Solves the HCI Scale Issue

Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) solutions, like VergeOS, solve both aspects of the scale issue. It can scale small, and it can scale large. Instead of using a separate application for networking, another for compute, and still another for storage, UCI is a single piece of very efficient code.

Lack of a unified code base is one reason HCI doesn't simplify IT. UCI has a Unified Code Base
UCI Converges Networking, Compute, and Storage Into a Single Code Base

Thanks to UCI’s unification of the legacy IT stack into a single piece of software, there is only a need for a single lane of communication between nodes. The reduction in east-west traffic enables scaling beyond 200 nodes without significant network overhead. At the same time, the efficiency of the code base enables a two-node UCI environment to deliver the performance and cost-effectiveness that Edge and remote locations need. The common code base also means a unified GUI for simple administration and day-to-day operations. UCI simplifies IT by providing a single software package. It can support small offices and Edge locations while scaling to meet the needs of the primary data center.

HCI Isn’t Flexible

Another reason why HCI doesn’t simplify IT is that it restricts the type of nodes users can add to the cluster. The idea behind HCI is that as you add additional servers to the environment, you automatically scale each of the three data center tiers to support new applications or additional users. The reality is that most organizations don’t need or want to scale all three of these tiers simultaneously; sometimes, you only need additional computing power, and other times, you only need additional storage capacity.

While some HCI solutions can now add “storage-only” nodes, they compromise performance and place restrictions on data protection and efficiency. Practically speaking, most HCI solutions must use nearly identical nodes as they scale, or create an entirely separate instance with an entirely different node configuration. Each additional HCI instance further adds to data center fragmentation instead of converging it.

In some cases, vendors require customers to replace servers, even if they are only a few years old, to support the latest version of their software. This requirement is not optional with them; upgrading to the new hardware means replacing older hardware.

UCI Solves the Flexibility Issue

UCI simplifies IT by solving the flexibility issue. It allows a mixture of different nodes within the same instance. Within the instance, VergeOS can group like nodes together. Then IT can allocate some or all those resources to specific workloads. This flexible intelligence also means that customers don’t have to upgrade or replace hardware to run the latest version of the HCI software.

The efficiency of VergeOS enables customers to extract more serviceable life from aging servers while fully exploiting the capabilities of modern servers that are only a few months old. Servers within a single VergeOS instance can be from different decades, processor manufacturers, and storage types.

Lack of a flexible scale is another reason why HCI doesn't simplify IT. UCI delivers complete flexibility.

Nodes can also have different areas of focus. Some can be heavily weighted for computing power while using the storage from other nodes in the instance, and others can be heavily weighted for storage capacity or performance and provide that storage or performance to the rest of the instance.

HCI Isn’t Secure

The lack of a robust security strategy is another reason why HCI doesn’t simplify IT. Customers must fill data protection and ransomware resiliency gaps by using third-party applications and creating additional infrastructures. As a result, legacy HCI forces IT planners to look at threats like ransomware as a backup and recovery problem instead of as an infrastructure problem, which is what it really is.

After IT discovers a ransomware attack, the malware file must be found, stopped, and removed. Then, IT must methodically recover data. By only looking at ransomware as a data protection problem, the average downtime associated with a ransomware attack is typically measured in days and sometimes weeks.

UCI is Hardened and Secure

UCI simplifies IT by providing infrastructure-wide data protection and resiliency capabilities. First, VergeIO’s Virtual Data Centers (VDC), which encapsulate the entire data center, also shrink the attack surface available to ransomware. It is nearly impossible for a malware file infecting one VDC to cross over to another VDC.

Second, VergeOS’ snapshot capabilities are powered by IOclone, which provides independent, immutable copies. However, because VergeOS implements global inline deduplication at its core, clone/snapshot copies are also space efficient. Taking frequent immutable snapshots without impacting performance provides the second layer of defense against ransomware.

Third, VergeOS’ IOfortify provides early detection of a ransomware attack. With it, your notification comes minutes after an attack starts instead of coming from confused users hours later. This early detection, combined with frequent, immutable clones, means recovery occurs within minutes and with little to no data loss.

Finally, VergeOS operates as read-only firmware at its core and injects a copy of itself into each VDC. As a result, if a cyber-attack could ever get to the actual VergeOS operating environment, a known good copy at the core is available to replace it.

The Impact of HCI Complexity

The impact of HCI complexity and its limitations means that IT must use the legacy three-tier architecture. It is also why most IT professionals don’t think HCI can replace a SAN, even though it should be a better option for virtualized environments. While legacy three-tier architectures are more complicated and more expensive, they, through brute force, work through some of the issues mentioned above.

UCI fulfills and extends the potential of legacy HCI. Using a single code base allows IT to manage all aspects of infrastructure in a cohesive, straightforward manner. UCI has flexible scalability, extending to both large and small needs. UCI can mix nodes of different types, which enables true and long-lasting actual convergence. UCI’s integrated data protection capabilities eliminate the dependency on a separate data protection infrastructure. As a result, UCI delivers more widespread convergence than HCI, while delivering infrastructure-wide data resiliency.

To learn more about UCI and VergeIO, register to watch the VergeOS Architecture Deep Dive with our CTO and founder, Greg Campbell. You can also sign up for a virtual test drive and start running VergeOS in minutes.

Filed Under: HCI Tagged With: ,

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IT has to factor the cost of the VMware Tax into its infrastructure planning. Where does this tax come from? It is the extra expense in hardware needed, to compensate for the overhead of VMware’s inefficient virtualization code. Adding additional components like vSAN for storage, or NSX for networking only makes the tax more severe. These components will adversely impact applications and users if IT doesn’t work around the overhead. These workarounds cost money, increase complexity and create a more brittle infrastructure that struggles to adapt to the organization’s future needs.

There are three primary effects of the VMware Tax:

  • A lower-than-possible VM Density.
  • The continued need for stand-alone bare-metal workloads.
  • A proliferation of the three-tier architecture.

To compensate, organizations are forced to:

  • Buy more or more powerful physical servers than what should be necessary.
  • Buy high-performance dedicated all-flash arrays.
  • Face a never-ending future of premature server and storage refreshes.

The Cost of the VMware Tax is one of the hidden costs of VMware. Learn about the rest of them in our on-demand webinar, “The 4 Hidden Costs of VMware.”

The Cost of VMware Tax on Server Planning

The first cost of the VMware Tax is that meeting the organization’s demands requires using either fewer virtual machines (VMs) per server and more physical servers or more powerful physical servers to support more VMs per server. As we discuss in our article, “HCI isn’t Infrastructure,” using more servers highlights the scaling issues common in Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) and leads most customers to purchase more powerful servers to reduce cluster node count.

Using more powerful servers with more CPUs, cores, and RAM increases those servers’ costs. This approach also increases VMware licensing costs since the company charges by the physical CPU installed in its nodes, and the expectation is that after the Broadcom acquisition is complete, the company will switch to a per-core licensing strategy and is expected to raise costs even further.

Overcoming the VMware Tax with Powerful Servers

Overcoming the cost of the VMware Tax by using more powerful servers exposes the lack of flexibility when scaling, the typical VMware architecture has. More powerful servers will likely be used longer before organizational growth requires IT to add another server to the cluster. When it comes time to add additional servers to the cluster, two or three years later, that exact server type may no longer be available, or a better option may be available using a different CPU vendor. Managing nodes of different types within a VMware environment is convoluted, leading many customers to establish an entirely separate cluster, further increasing costs and complexity.

There is also the challenge of, after three or four years, the hypervisor or storage vendor may upgrade its software to the point that it no longer supports the original servers. At that point, IT is faced with refreshing its entire server infrastructure to maintain compatibility with the updated software.

The Cost of the VMware Tax on Scale

Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) solutions expect a “balanced scale,” where the organization adds equal amounts of computing, storage, and networking. This requirement exposes another cost of the VMware Tax. No organization always needs to scale these three components at the same time. Especially when purchasing more powerful servers, the organization will likely need more storage performance or capacity before requiring additional computing resources.

Again, legacy HCI designs like those from VMware (vSAN, vSphere, NSX) or Nutanix expect almost identical nodes to be added to the cluster. To meet capacity demand, customers are adding servers similar to their original installation, and they end up paying for and wasting a massive amount of CPU and memory that come with those servers. Although a few vendors have evolved to allow more storage-centric nodes, these are complex band-aids with many compromises and increasing complexity. Most customers choose not to use them.

The enforcement of balanced scaling forces most customers considering HCI solutions to disqualify them later. As a result, the VMware Tax indirectly proliferates the more complex and expensive three-tier architecture.

VergeOS Enables High VM Density and Imbalanced Scale

VergeOS is a highly efficient data center operating system (DCOS) that enables high per-physical server VM populations. It does this by integrating the three standard data center tiers (networking, computing, and storage) into a single code base that is a fraction of the size in terms of lines of code without sacrificing features. This effort is the foundation of Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) which moves beyond the flawed HCI model to deliver the full promise of a truly converged infrastructure.

A more compact code base means faster execution on the same hardware. Integrating the traditional data center tiers means that efficiency carries throughout the entire solution. Our typical customer can support 25 to 30% more VMs per physical server with VergeOS than their prior solution (Hyper-V, VMware, Nutanix) while running on the very same, existing hardware.

The lack of flexible scale increases The Cost of the VMware Tax

As the organization’s demands grow, VergeOS provides flexible and intelligent scaling. An optimized internal-node communication protocol ensures near-linear performance increments as IT adds nodes to the environment. VergeOS’ flexibility means that IT can add nodes of almost any type, including storage or compute-centric nodes. VergeIO has never forced the retirement of old servers to support a new version of VergeOS.

VMware Tax Encourages Bare Metal

Despite all the advantages and flexibility of virtualization, the cost of the VMware Tax means that many customers still view some applications as bare-metal only. The performance demands of these servers are just too strenuous for the virtual environment. They either starve other VMs on the same node of resources or can’t continually guarantee access to the performance these applications demand. They also tend to be certain hardware types, like GPUs, that specific applications need, which legacy solutions don’t adequately virtualize.

The result is IT must purchase and stand up dedicated silos of computing and storage for these applications, which increases costs and complexity. Additionally, these bare-metal environments don’t benefit from core virtualization capabilities like seamless VM migration.

VergeOS Delivers Near Bare Metal Performance

VergeOS’ compute efficiency also helps formerly bare-metal-only workloads to be able to realize the benefits of virtualization. Historically, many bare-metal workloads remained bare-metal because of the storage I/O demands. VergeOS integration of storage, coupled with the performance of its file system, delivers near-bare-metal performance for these workloads. The VergeOS storage component, VergeFS, ensures all reads are local to the virtual machine. Finally, VergeOS supports nodes of various CPU classes within the same instance. Our customers can and do mix Intel, AMD, and GPU-based nodes, even of different generations. They repeatedly tell us that they were able to virtualize formerly bare-metal workloads without any degradation of performance.

Conclusion

With its inefficiencies and subsequent costs, the VMware Tax represents a significant concern for IT infrastructure planning. Its impact on VM density and the push toward bare-metal workloads signifies the increased expenses and complexities organizations face. As the technology landscape continues evolving, solutions like VergeOS emerge as viable alternatives, offering enhanced VM densities and near bare-metal performance.

VMware VM to VergeOS Chalktalk

By merging the conventional data center tiers and focusing on efficient operation, VergeOS addresses the challenges posed by VMware’s model and presents a forward-thinking solution that adapts to an organization’s dynamic needs. As organizations strive for agility, cost-effectiveness, and scalability, transitioning to platforms prioritizing these attributes will be paramount. VergeOS makes that transition seamless thanks to our IOmigrate capability.

Filed Under: VMwareExit Tagged With: ,

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HCI isn't an Infrastructure

As IT leaders consider the practicality of a VMware exit, they will also consider hyperconverged infrastructure. However, the inability to scale flexibly means that HCI isn’t an infrastructure they can use as a replacement platform. Even the few HCI solutions that are not dependent on VMware as their hypervisor suffer the problem of brittle scalability.

The Three Requirements of Flexible Infrastructure

A flexible infrastructure must meet these three requirements:

  1. The ability to scale small, less than three nodes for Edge, Remote Office, and small business data centers.
  2. The ability to scale large, dozens to hundreds of nodes, to meet the demands of an enterprise data center.
  3. The ability to manage nodes of different types, CPU brands, compute-only, and storage-only, so that it can adapt to the ever-changing needs of the data center.

The inability to meet these requirements with a single solution means that if an organization selects HCI as its infrastructure strategy, it likely will either need multiple HCI solutions to cover the organization’s needs, or at least multiple instances of the same HCI solution. Ironically, Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) isn’t an infrastructure, nor does it converge.

UCI is Infrastructure

Because of its inflexibility, a counter to HCI, which is relegated to niche use cases, is Ultraconverged Infrastructure (UCI). UCI is an infrastructure, Data Center Operating System (DCOS), and does truly provide convergence. VergeOS is a UCI solution that can scale small, large, and is flexible which allows it to adapt to the changing needs of organizations. Additionally, it is not dependent on VMware, which makes it an ideal alternative for customers looking for a VMware exit.

Infrastructure Must Scale Small

Not every business is an enterprise, but most need compute capabilities beyond what cloud-based SaaS applications can provide. As those businesses scale, the cost of the cloud becomes a significant factor. The point of entry for most HCI solutions is a three-server configuration which becomes nodes in its cluster. This requirement is often too large for Edge, Remote Office, and Small Data Center use cases.

As a result of the inability to scale small, most IT planners rule out HCI for these use cases and compromise with standalone servers and an inexpensive shared storage solution. The compromise increases the cost of acquiring the hardware and software for Edge, Remote Office, and Small Data Center use cases, and it increases complexity in an area that must have simplicity. These use cases have limited or no IT administrators, especially at the Edge.

UCI Scales Small

Users can start with as few as two nodes, and because of VergeOS’ efficiency, those nodes can be very cost-effective mini-servers, ideal for the Edge or Remote Office use cases. Even small data centers can run comfortably on two or three low-end to mid-range servers, reducing hardware acquisition costs by 50% or more. Learn more about the advantages of using UCI in small data centers here.

VergeOS’ efficiency comes from its tight integration of the network, compute, and storage tiers into a single, cohesive data center operating system (DCOS). The actual convergence of those tiers, instead of HCI’s approach of an “elegant bundle,” means the elimination of redundant metadata tables, databases, APIs, and management tools. The result is that the underlying hardware is unchained and enabled to reach its full potential.

Infrastructures Must Scale Large

Small businesses grow to medium-sized businesses and then eventually to large businesses. Starting over with a new infrastructure as the business grows is costly and risky.

Again, most HCI solutions start too big to be viable for small data centers or Edge, but the few that focus on the smaller end of the market often can’t scale large enough to meet the organization’s demands as it grows. They often can’t scale past six to eight nodes. The result is IT must replace the “starter-HCI” solution with another more scalable solution. The replacement often includes replacing hardware since each HCI solution seems to have a unique hardware compatibility list or comes “bundled” with hardware.

Even so-called enterprise HCI solutions have limitations and can scale to only a few dozen nodes, which is not large enough to provide complete infrastructure consolidation. There is also a practical limit to how large HCI solutions can scale. Most vendors use standard IO protocols to communicate between nodes, which means that every node must be “touched” every time a packet is received by the cluster, creating an untenable amount of internode, or east-west traffic.

Yet another part of the challenge is that most HCI solutions don’t include complete layer 2 and layer 3 networking functionality in their product. At most, they provide virtual switching or they bundle in, yet again, another third-party software-defined networking product. The lack of native networking functionality means that HCI clusters can’t practically scale to more than a dozen nodes without suffering a performance impact.

These challenges are why the legacy three-tier architecture continues to be the bread-and-butter infrastructure for enterprises. It is also why most IT leaders believe that HCI cannot replace standalone networking, virtualization, and storage.

HCI isn't an Infrastructure

UCI Scales Large

VergeOS can not only start as small as two nodes, but it can grow to well over one hundred nodes. Organizations of any size can start using VergeOS with confidence that it can grow or shrink, to meet their needs. The team at VergeIO also developed a proprietary networking protocol that optimizes internode communication, significantly reducing east-west traffic and making scale technically possible and practical.

Infrastructure Must Scale Flexibly

Infrastructure flexibility is a critical requirement because small and large businesses evolve. Their IT needs are not static, and neither should their infrastructure be. It needs to adapt to innovations in hardware and business needs.

Most HCI solutions are rigid in their configuration, only supporting specific hardware and forcing customers to upgrade to new hardware as the infrastructure software is updated. In HCI terms, scaling up typically means adding identical nodes, making it difficult to take advantage of the latest hardware advancements or adopt new types of nodes, such as storage-only or compute-only. HCI’s lack of flexible scaling also poses challenges when organizations want to retire or replace outdated equipment. Mixing old and new equipment within the same cluster is almost impossible.

The typical HCI setup often means organizations must create separate instances for workloads and hardware types. This approach fragments the overall infrastructure and creates more complexity, reducing operational efficiency and leading to underutilized resources. The inability to mix and match different types of nodes within the same cluster further diminishes the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of HCI.

UCI Scales Flexibly

On the other hand, UCI provides an answer to the rigidness of HCI. VergeOS supports multiple types of nodes, such as compute-only or storage-only nodes, which allows it to scale flexibly to match the dynamic needs of the business. As technology evolves and new hardware becomes available, VergeOS users can integrate these advances seamlessly into their existing setup. Customers can, for example, mix in AMD, Intel, and GPU nodes into the same instance.

Furthermore, with VergeOS, it’s possible to maintain a diverse set of hardware in a single instance, preventing infrastructure fragmentation. This capability allows businesses to adjust their IT setup as the organization grows and its needs change, ensuring they always have the most cost-effective and efficient infrastructure.

HCI isn't an Infrastructure


Conclusion

VergeOS is an ideal solution for businesses seeking a flexible, scalable, and efficient IT infrastructure. UCI surpasses HCI in meeting the demands of a dynamic business environment, ensuring that businesses can focus on their core competencies without worrying about their infrastructure. Whether it’s a small enterprise looking to grow or a large organization needing to maintain agility and efficiency, VergeOS has the features and flexibility to accommodate their needs. Compare HCI with UCI here.

To learn more about scaling IT infrastructure, watch our on-demand webinar, “How to Eliminate the Data Center Scale Problem.”

Filed Under: HCI Tagged With: ,

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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.

    Filed Under: HCI Tagged With: , , ,

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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.

    Filed Under: HCI Tagged With: