IT Infrastructure: Deploy. Integrate. Repeat.
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Original Post: http://blog.scalecomputing.com/it-infrastructure-deploy-integrate-repeat/
Have you ever wondered if you are stuck in an IT infrastructure loop, continuously deploying the same types of components and integrating them into an overall infrastructure architecture? Servers for CPU and RAM, storage appliances, hypervisor software, and disaster recovery software/appliances are just some of the different components that you’ve put together from different vendors to create your IT infrastructure.mobius
This model of infrastructure design, combining components from different vendors, has been around for at least a couple decades. Virtualization has reduced the hardware footprint but it added one more component, the hypervisor, to the overall mix. As these component technologies like compute and storage have evolved within the rise of virtualization, they have been modified to function but have not necessarily been optimized for efficiency.
Take storage for example. SANs were an obvious fit for virtualization early on. However, layers of inefficient storage protocols and virtual storage appliances that combined the SAN with virtualization were not efficient. If not for SSD storage, the performance of these systems would be unacceptable at best. But IT continues to implement these architectures because it has been done this way for so long, regardless of the inherent inefficiencies. Luckily, the next generation of infrastructure has arrived in the form of hyperconvergence to break this routine.
Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) combines compute, storage, virtualization, and even disaster recovery into a single appliance that can be clustered for high availability. No more purchasing all of the components separately from different vendors, no more making sure all of the components are compatible, and no more dealing with support and maintenance from multiple vendors on different schedules.
Not all HCI systems are equal, though, as some still adhere to some separate components. Some use third party hypervisors that require separate licensing. Some still adhere to SAN architectures that require virtual storage appliances (VSAs) or other inefficient storage architectures requiring excessive resource overhead and require SSD storage for caching to overcome inefficiencies.
Not only does HCI reduce vendor management and complexity but when done correctly, embeds storage in the hypervisor and offers it as a direct attached, block access storage system to VM workloads. This significantly improves the I/O performance of storage for virtualization. This architecture provides excellent performance for spinning disk so when SSD is added as a second storage tier, the storage performance is greatly improved. Also, because the storage is including in the appliance, it eliminates managing a separate SAN appliance.
HCI goes even further in simplifying IT infrastructure to allow management of the whole system from a single interface. Because the architecture is managed as a single unit and prevalidated, there is no effort spent making sure the various components work together. When the system is truly hyperconverged, including the hypervisor, there is greater control in automation so that software and firmware updates can be done without disruption to running VMs. And for scaling out, new appliances can be added to a cluster without disruption as well.
The result of these simplifications and improvements of infrastructure in hyperconvergence is an infrastructure that can be deployed quickly, scaled easily, and that requires little management. It embodies many of the benefits of the cloud where the infrastructure is virtually transparent. Instead of spending time managing infrastructure, administrators can focus time managing apps and processes rather than hardware and infrastructure.
Infrastructure should no longer require certified storage experts, virtualization experts, or any kind of hardware experts. Administrators should no longer need entire weekends or month-long projects to deploy and integrate infrastructure or spend sleepless nights dealing with failures. Hyperconvergence breaks the cycle of infrastructure as a variety of different vendors and components. Instead, it makes infrastructure a simple, available, and trusted commodity.
