@JaredBusch said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

So, which is it?

Both.

HCI does not require more than a single box. It is stupid, sure. But to quote, stupid is as stupid does.

Technically, a stand alone server meets the criteria of hyperconverged because it has all the things.

Technically a lot of things are factual from a very specific definition. Just poke @scottalanmiller on any number of subjects....

But no one can seriously consider anything, single box or a hundred, hyperconverged with out the tooling that manages it all as a cohesive thing.

So why dont we just say its not HCI? As you say, im more than happy to go along with that answer... if it can never be serious to consider a single box or a hundred without tooling HCI..... why do we call single box HCI? Its rediculous we keep saying it if it is just not true, as it can never be serious.

I think I kind of get it now. Thats been a help, thank you

I guess I am just getting confused where lots of folk are saying a server with local everything is HCI. (No mention of tooling). Then I am also told without the tooling its not HCI... only one can be true, no?

@JaredBusch said in What makes a system HCI?:

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

Proxmox offers Hyperconvergence and HCI

@Jimmy9008 I've not looked at this. I will not state it is true until I have had time to verify.

It is easy to use the term HCI

Yeah, I am seeing this all the time and that is the driver for me to try and understand what HCI actually is. I'll give an example from this very thread. At the start, I am told:

"**So on HCI I think most people agree that you need to have:

Compute virtualization
Networking virtualization
Storage virtualization**"

And I am also told:
"To put this simply, every server that has compute and storage in the box is hyperconverged."

^ no mention of tooling being a constraint for HCI.

Then I am told things like:

"The value add in an HCI solution is the programming that allows you to take 2,3,4 or more of those servers and just plug them in and use it all as one large server pool (HCI)."

"HCI is all about the tooling. Without the full stack tooling, it cannot really be HCI."

So, which is it? Servers with local compute, storage, networking either are HCI... or are never HCI, as they do not (or rarely have) have the tooling.

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

So HCI can only be obtained by purchasing a solution from vendors like Dell, Scale, Nutanix, VMWare?
Simply then, if the solution is not some proprietary tech from a company like that it will never be HCI, as it does not have the tooling?

What? No.

Of course not, the linux community could (and likely are working on) an HCI solution right now. HCI != Proprietary

Its about having the tooling, not the provider of the tooling.

Ok, I can take that on board. So... let me rephrase with that in mind...

Is this correct to say then: If the system does not have the tooling on top of the hardware it cannot be HCI.

Correct?

@JaredBusch said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

if the system does not do the above, does that mean the system is not HCI?

No, one does not mean that the other HCI solutions aren't HCI. It just means that the tooling isn't there / included.

Different HCI solutions can have different features.

Ok gotcha. Thats what I suspected. I do see the value of such solutions, but I am trying to understand why my teams are arguing one solution is HCI, and the other is not. Where the only real difference is this tooling.

HCI is all about the tooling. Without the full stack tooling, it cannot really be HCI. Just cobbled together pieces of hardware that might mimic HCI.

So HCI can only be obtained by purchasing a solution from vendors like Dell, Scale, Nutanix, VMWare?
Simply then, if the solution is not some proprietary tech from a company like that it will never be HCI, as it does not have the tooling?

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

if the system does not do the above, does that mean the system is not HCI?

No, one does not mean that the other HCI solutions aren't HCI. It just means that the tooling isn't there / included.

Different HCI solutions can have different features.

Ok gotcha. Thats what I suspected. I do see the value of such solutions, but I am trying to understand why my teams are arguing one solution is HCI, and the other is not. Where the only real difference is this tooling.

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

I get that a vendor has some cool tech they stick on top of their HCI hardware to sell me a HCA, but you can still have HCI without that super cool layer on top that they have, right? Or are we saying HCI can only ever be HCI if it has all the bells on top that vendors sell through their proprietary software/stack?

You could do HCI yourself, sure but building the tools to get it aren't something any individual would reasonably do.

Would users of Starwind vSAN, running a three node setup using their vSAN with WFC on top be HCI? Three nodes, all shared storage, to a Windows Failover Cluster running over all three nodes... sure, its not as polished as the scale solutions (never said it is).... but does that mean it is not HCI?

How can this be when right at the start somebody said HCI is:
Compute virtualization
Networking virtualization
Storage virtualization

@dafyre said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

Oh, missed the second part. By magic I mean the vendor talk where I keep hearing you just plug in another HCA unit to expand resources.

The last time I did this with @scale , it worked just like that. Plug the new server in, tell the other systems where to find the new server, and off to the races you go.

I have no doubt this is true. None at all. I am in no way saying the system cannot do this functionality.

What I am trying to get an insight in to is..... if the system does not do the above, does that mean the system is not HCI?

Just had a look on the VXRail spec pages and that also allows for expanding network cards for capacity/failures. So that helps my argument at least.

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

To put this simply, every server that has compute and storage in the box is hyperconverged.

Buy* any server off of a shelf that is "self-contained" and you have a hyperconverged server. The value add in an HCI solution is the programming that allows you to take 2,3,4 or more of those servers and just plug them in and use it all as one large server.

So any host in the environment could go down, and while you'd have reduced capacity, the environment would simply move the workload to other available resources.

That is what I have always in my mind for HCI. Am I right in saying the value add can be done by say a Windows Failover Cluster over all nodes, which make use of vSAN storage? Like the HCA appliances vendors sell, the failover cluster provides the function to move VMs should a node fail, right? The vendor tech isnt some magic box which invalidates other solutions excluding such technology from being HCI?

Windows Failover Clustering isn't seemless (you'd know if you lost a host). vSAN is storage only (generally). @scale makes HCI environments where you can take a host right out of the environment and things will just chug along.

As for your second question I'm not sure what you're asking regarding vendor tech being magic. Magic is simply something we don't understand yet.

Oh, missed the second part. By magic I mean the vendor talk where I keep hearing you just plug in another HCA unit to expand resources. You don't need to understand whats happening under the hood, you just need to drop some cash and plug the next node in to the HCA to grow. That is what I meant by magic.

I get that a vendor has some cool tech they stick on top of their HCI hardware to sell me a HCA, but you can still have HCI without that super cool layer on top that they have, right? Or are we saying HCI can only ever be HCI if it has all the bells on top that vendors sell through their proprietary software/stack?

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

I disagree with them entirely, but its at a point where any architecture using more than one NIC in their mind cannot be HCI.

Who is seeing any HCI vendor sell equipment with only 1 physical NIC on each system?

They have had solutions like VXRail on trial to see how they work from various vendors, each node in the stack only has 1 NIC card. Maybe they are just entry level systems or something.

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

To put this simply, every server that has compute and storage in the box is hyperconverged.

Buy* any server off of a shelf that is "self-contained" and you have a hyperconverged server. The value add in an HCI solution is the programming that allows you to take 2,3,4 or more of those servers and just plug them in and use it all as one large server.

So any host in the environment could go down, and while you'd have reduced capacity, the environment would simply move the workload to other available resources.

That is what I have always in my mind for HCI. Am I right in saying the value add can be done by say a Windows Failover Cluster over all nodes, which make use of vSAN storage? Like the HCA appliances vendors sell, the failover cluster provides the function to move VMs should a node fail, right? The vendor tech isnt some magic box which invalidates other solutions excluding such technology from being HCI?

Windows Failover Clustering isn't seemless (you'd know if you lost a host). vSAN is storage only (generally). @scale makes HCI environments where you can take a host right out of the environment and things will just chug along.

As for your second question I'm not sure what you're asking regarding vendor tech being magic. Magic is simply something we don't understand yet.

I understand. So, since WFC is not seamless if a host is removed, that means its not HCI? Not arguing, just trying to understand where the line is.

So, if removing a node != seamless, then solution != HCI?

@travisdh1 said in What makes a system HCI?:

@Jimmy9008 said in What makes a system HCI?:

That does make total sense. One discussion staff keep having internally is that HCAs from vendors have 1 x NIC only. Therefore, if a server has 2 x NIC, or more, it cannot be HCI... which I think is total bull.

What sort of illogic led to the number of anything, let alone # of NICs, in a server being HCI or not?

Simply, when they are looking at HCA from vendors, say Nutanix, Dell, VMWare, Scale, the manual appears to have 1 x NIC in each node, which has virtualized storage network, VM network, heartbeats and other such networks on top of the one NIC using different vLANs. I disagree with them entirely, but its at a point where any architecture using more than one NIC in their mind cannot be HCI.

@DustinB3403 said in What makes a system HCI?:

To put this simply, every server that has compute and storage in the box is hyperconverged.

Buy* any server off of a shelf that is "self-contained" and you have a hyperconverged server. The value add in an HCI solution is the programming that allows you to take 2,3,4 or more of those servers and just plug them in and use it all as one large server.

So any host in the environment could go down, and while you'd have reduced capacity, the environment would simply move the workload to other available resources.

That is what I have always in my mind for HCI. Am I right in saying the value add can be done by say a Windows Failover Cluster over all nodes, which make use of vSAN storage? Like the HCA appliances vendors sell, the failover cluster provides the function to move VMs should a node fail, right? The vendor tech isnt some magic box which invalidates other solutions excluding such technology from being HCI?

That does make total sense. One discussion staff keep having internally is that HCAs from vendors have 1 x NIC only. Therefore, if a server has 2 x NIC, or more, it cannot be HCI... which I think is total bull.

Hi everyone,

When I research this terminology, I seem to get lots of sales garbage. Can anybody confirm to me exactly what HCI is and how it is different to CI? Any articles would help...

I have always thought, potentially incorrectly, that CI is where you have an OS on physical hardware, with local storage, RAM, compute and networking. For example, CI would be a single server running Windows Server 2019 on local disks. You have local OS, Storage, RAM, CPU, Networking...

HCI, as I thought, was abstracting this hardware using a Hypervisor. For example, take the above exact server and swap Windows Server for Hyper-V, to me that is now HCI. Specifically, adding the 'Hypervisor' to the existing 'CI', Gives you the 'Hyper'CI, or Hyperconverged Infrastructure. Now the physical layer is abstract due to the virtualization layer we have vCPUs, virtually assigned RAM, some layer of virtual networking through the use of vNICs, and virtual switches, using virtual HDDs so on so fourth...

When I look on vendor sites, HCI does not appear to be the above. HCI/HCA is sold as some complex proprietary system with specialized software running servers as blocks which can be combined to make the whole stack... can I only get HCI through a vendor like Dell VXRail, or Nutanix, or Scale, using specially designed appliances? I understand, lets say VXRail, may have a lot of benefits over the above HCI server I mentioned at the start, but just because its not as 'fancy', or expensive, as the Dell solution... that does not mean the above server is no longer HCI, right?

Like I said, could be way off here...

Cheers,
Jim

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

Thats not a backup of a backup. I have 1 x replica of a VM going to the provider and my site gets screwed (major power outage), I spin up my DR replica and have all my remote staff connecting in minutes. If I instead get a crypto and replica that data, my replica is fucked. This is not a backup.

It's the very definition of a backup. In every sense.

Let not argue and go round and round on this. Ill contact some providers to get quotes which I was going to have to do anyway. Just wanted to see from somebody with any experience on this on getting access to any form of costings without having to pick up the phone.

Cheers guys.

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

Veeam Cloud Connect

Who do they support? I think that Veeam CC is a service, not something you use to connect to your own storage options like you are looking for.

I think you just want a normal backup, nothing more. I have a feeling you are mixing the idea of having a cloud DR strategy with the search for storage for your backups. They are separate items and what makes sense for the one, doesn't make sense for the other. The products are fundamentally wrong.

Example... it's S3 or Glacier from Amazon, not EC2, that you'd be looking for.

Im not looking to connect and use them for storage. That would be useless to me. This is for DR.

DR requires storage. How do you want DR to work if it can't get the data from the backups?

The DRaaS of course comes with storage. But thats not the reason for using it. The purpose is I can turn on replicas on the DRaaS solution and bring my systems back up on the providers infrastructure. Backups are backups. This is not getting data from backups. The DR has its own copy of replicated VMs.

That would be a backup of the backup. Which is fine to have, but a DR strategy is "how do you spin up your backups and use them." So for the average cloud based DR, it's to backup to S3, Azure, Wasabi, B2, etc. and use that backup to spin up a cloud or non-cloud VM. No need for additional storage in the DR solution, the "almost always" DR use case is that DR pulls from the backup, not that the DR "system or plan" has additional backups of its own.

Thats not a backup of a backup. I have 1 x replica of a VM going to the provider and my site gets screwed (major power outage), I spin up my DR replica and have all my remote staff connecting in minutes. If I instead get a crypto and replica that data, my replica is fucked. This is not a backup.

My backups are already done and in place. In the above example you would have to restore from the backups. Because, they are backups.

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

What I am specifically trying to do is find costs to use this Veeam technology to send replicas to a cloud provider. DRaaS. If my site goes down, I can use this DRaaS service to spin up my VMs pretty much instantly. Just like I could do with a replica HyperV VM on a different host...

The problem here is, DRaaS includes backups. So this takes us back to "where do you send your backups", once again.

Backups are included in my backups. DRaaS is not the same thing. This is also moving away from the original point.
The point is asking if anybody has advice on quoting up DRaaS, not the theoretical differences between DR and backup.

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@scottalanmiller said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

@Jimmy9008 said in Veeam Replication to Azure:

Veeam Cloud Connect

Who do they support? I think that Veeam CC is a service, not something you use to connect to your own storage options like you are looking for.

I think you just want a normal backup, nothing more. I have a feeling you are mixing the idea of having a cloud DR strategy with the search for storage for your backups. They are separate items and what makes sense for the one, doesn't make sense for the other. The products are fundamentally wrong.

Example... it's S3 or Glacier from Amazon, not EC2, that you'd be looking for.

Im not looking to connect and use them for storage. That would be useless to me. This is for DR.

DR requires storage. How do you want DR to work if it can't get the data from the backups?

The DRaaS of course comes with storage. But thats not the reason for using it. The purpose is I can turn on replicas on the DRaaS solution and bring my systems back up on the providers infrastructure. Backups are backups. This is not getting data from backups. The DR has its own copy of replicated VMs.