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May 2015
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N THE WORLD of physical servers, Take that concept beyond the server, and you find that
each workload required a compatible because its very difficultIT staff is spending a tremendous
server that was configured and tuned amount of time and energy making the key pieces of the
to optimize results for that particular data center (server, storage, network) fit together and work
application. You would often find Ex- well. Its one thing for a vendor to make things work in their
change servers on one platform, Oracle database servers on controlled factory environment, but its much harder to do
another, and so on, each living on the type of machine that on a data center floor where theres a mix of new and old
engineers determined would be optimal for that particular systems, inconsistent skills, procedures and approaches.
use case, and configured optimally just for that workload. Firms pull their hair out trying to get it to work initially,
From the perspective of optimizing each workload, it and struggle even more trying to keep it all running over the
makes senseyou want to build the app on the best possible long term as things break and change.
platform for the best results. The bigger picture is not so Buying separate software, servers, storage and network-
rosy. Keeping the physical layout and configuration for each ing and then attempting to make them all fit together is akin
particular machineand to order them, build them and im- to buying a car by ordering an engine from one manufac-
plement them on a custom basis for each workloadcreates turer, a chassis from another, and wheels, seats and body
a tremendous amount of variability and complexity across from additional vendors. While theoretically it might be
the environment. possible to get better results than trusting the combination
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recommended by a single vendor, the likelihood of that re- have to assemble themselves. Both options are designed
sult coming about is extremely low. With improvements in and assembled to deliver consistently good results for all
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the ability of industry standard x86 components to handle the workloads that fit within the target of the particular
the Cloud demanding workloads, and the standardization of compo- package. In a similar trend, other vendors have chosen to
nents from one vendor to another, many IT architects are sell hyper-converged products, which package servers, stor-
realizing that theres more value in making things consis- age, networking and hypervisor in one box. All of these con-
tent and eliminating variability, rather than striving for the verged systems generally focus around a particular virtual
absolute best architecture for each individual workload. server technology, like VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V, or
Converged storage options are a natural outcome of this for a particular application like desktop virtualization.
line of thinking. The rise of virtual servers has had a homog- With physical servers, you have to optimize the server
enizing effect on IT requirements. Today, you just need to and storage environment to fit the needs of the workload
know that your workload is compatible with virtualization, running on each individual machine, and take a wide range
and that your server is compatible with your virtual server of variability in needs into account. Virtual server technol-
technology, and thats how you build the server. The specific ogy acts as a homogenizing factor, removing complexity of
requirements of each application in the virtual server en- variability and interoperability from the equation. When
vironment become, to some extent, less important. And as organizations standardize on a virtual server technology,
organizations use virtual server technology for a bigger per- and run a majority of production workloads in such an envi-
centage of the workloads they run, the need for customized ronment, it allows for a much higher level of infrastructure
configurations that differ by workload. consistency from workload to workload.
When you have this increased level of consistency within
your IT infrastructure, the focus on best in class individual
LESS ASSEMBLY REQUIRED components, capable of high levels of bare-metal custom-
Entrenched and emerging vendors are aware of this, and ization and broad fit for many configurations diminishes
have begun to offer converged infrastructureproducts significantly. This shift in focus, along with industry-wide
that combine servers, storage and networking from differ- consistency in choosing a small number of virtual server
ent vendors. These products can be sold as a pre-configured options, has led to the prevalence of options for pre-inte-
package, or as reference architectures that customers then grated converged systems that offer a blueprint and order
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sheet that acts as a cookbook for users to assemble a pre- public cloud becomes a further extension of that same
defined combination, or hyper-converged systems that as- concept. With the cloud, you decide on the type and con-
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semble the server, storage, network and management tools figuration of virtual servers you need to solve a given busi-
the Cloud in the factory. These products allow users to bring virtual ness problem, and then simply gain access to that virtual
server environments online more quickly and with less ef- server via a network connection to the cloud provider. You
fort and integration risk. give up the ability to build, customize or even see or touch
the infrastructure, but you get a pre-designed architecture
that the service provider worries about. Cloud providers,
GETTING BY WITH A LITTLE HELP like converged systems vendors, will likely give you a list of
FROM THE CLOUD choices when it comes to the infrastructure, the amount of
If you think of convergence as getting to use the virtual RAM or disk space associated, for example, but not a choice
server technology of your choice, but with a pre-designed of which vendors components go into the solution, or
infrastructure combination that you can buy behind it, where specifically it resides within the remote data center.
Converged vs Hyper-Converged
CONVERGED HYPER-CONVERGED
n Includes servers, storage, networking n Includes hypervisor, servers, storage and networking
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Convergence can radically simplify the process of choos-
ing infrastructure and building solutions, but cloud can go
further by allowing users to:
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Cloud Provider
n Use trial and error to find the right solution. Lets Considerations
face it, its hard to hit the nail on the head every time when PERSISTENT VS. EPHEMERAL: Data can either be
youre building out a storage architecture, especially if its continuously retained or stored temporarily. The
new and the requirements arent fully clear. The cloud latter can be a cost-efficient option if data is not
allows you to build out a solution, and then swap it for an- read and write-heavy.
other approach if its not quite right. With traditional or HARD DISK VS. SSD: Just like in traditional on-prem-
converged infrastructure, you still own gear for 3-5 years; ises environments, cloud customers can choose
you may be able to re-purpose it for another solution (if its to use solid-state drives if they are looking for
a good fit for what you bought) but its a tricky proposition faster performance.
and the hardware you bought but didnt like may end up be- GUARANTEED IOPS: Some cloud providers give the
ing wasted. With the cloud, you simply get something else option of building a specified number of IOPS into
and shut off the initial try. their QoS agreements; others have a best effort
IOPS policy.
n Scale up and down to meet demand spikes. Many THROUGHPUT LEVELS: Throughput varies by pro-
business situations create spikey demand for IT. Whether vider and can have a big impact on performance;
its retail demand around Christmas, processing for a test these levels when possible to determine if
month-end close, or just the variability from daytime busi- theyre adequate for your business processes.
ness hours to nighttime slowdown, demand increases and DURABILITY LEVELS: Providers determine this based
decreases continually. With traditional or converged prod- on the annual failure rate of their hardware, and
ucts, you have to buy infrastructure scalable enough to run can vary from one to the next. The more critical
as many virtual servers as you will ever run. With cloud, you your data, the more important this becomes. n
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n Set up the environment quickly. Converged systems can
reduce the lead time of buying from many suppliers and the
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effort time of putting it all together, but in the end, youre
the Cloud still ordering, standing up and deploying products when the
demand arises. Most cloud providers have systems ready Ease VM Storage With Converged and Cloud Options
and waiting, especially in the case of frequently used stor- is a SearchVirtualStorage.com e-publication.
age types, and measure turnaround in minutes or hours,
Ellen OBrien | Associate Editorial Director
rather than days or weeks. n
Ed Hannan | Senior Managing Editor
ANDREW REICHMAN works with vendors, end users and analyst firms
on advisory, strategy and content creation projects, along with writing, Andrew Burton | Executive Editor
speaking and blogging.He previously worked at Amazon Web Services,
leading their efforts in marketing infrastructure as a service to enterprise
Linda Koury | Director of Online Design
firms worldwide.