Flexibility in Scale
We can see some unique benefits to HyperFlex, one that stands out is the flexibility in which we can scale resources. One complaint which is often heard from customers considering HCI is that when they run out of one particular resource like storage they need to buy a whole new node to add to the cluster, which adds to their compute and networking resources as well…even if it’s not necessary. Now this wouldn’t be a big deal, but there’s an actual cost associated with these nodes and they’re not necessarily inexpensive. Because the HX Data Platform (HXDP) was built from the ground up and because we’re working with an already converged networking and compute system like UCS, we can be a lot more flexible with HyperFlex.
For example, if we want to add more flash we could simply add more SSDs to a node. We can do the same with memory. Now if we need to add a lot of compute resources, we can actually utilize a UCS server we already have, install a hypervisor, an SCVM, and the IO Visor (all things common to an HX node), and now even if we don’t have storage on this particular server we can increase compute performance for our cluster and manage it all from the same HX GUI.
There are a few business implications here:
1) We can now more easily migrate from our current UCS infrastructure to a HyperFlex HCI
2) We can utilize current equipment and avoid any forklift upgrades
3) If a certain application is only certified on UCS, for example, we can still run that application in our HyperFlex environment
The possibilities don’t end there, especially when we consider that we can do the same thing with actual storage arrays. If we’re already running a Pure array, for example in our data center, we can add this storage to our HX clusters as well!