Hyperconverged vs Composable IT Infrastructures

Published On: 4th November 2022//7.2 min read//Tags: , , , , , //

Within the last decade, advancements in technology have transformed the way datacenters are designed. Organizations today are creating and managing more data than ever, and IT infrastructures have evolved to meet their growing needs. Hyperconverged and composable infrastructures are two popular configurations within the IT space, ideally suited for particular environments, but not others. In this blog, we’ll discuss the similarities and differences between the two.

In order to fully understand and appreciate the two configurations, it’s important to place them within the context of other common IT infrastructures. Firstly, the traditional method that has been used for many years but is now being phased out at most organizations. And secondly, converged infrastructure which is similar, but subtly different to the hyperconverged model.

Traditional Infrastructure

Traditional IT infrastructure diagramTraditional enterprise IT infrastructure typically follows an older pattern of IT architecture designed to support Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network-Attached Storage (NAS) models. They provide network connectivity through dedicated networking equipment, Ethernet switches, and large, scale-up compute systems. This large amount of hardware means these solutions are complex and difficult to manage, requiring an onsite specialist to oversee operations. They also typically have higher power needs, require more physical space, and have higher costs associated with them.

Converged Infrastructure

Converged IT infrastructure diagramConverged infrastructure (CI) is the convergence of compute, networking, virtualization tools, servers, and storage infrastructure in a datacenter. It was developed to simplify the provisioning process and reduce complexities in datacenter management through the use of pre-configured building blocks.

As converged architecture offers branded and supported products where software, storage servers, and switches all reside on a single piece of hardware, it eliminates issues around hardware incompatibility and the costs associated with power, cabling, and cooling.

Not only does this bundling of hardware components with management software allow these resources to act as a single integrated system, but they also allow businesses to scale easily and bring new services to market rapidly. CI help create greater ease of deployment, making them particularly appealing to enterprises that host private, internal, or private clouds, or write cloud-native apps.

However, while this type of infrastructure does simplify the procurement process, effectively allowing organizations to ‘plug and play’, it can be inefficient and increase the likelihood of over-provisioning unless the appliances are sized specifically to the workload.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Hyperconverged IT infrastructure diagramHyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a software-defined IT system that unifies and virtualizes all of the elements of a traditional hardware-defined IT environment. In harnessing virtual servers, software-defined storage, and networking, HCI is able to use these tools to combine small bricks, onboard computers and storage into a large cluster which are all governed by a single hypervisor.

Hyperconverged infrastructure not only simplifies management and deployment for modern businesses, but also requires less hardware, making it a suitable solution for both small and large datacenters. It helps save IT teams a lot of time in deployment, integration and management, and is widely adopted by enterprises of all sizes, looking to deploy on-premises compute and storage.

There are several HCI variations available on the market today, with the main options being hardware deployment which puts storage, compute, and occasionally networking into an appliance, and software deployment which acts as a virtualized layer, allowing for the discovery and management of existing hardware architecture.

However, hyperconverged systems don’t come without their shortfalls. Businesses using hardware-based hyperconverged systems can find themselves spending significantly more on expensive equipment and resources mandated by vendors like additional nodes when they wish to scale up. While software-based hyperconverged systems can have issues around support, software incompatibilities and complexities, and vendor lock-ins. Thanks to this, there is a significant shift towards hybrid cloud and edge integrations.

Composable Infrastructure

Composable IT infrastructure diagramComposable infrastructure treats compute, storage, and network devices as different pools of resources. Users can provision these pools as needed, depending on workload performance requirements. It’s designed to offer organizations the same level of flexibility, and the same freedom and benefits as a cloud computing provider, requesting and provisioning resource capacity from a shared capacity. However, it is an on-premises solution that sits within the datacenter.

Composable architecture operates as an internal datacenter management system, supporting a mix of three different types of server workloads:

  • Container-based servers
  • Traditional physical servers
  • Virtualized servers

By offering this variety of workloads, many organizations gravitate towards this model thanks to the high levels of simplicity it offers, as well as it helping to prevent over-provisioning. Felt by some to be the future of technical infrastructure, composable infrastructure is believed to have a wider potential reach for enterprise application connectivity (typically only 30% of an organization’s apps are connected).

But, this all comes at a price. For example, pooling resources in one location and sharing them out over the network requires more hardware. This is unrealistic for many organizations, such as SMEs and edge computing environments which often lack the space and budgets to do so. Not to mention, it is often unfeasible for them to roll out a high-quality network across long distances and up to thousands of locations in some cases.

Edge Computing

Edge Computing ExplanationThe quality and quantity of data that is now created at the edge is changing the way organizations handle computing.

Using a centralized datacenter and average network connectivity, as seen in traditional computing models, is no longer a viable method of storing and processing this data. These models are all too often unable to keep up with the volumes of data coming in from the edge, and unable to properly protect it as it is too far from the source. Unpredictable network disruptions, bandwidth limitations, and latency issues are additional factors that have forced IT architects to make a necessary shift to computing models better adapted to handling edge issues.

Edge computing works by moving compute and storage resources closer to the data source, instead of sending data back to the datacenter for analysis. It is here where the data is generated, that processing and analysis occur, helping to provide real-time business insights, predictions about equipment maintenance, and other valuable information which are later sent back to the main datacenter for review.

Today, edge computing is relied upon by a range of industries including the factory floors of manufacturing plants, retail stores, and even oil rigs in the middle of an ocean. Computing gear sent to these locations is deployed and shielded in protective enclosures to keep the equipment safe from harsh edge environments.

Many organizations are beginning to adopt this faster and more reliable, modern model of computing. In fact, according to TechTarget, around 27% of organizations have already implemented edge computing on their remote sites. And this figure is only expected to grow, with Gartner predicting that 75% of enterprise data will be generated outside of the cloud or traditional centralized datacenter by 2025.

But, leveraging this computing model typically requires the use of HCI, which can often prove expensive due to solutions being over-provisioned. HCI vendors often require a minimum of three servers, and vendor lock-in policies, which significantly increase costs when a company inevitably needs to scale. This is where the use of lightweight HCIs comes into play, allowing the most efficient processing of data at the edge.

StorMagic SvSAN

Organizations with edge sites often struggle with issues around budget, space, resources, and IT help when their equipment goes down. With over a decade of experience tackling the edge, StorMagic understands this problem well – which is why we built our lightweight virtual SAN, SvSAN, designed specifically to provide hyperconverged infrastructure with the edge in mind.

SvSAN is a simple HCI solution that prevents over-provisioning for our users, without breaking the bank. With a resilient architecture, and disaster recovery capabilities, this flexible solution is able to maintain 100% up-time in environments where connectivity is unreliable or bandwidth is restricted. SvSAN has kept company applications highly available during natural disasters like tornadoes and even earthquakes.

A perfect solution for SMEs with many edge locations, SvSAN can be run on any major hypervisor including existing hardware, brand-new architecture, or a combination of the two. What’s more, our customers can manage a thousand of their edge sites just as easily as one (read this company’s story to discover how)!

For a more detailed discussion of SvSAN’s use cases and benefits, refer to the SvSAN Product Introduction guide, available to download here.

Share This Post, Choose Your Platform!

Recent Blog Posts