What to Look for in Hyper-Converged

Infrastructure: A Handy Checklist

PERFORMANCE
Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is a hot topic in IT. By converging compute,
management, and storage onto industry-standard x86 servers, it delivers both cost COST
savings and business efficiencies. The right solution will enable you to meet the needs
of your users without putting undue stress on internal resources. AVAILABILITY

But how can you know that youre choosing the best HCI solution? SIMPLICITY

There are five main factors to consider: performance, cost, availability, simplicity, and
FLEXIBILITY
flexibility. The checklist below breaks out important things to look for in each category,
so that you can make a full assessment before you buy.

Key Selection Criteria Available? Comments

Performance

All-flash and hybrid configurations supported

Up to 100K IOPs at sub-millisecond latencies

Supports latest all-flash technology, like NVMe

Minimal performance impact from VM movement (like vMotion)

Consistent and predictable performance for any application

Space efficiency features do NOT consume noticeable amounts of memory and CPU resources

Cost

Ability to use industry-standard hardware

All-flash solutions available for near the cost of hybrid

Start small with as few as 2 nodes and minimal hardware

Data efficiency features (e.g., deduplication and compression)

No specialized skill sets required to deploy and maintain

Enables leveraging of existing technical resources and expertise

End-to-end management and monitoring, using a single tool

Availability

Quality of Service features ensure critical workloads have resources needed

5-nines (99.999%) availability

Built-in failure tolerance features like distributed RAID and cache mirroring

Support stretched clusters for 0-minute RPO

Non-disruptive scaling

Data protection features like replication and erasure coding

Key Selection Criteria Available? Comments

Simplicity

Single software stack with compute, storage, and management capabilities

Policy-based management

No virtual storage appliance required

Single interface for visibility and management into compute, storage, and networking

Storage provisioning in a few clicks with no additional software installs

Choice of hardware to match current infrastructure and IT expertise

Integration with other components of my data center

(e.g., virtual desktop solution, network virtualization solution, etc.)

Ability to leverage tools and platforms already used in data center

Intelligent placement and fine control of services at the VM level

Flexibility

Ability to select the hardware vendor of choice

Partnerships with all major x86 server vendors

Broad deployment optionsfrom turnkey appliances to custom configurations

Granular scaling/scale-up or scale-out approach to adding capacity

Single platform supporting business-critical applications, OpenStack, and containers

Proven, fully featured hypervisor

One customer support number for entire software stack

Provides the foundation toward a full SDDC

Choose the Solution That Checks All the Boxes

Not every HCI solution is created equal. To get the best results, you have to invest in the best. VMware
stands out from the competition, offering a hyper-converged software solution made up of VMware
vSphere, VMware Virtual SAN, and VMware vCenter Server. Combined, they deliver a turnkey solution
in one tightly integrated software stack.

By choosing VMware, you get the simplest, most efficient, and highest-performing hyper-converged software on the market.

Find Out More

Try Virtual SAN in a Hands-on Lab >

Learn more about VMware Hyper-Converged Software >

Join Us Online:

VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com
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