New technologies often fundamentally change how IT procures and operates infrastructure and Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) is no exception. HCI is the combination of compute and storage into an easy-to-manage solution that doesn’t require dedicated storage experts to keep it running. The business case for selecting HCI over traditional infrastructure has long since been made (PDF).
Just like other new technologies, customers often do not know about system upgrades or refresh cycles that will occur in the future when they initially purchase these solutions. We are now at a stage where HCI solutions from multiple vendors have been proven in the field by thousands of organizations for at least one refresh cycle. With many organizations’ first HCI refreshes behind them, we have enough information to examine what happens when upgrading or refreshing HCI solutions.
Perhaps the most important lesson to come from analyzing data center HCI refreshes and upgrades is that not all HCI solutions are created equal. Much of the promised value of HCI requires an HCI solution with the fewest restrictions possible. Unfortunately, hardware or appliance-based HCI as implemented by many vendors didn’t live up to the flexibility claims that would have allowed customers to actually capitalize on this value when it came time to upgrade or refresh their HCI solution.…Read More