Evaluate

Evaluate

Weigh the pros and cons of technologies, products and projects you are considering.

• What you need to know before buying hyper-converged technology

  Learn how to determine your organization's need for hyper-converged infrastructure and to evaluate offerings from top HCI vendors to find the right fit. Continue Reading

• Weighing open converged infrastructure against composable

  OCI and composable infrastructure are both touted as the latest in convergence, but it is important to know how they differ before making an IT buying decision. Continue Reading

• The right hyper-converged system yields software-defined gains

  This review of 10 market-leading hyper-converged products can help you select the HCI system that will best enable your organization to create a software-defined data center. Continue Reading

• Is hyper-convergence infrastructure becoming stratified?

  As more options for converged or hyper-converged IT types come to market, organizations may find themselves siloed into an option by size. Continue Reading

• Secondary storage structure is based on workload needs

  Using secondary storage can improve the performance of mission-critical applications, but deciding what data is secondary in importance isn't as easy as it seems. Continue Reading

• Pivot3 HCI: 7 things you should know

  Where did Pivot3 first target its hyper-converged storage systems, and where is it focused today? Find out answers to these and other frequently asked questions.Continue Reading

• 7 hyper-converged secondary storage questions answered

  Combining HCI and the use cases of secondary storage, such as data recovery and archiving, was a challenge, but a few companies took up that task and launched a new market.Continue Reading

• Examples of hypervisors and how they're supported in HCI products

  Hypervisor support in hyper-converged infrastructure has evolved over time. Find out how as we assess the past and current place of individual hypervisors in these architectures.Continue Reading

• Definition of hyper-converged infrastructure evolves, as do products

  Defining hyper-convergence can be a challenge. Focus instead on learning about hyper-converged infrastructure product options and how they fit your data center and cloud plans.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged product comparison: What leading HCI vendors offer

  Before you purchase a hyper-converged infrastructure system, use the criteria and factors examined here to evaluate 10 leading HCI products.Continue Reading

• Composable architecture options versus CI and HCI

  While converged, hyper-converged and composable infrastructures all share some degree of similarity in convergence, important differences can affect your IT architecture choices.Continue Reading

• Answers to NetApp FlexPod commonly asked questions

  Wondering which version of FlexPod is ideal for your situation? In this FAQ, find out the answer to this, as well as other common NetApp and Cisco FlexPod questions.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged products offer big benefits to IT environments

  Hyper-converged technology offers benefits such as scalability to help reduce the storage footprint, and enables organizations to pick the hardware and configuration to best suit their needs.Continue Reading

• Datrium open converged infrastructure makes HCI flexible

  Datrium calls its less rigid form of converged infrastructure open convergence to highlight its greater scaling flexibility versus converged or hyper-converged infrastructures.Continue Reading

• Nutanix hyper-converged Flows into multi-cloud and more

  With the introduction of Flow, Beam and Era, Nutanix has made a clear statement that it's aiming for a comprehensive Nutanix enterprise cloud OS.Continue Reading

• Composable infrastructure platform FAQs get answers

  While the goal of hyper-converged infrastructure and composable infrastructure are much the same, the way they achieve that objective of on-demand IT infrastructure differs.Continue Reading

• New vSAN 6.7 features boost failover, ease management

  The latest version of vSAN puts the hyper-converged storage software into a wider range of use cases with better support for failover and a smoother management user interface.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure software aids IT flexibility

  Implementing a software-based hyper-converged platform can make it easier to scale components separately, but it has drawbacks as well, like multiple support sources.Continue Reading

• How hyper-converged secondary storage fits in the HCI world

  When converged secondary storage was added to hyper-convergence products, a new market sector was created that reduced the complexity of managing data retention systems.Continue Reading

• Craft a converged secondary storage strategy with care

  Secondary storage vendors have been offering converged technologies and products for a few years now, and the systems have become more feature-rich and cloud-capable.Continue Reading

• How to ensure hyper-converged infrastructure security

  To secure data in an HCI system, it requires tools and techniques that account for the unique features of hyper-convergence, such as shared resources and virtualized management.Continue Reading

• Your Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure questions answered

  Red Hat HCI is software only, based on open source applications and is aimed for IT operations that want to use existing hardware in a DIY implementation.Continue Reading

• Find out answers for FAQs about Nutanix AHV and Acropolis

  Check out these answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Nutanix's Acropolis and AHV core hyper-converged infrastructure software products.Continue Reading

• Test your Storage Spaces Direct hyper-converged system smarts

  Windows Server 2016 took Microsoft into the HCI game, with hyper-convergence features based on Storage Spaces Direct, the upgrade from Windows Server 2012's Storage Spaces feature.Continue Reading

• Test your hyper-converged infrastructure storage knowledge

  Storage in a hyper-converged infrastructure is not limited to whatever disks the vendor decides to put into its base appliance. Test your knowledge of HCI storage with our quiz.Continue Reading

• Certain solid-state storage characteristics benefit HCI most

  Depending on the workload demands, there are features of solid-state storage that can greatly enhance the performance of your hyper-converged infrastructure system.Continue Reading

• Which Windows Server deployment features work best with HCI?

  There are features in Windows Server 2016 that are specific to hyper-converged infrastructure, but many of the more basic functions also can be used to customize and improve HCI.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged software: Eight things you need to know

  What are some commonly asked questions about the choice to build a DIY software-only HCI platform? Below are FAQs about the benefits, drawbacks and option of buying HCI software.Continue Reading

• Test your hyper-converged infrastructure use cases knowledge

  Our quiz is all about how different workloads and applications require choosing different hardware and software options in a hyper-converged infrastructure platform.Continue Reading

• Inline deduplication fits well with hyper-converged IT

  Of the two main types of deduplication, most HCI vendors choose inline over post-process because of the performance benefits and lower levels of total storage required.Continue Reading

• Cohesity's hyper-converged secondary storage takes on data growth

  An out-of-the-box secondary storage strategy to deal with the coming deluge of file and object data promises to overcome scalability, management and capacity limits of NAS.Continue Reading

• Composable architecture keeps hardware flexibility

  With composable systems, an IT admin can get more choice from the devices on the back end and more choice on the devices it delivers the virtualized resources to.Continue Reading

• Use Windows Server deployment for feature-filled HCI

  Windows Server 2016 not only supports a hyper-converged infrastructure implementation, but brings with it a rich set of features for both performance and security.Continue Reading

• Take the converged vs. hyper-converged infrastructure quiz

  Before you start the decision-making process over which IT approach you should take, quiz yourself on your hyper-converged and converged platform knowledge.Continue Reading

• Three solid-state storage advantages that boost HCI performance

  There are many advantages to including solid-state storage in your hyper-converged infrastructure plans, such as better performance and lower power costs.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged IT options should match your workload needs

  Moving to a hyper-converged infrastructure requires a great deal of study and planning. That starts with knowing what workloads you plan to run on the HCI system.Continue Reading

• Business needs define your hyper-convergence technology choices

  Base your HCI products of choice around the workloads you run, the architecture they run on and any present or future cloud plans you have for them.Continue Reading

• How software-defined networking layers work with HCI

  The network function of a hyper-converged infrastructure has been the most difficult to virtualize, but adopting an SDN approach can make it easier for your organization.Continue Reading

• Make the most of the hyper-converged cloud

  Hyper-converged infrastructures are similar to public cloud platforms in the way they use virtualization of resources. That makes them obvious partners in an IT architecture.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged computing and VDI fit together well ... mostly

  The flexibility and ease of use of hyper-convergence fit the needs of VDI, but you should also consider other benefits and drawbacks of HCI in a VDI platform.Continue Reading

• The hyper-converged network becoming more common in HCI

  Virtualizing the network in a hyper-converged system has been the toughest part, but there are products on the market that achieve some of that function.Continue Reading

• Converged secondary storage for data protection carries risk

  Using converged infrastructure for the secondary storage in your data protection plan can be valuable, but you need to weigh the benefits and drawbacks before choosing that path.Continue Reading

• Match your hyper-converged hardware pick with your workload

  Overall workload demands and growth projections, not just user applications, should be top of mind when you choose among the hardware options in hyper-converged appliances.Continue Reading

• Windows Server 2016 hyper-converged options are here

  The latest edition of Windows Server from Microsoft includes options for implementing a hyper-converged infrastructure in a Microsoft-only IT operation.Continue Reading

• Virtualization layer is HCI's secret sauce

  Knowing how virtualization software turns separate hardware components into pools of shared resources will help you plan and manage an HCI implementation.Continue Reading

• Match your hyper-converged infrastructure appliance to your apps

  Planning a hyper-converged appliance purchase should start with determining which application it will run and which configuration options will meet apps' needs.Continue Reading

• IT infrastructure planning key for converged, hyper-converged platforms

  Whether you're planning to deploy CI or HCI, infrastructure planning is critical to the project's success. Without proper planning, you could end up with poor performance.Continue Reading

• What's the future of data storage technology and the IT pro?

  Several enterprise data storage trends are all about getting rid of storage as an IT silo. That will have consequences for both the industry and IT pros who work in it.Continue Reading

• Build the right hyper-converged cloud for your apps

  Picking the right hyper-converged hardware and software for your application workload requires understanding how the elements of HCI can best be combined for your needs.Continue Reading

• Spectre, Meltdown vulnerabilities put SDS, HCI at risk

  Spectre and Meltdown patches should be applied to hyper-converged and other software-defined storage products that run on hosts with user installed application processes.Continue Reading

• Hypervisor software and your hyper-converged infrastructure

  The hypervisor layer in HCI is becoming an expected feature, but it is important to know what role it plays and how it can affect the rest of the components.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged vs. converged labels don't apply to some products

  Converged and hyper-converged infrastructure labels are becoming less clear as vendors such as NetApp and Datrium introduce products that allow for scaling components separately.Continue Reading

• How Red Hat assembled an open source hyper-converged platform

  By combining Gluster Storage with its Red Hat Virtualization software, Red Hat has thrown its own cap into the software-only HCI ring with an open source offering.Continue Reading

• The role of HCI in the hyper-converged cloud

  HCI and the cloud have virtualization at their cores, which makes the two platforms a good combination for organizations planning a hybrid cloud IT architecture.Continue Reading

• Why an edge computing platform benefits from HCI

  HCI's easy implementation and management help admins solve some of the challenges of edge computing, such as distributed endpoint management and a trend toward data silos.Continue Reading

• Virtual machine hypervisor doesn't play a critical role in HCI choice

  Hyper-converged infrastructure is about simplifying IT administration, so organizations should be after simple, automated hypervisor configuration and management.Continue Reading

• Are hypervisor tools products or features?

  As converged and hyper-converged infrastructures grow in popularity, hypervisors function more like features of overall IT architectures than they do as stand-alone products.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged cloud benefits for service providers

  Cloud service providers can reap a longer, more profitable life from their cloud platforms by taking advantage of the benefits of hyper-converged infrastructure.Continue Reading

• On hyper-converged products and device-specific hypervisors

  Many products from smaller hyper-converged players use proprietary hypervisors, which can save companies money on licenses and reduce management complexity.Continue Reading

• How does composable infrastructure fit in the data center?

  A programmable infrastructure offers data center admins even greater flexibility, lower costs and faster modification than converged and hyper-converged infrastructures.Continue Reading

• Composable infrastructure may supplant HCI and CI

  With greater flexibility, lower costs and increased speed of modification to the IT system, programmable infrastructure could be the next big thing after CI and HCI.Continue Reading

• Planning your HCI storage needs is vital for VDI

  Accounting for storage and compute demands from both the IT infrastructure and the end users is vital when implementing any hyper-converged architecture for VDI.Continue Reading

• IT pros like simplicity, savings of hyper-converged products

  Capacity, scalability, ease of use and pricing push enterprises toward hyper-converged platforms to meet their compute, networking and storage needs.Continue Reading

• It's time to rethink the software-defined storage market

  We've become too hung up on the software part of software-defined storage architecture at the expense of what matters most, the benefits of the technology.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged computing benefits outweighed CI for one manufacturer

  One multinational manufacturer chose hyper-converged platforms to complement its existing CI implementation as a way to reduce overhead and simplify its IT structure.Continue Reading

• How to build your own hyper-converged computing platform

  Building your own HCI stack is within reach if you have the hardware, choose the right software and find the in-house expertise to manage the parts. That's a big 'if.'Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of building your own hyper-converged platform

  Building your own HCI platform can save money and headaches around vendor lock-in, but your IT department needs the hardware and manpower to make it work.Continue Reading

• Ready for hyper-converged infrastructure appliances?

  The storage piece of the HCI market is complex and confusing. Know the most important features to consider as you evaluate your options.Continue Reading

• NetApp HCI: Kind of, sort of, but not really hyper-converged

  NetApp's hyper-converged appliance isn't technically HCI, but it suits the same use cases and offers other advantages, such as smarter scaling through disaggregation.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure products give data centers a boost

  Hyper-converged products take your data center and network to new heights by leveraging industry-first infrastructure innovations to improve storage and more.Continue Reading

• The age of data center convergence gives storage a boost

  Convergence takes the emphasis from complexity and expense of enterprise-class storage by making it simple, agile and reducing total cost of ownership.Continue Reading

• Seven hyper-converged software options for DIY HCI

  If your company already has hardware that you want to turn into a hyper-converged infrastructure stack, you can do it with one of these software-only options.Continue Reading

• Making the case for converged and hyper-converged infrastructure

  The benefits of implementing a converged or hyper-converged infrastructure are extensive, but what if upper management is still dragging its feet?Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged system: Should you build it or buy it?

  You can build your own hyper-converged infrastructure without purchasing an appliance from a vendor, and the DIY movement could have a ripple effect on the whole HCI market.Continue Reading

• Data center convergence and the role of storage

  Storage might be the most important component in converged infrastructure. See where storage fits in a converged data center and how you should approach implementation.Continue Reading

• Get hyped for top hyper-converged technology use cases

  Hyper-converged infrastructure systems aren't a good fit for small businesses or demanding workloads. Businesses must consider their needs before jumping into a new server stack.Continue Reading

• How can I decide between converged and hyper-converged infrastructures?

  Is a converged or hyper-converged deployment the best option for you? While both infrastructures are similar, there are key differences in use cases and deployment.Continue Reading

• Converged vs. hyper-converged infrastructure: The bottom line

  Is your infrastructure more suited to a converged or hyper-converged system? Both approaches use virtualization, but software and hardware need to be factored in.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged technology lock-in: Good, bad or indifferent?

  There are downsides to the technology lock-in that comes with implementing hyper-converged infrastructure, but getting all your products from one vendor isn't necessarily a negative.Continue Reading

• Should you go all-in on hyper-convergence technology?

  Hyper-converged storage reduces TCO, simplifies installs and is poised and ready for the software-defined data center.Continue Reading

• Improve your vendor independence in hyper-converged and CI systems

  Your best bet at avoiding vendor lock-in with hyper-converged and converged infrastructure systems may be a DIY approach. Explore offerings from several top vendors.Continue Reading

• Is Storage Spaces Direct a viable alternative to hyper-convergence?

  Windows Storage Spaces Direct can act like a hyper-converged system, but it's more do-it-yourself hyper-convergence, and may not offer all that you need in an HCI product.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure benefits vs. CI and public cloud

  Hyper-converged and converged systems are not the only choices for running enterprise workloads. Operating in the public cloud may prove to be a better fit for your organization.Continue Reading

• Implementing a hyper-converged network is still a pipe dream

  HCI vendors would like to integrate network features with storage, compute and virtualization. In this opinion piece, learn why a hyper-converged network has yet to materialize.Continue Reading

• Which workloads should you run on hyper-converged platforms?

  VDI, tier-one apps and ROBOs are solid choices to run on hyper-converged systems, but companies should find other resources to support some needy applications.Continue Reading

• How HCI vendors threaten innovation opportunities

  Deploying HCI gives IT shops one throat to choke when something goes wrong. But when a new tech advancement comes about, admins must wait on HCI vendors to catch up.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged platform configuration key to success in SMBs

  Big companies that must support hundreds of VMs and scale quickly are prime HCI customers, but small companies can buy a smaller configuration and reap hyper-convergence benefits.Continue Reading

• Predicting hyper-converged infrastructure vendors' next moves

  What's up for HCI vendors in 2017? SearchConvergedInfrastructure's expert contributors expect a busy year, including acquisitions and evolution in the way products are offered.Continue Reading

• Examining the state of the hyper-converged infrastructure market

  HCI market leaders have emerged, but some question how long they'll retain their hold over the rapidly evolving segment.Continue Reading

• Find the HCI appliance that meets your storage needs

  Evaluating hyper-converged infrastructure technology can be difficult and may be confusing for IT buyers. This guide has all of the info you need to choose the right HCI appliance.Continue Reading

• Examining the HyperGrid HCI appliance family

  With the family of HCI appliances from HyperGrid, organizations receive modular hyper-converged storage and computing either on premises or in the cloud.Continue Reading

• Maxta Inc. hyper-converged appliances offer configuration flexibility

  With partnerships and integrations with the likes of Dell, Quanta and others, Maxta offers customers the flexibility to configure hyper-converged appliances to fit their needs.Continue Reading

• Benefits of hyper-convergence and how to take advantage of them

  There are numerous reasons to implement hyper-converged infrastructure for storage, but there are various steps shops must take before they can reap what they've sown.Continue Reading

• Explore the OmniCube hyper-converged infrastructure appliance family

  SimpliVity's OmniCube products offer SMBs and enterprises alike hyper-converged appliances that work for remote offices, high-performance environments and cloud providers.Continue Reading

• HPE ConvergedSystem offers one-size-fits-all hyper-converged storage

  Organizations small and large can utilize the ConvergedSystem group of products from HPE to establish a hyper-converged infrastructure that fits their business needs.Continue Reading

• Scale Computing HC3 hyper-converged appliances offer ease of use

  Designed to install in less than an hour, the HC3 line of hyper-converged systems from Scale Computing offers SMBs and enterprises alike seamless integration.Continue Reading

• Nutanix Acropolis HCI software runs any app at scale

  Nutanix's Acropolis works at a user's desired scale and features a self-healing function that allows the software to continue to operate in the event of a failure.Continue Reading

• Pivot3 HCI software: Simplicity is the name of the game

  IT expert Ed Tittel offers product details on Pivot3's vSTAC OS hyper-converged software and shares how it can help enterprises implement hyper-converged storage.Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud environments can use hyper-converged cloud systems

  Whether in a public, private or hybrid cloud environment, there are some things you need to be aware of when using hyper-converged systems in your cloud storage structure.Continue Reading

• VMware hyper-converged software options offer users customization

  With the VCE VxRail appliance, VSAN Ready Nodes and VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware provides customers with a variety of hyper-converged product options.Continue Reading