The most common use of x86 Servers today is to run hypervisor software that enables the hardware to be shared by multiple virtual machine (VM) instances.
This type of architecture has dramatically changed the economics for every business in a positive way for close to two decades. However, there have been some challenges when trying to scale beyond a single hypervisor.
The Evolution of Hypervisors
Some quick history here – since the beginning, the greatest challenge for hypervisors was the ability to scale beyond a single host due to storage sharing limitations. Although the central processing unit (CPU) and memory resources can be leveraged across multiple hypervisors’ hosts to run dozens and hundreds of VMs, the local storage cannot be natively shared even up to this day.
To overcome this local storage issue, system administrators started using SAN and NAS solutions early on. This worked out well and many data centers began to deploy 2-node or 3-node hypervisor clusters.
Everyone was happy, until the SAN costs began to rise exponentially.
Fast forward to 2018, and the hottest trending topic is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). This new architecture is the counter response to expensive SANs and it also facilitates the use of local disks across multiple hypervisors as “shared storage”.
HCI provides the best of both worlds, no more expensive SANs and capitalize on the cost-savings using local disks. The caveat to this HCI model is having to buy a turn-key appliance and not being able to use your pre-existing hypervisors. That means you would have to decommission your hosts and get rid of them.
But, what if you could convert your existing hypervisors into fast hyperconverged appliances by simply adding a piece of software called software-defined storage (SDS)?
Harness the Power of Software-Defined Storage
Yes, SDS is the ultimate answer to replacing traditional SANs and avoiding expensive hyperconverged appliances.
Not only do you get to keep your pre-existing servers and hypervisor licenses, but you can even keep your internal disks and external SANs. Think about it, if you already spent thousands of dollars in your legacy SANs and they are still under maintenance, wouldn’t it better to maximize the ROI while they are still under support?
SDS makes hyperconverged infrastructures much more attractive due to the amount of flexibility gained through a software-only approach. You can even mix different server vendors like HP and Dell, or Lenovo and Cisco. Plus, you still get all the enterprise SAN benefits, such as auto-tiering, snapshots, high availability, replication, dedupe/compression and high performance.
To sum it up for you, let’s make a short list of just some of the benefits SDS provides:
- Ability to share local disk as shared storage
- Maintain existing servers and hypervisor licenses
- Enable high availability with a 2-host cluster using internal disks
- Tier your hot/cold data between flash, SAS and SATA
- Add external SAN arrays to hypervisors for more capacity
Did You Know?
After reading about this no-brainer SDS approach, the next obvious question would be; who is the SDS authority in HCI that can help virtualization administrators convert their servers and storage into hyperconverged appliances?
Here’s the best part—this leader in the SDS and HCI space is not a startup (surprisingly) and you will gain access to the most robust SDS platform in the world with 20 years of R&D behind the product.
The name of this highly-rated SDS solution? SANsymphony.
Standing the Test of Time
There are more than 10,000 global customers that can attest to the longevity and reliability of SANsymphony, and it doesn’t stop there.
In fact, the WhatMatrix scoring system ranked SANsymphony at the top of the existing SDS/HCI spectrum, coming in as the #2 platform, even when compared against companies among the likes of Nutanix, VMware vSAN, HP Simplivity and many other popular names.
If 10,000 customers believe in SANsymphony’s value and industry analysts confirm it, then it is time for you to take a test drive yourself. Get immediate access to a free 30-day trial right here, right now.
Who knows, maybe you will turnout to be customer #10,001!
