buyer's checklist to converged infrastructure systems_hb_final

8/9/2019 Buyer's Checklist to Converged Infrastructure Systems_hb_final

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CONVERGED

INFRASTRUCTURE

ALTERNATIVES

THE ROLE OF FLASH

IN CONVERGED

ARCHITECTURES

WEIGHING

THE BENEFITS

KEY FEATURES

OF CONVERGED

INFRASTRUCTURE

PRODUCTS

CONSIDERING

CONVERGED

Buyer’s Checklist: ConvergedInfrastructure SystemsBy combining storage, compute and network in a single package, converged

infrastructure systems offer the fastest route to productivity. BY GEORGE CRUMP


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BUYER’S CHECKLIST: CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS2

ALTERNATIVES

Buyer’s Checklist: ConvergedInfrastructure Systems

With converged infrastructure

systems, vendors hope to simplify IT by bun-

dling three key data center stack components—

compute, storage and networking—into a

single offering that can be quickly deployed.

These converged bundles appeal to data cen-ters that have more pressure on them to

bring applications or projects into production

quickly, rather than wringing every penny out

of hard IT costs.

As a result, this product category is popular

with vendors, and has led to a proliferation of

available solutions. In this guide, we’ll provide

some key questions users should consider

when communicating with prospective vendors

about their converged infrastructure products.

The questions will help you to determine if the

converged computing infrastructure approach

is appropriate to your environment and if so,

which implementation alternative best suits

those needs.

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE ALTERNATIVES

There are three forms of converged infrastruc-

tures emerging:

■ A converged bundle of otherwise

disparate solutions■ Hardware and software that is truly integrated■ Software only

Converged bundle solutions are typically the

result of a partnership among major vendors:

A server company, a storage company and a

networking company will join forces to offer a

turnkey solution. In reality, an IT professional

could easily buy each of the components on

their own and assemble them. But the value

of one of these solutions is that it’s essen-

tially a pre-configured and certified complete

environment.

That type of converged solution may save

implementation time, but it usually won’t

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Examining-vendor-offerings-in-converged-infrastructure-markethttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Examining-vendor-offerings-in-converged-infrastructure-markethttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/Converged-infrastructures-belong-on-IT-budgets-this-yearhttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/Converged-infrastructures-belong-on-IT-budgets-this-yearhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Converged-systems-offer-turnkey-storage-and-server-bundleshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/feature/Converged-systems-offer-turnkey-storage-and-server-bundleshttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/Converged-infrastructures-belong-on-IT-budgets-this-yearhttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/Converged-infrastructures-belong-on-IT-budgets-this-yearhttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Examining-vendor-offerings-in-converged-infrastructure-markethttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/feature/Examining-vendor-offerings-in-converged-infrastructure-market


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CONVERGED

INFRASTRUCTURE

ALTERNATIVES

THE ROLE OF

FLASH IN CONVERGED

ARCHITECTURES

WEIGHING THE

BENEFITS

KEY FEATURES

OF CONVERGED

INFRASTRUCTURE

PRODUCTS

CONSIDERING

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ALTERNATIVES

reduce costs. Also, it’s rare for the hardware

or software to be specifically tweaked to take

advantage of the converged offering, whichmeans the components aren’t specifically opti-

mized to take advantage of each other. There

may be some sort of unifying management GUI

that eases provisioning of storage and virtual

machines (VMs), and aids in overall systems

management. But much of the management

can be done by the hypervisor itself. Again, the

primary value is the pre-assembly; an organiza-tion should be able to quickly uncrate the solu-

tion and get it into production.

The truly integrated converged solution

generally uses server, storage and network

hardware from a single vendor. It essentiallybecomes a platform instead of an amalgamation

of parts. In most cases, the unifying software is

unique to the vendor’s solution. While much

of this hardware is commodity, “off-the-shelf”

products that may be OEMed from another

supplier, an IT organization is not typically

exposed to this. Also, in most cases the com-

pute, storage and networking are all handledby the same physical hardware on a per-node

basis—as you add more servers or nodes, the

D THE ROLE OF FLASH IN CONVERGED ARCHITECTURES

Flash storage can play a significant role in any converged infrastructure architecture. Since most converged

architectures support a high number of virtual machines (VMs) per host, the primary role of flash is to allow the

architecture to deal with the random I/O storms these environments can create.

For most of the bundled solutions, flash storage is simply a tier on the shared storage system. Some of the more

customized solutions leverage the fact that they are server side and ensure the data for each VM is stored on a

flash storage area inside the host the VM is running on. That approach not only provides flash-based access to

data, but it does so locally, thus eliminating network latency.

http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Converged-stacks-What-they-are-and-the-benefits-they-bringhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-overcome-flash-based-storage-limitations-to-ensure-efficiencyhttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-overcome-flash-based-storage-limitations-to-ensure-efficiencyhttp://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Converged-stacks-What-they-are-and-the-benefits-they-bring


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THE ROLE OF

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WEIGHING THE

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ALTERNATIVES

compute, networking and storage all scale in

lockstep. The storage capacity of each node is

aggregated into a single virtual pool that’s thenpresented to the rest of the infrastructure. This

type of a product bundle is a more turnkey and

unique solution.

The advantage to this more integrated

approach is that the cost of the hardware com-

ponents can be reduced and the vendor can

custom design or specify hardware that better

complements the solution. Also, the software,again often provided by the vendor, can be cus-

tomized to specifically take advantage of the

hardware that is part of the converged offering.

In many respects, this approach is similar to a

commodity mainframe.

The third type of converged infrastructure

is a software-only approach. Essentially, an IT

professional buys the software and then selects

all the hardware required to create a converged

solution, including servers, storage and net-

working. The software also aggregates the stor-

age capacity within each server, presenting that

capacity as a shared virtual pool. This option is

often the most cost-effective route to conver-

gence, assuming the IT team has the skill and

time to go through the process of identifying

and assembling each hardware component. It

should also be the most flexible, since IT hasnear-complete control over what components

are integrated into the solution.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest challenges

associated with this type of implementation

are the time needed to integrate it and the high

level of integration skill required.

As a result, this third type of converged solu-

tion ends up appealing to organizations where

IT is a key component of the product offering,

such as cloud providers and application-as-a-

service providers. In some cases, smaller busi-

nesses may find this approach attractive, as the

integration can be more easily managed because

of a relatively modestly sized environment and

The software-only approach is

often the most cost-effective

route to convergence, assuming

the IT team has the skill and time

to handle identifying and assem-bling each hardware component.

http://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Reference-architectures-bring-appliance-feel-to-hyper-converged-systemshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/tip/Reference-architectures-bring-appliance-feel-to-hyper-converged-systems


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THE ROLE OF

FLASH IN CONVERGEDARCHITECTURES

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KEY FEATURES

OF CONVERGED

INFRASTRUCTURE

PRODUCTS

CONSIDERING

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WEIGHING

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BENEFITS

the dollars saved on IT are more visible to the

rest of the organization.

WEIGHING THE BENEFITS

The first step in selecting a converged archi-

tecture is to understand all the capabilities of

the alternatives. Two of the primary motiva-

tors when considering converged products are

enhanced time to production and a potential

for cost savings. A third factor may be that anorganization will find value in having com-

pute, storage (capacity and performance) and

networking scale in parallel with each other.

Another consideration may be having the abil-

ity to use existing hardware or to determine the

specific hardware purchases you wish to make.

If time to production is paramount, bundled

or fully integrated solutions will likely best

meet that need. But you need to keep in mind

that a fast deployment comes with a higher

price and with no ability to integrate existing

or alternative hardware. Integrated solutions,

because they tend to use commodity hardware,

typically strike the best balance between cost

and time to production. When cost savings or

hardware flexibility is the primary concern, and

the organization is willing to invest the time,

a software-based converged solution may bemost appropriate.

With an understanding of the different types

of converged architectures and some idea of

your organization’s priorities, the range of

alternatives should narrow, and you should

be ready to ask product vendors more specific

questions, such as the following:

Can the converged infrastructure run multiple

hypervisors and/or bare-metal systems?

Practically all converged infrastructures run

with a hypervisor of some sort. If your data

center has already selected VMware and it’s the

only hypervisor you’re using, you’ll have the

widest variety of choices. If support for a dif-

ferent hypervisor or for multiple hypervisors is

needed, or if you wish to integrate bare-metal

(non-virtualized physical server) systems, then

a little more investigation is required.

Many of the bundled and integrated solu-

tions can run a hypervisor other than VMware,

most typically Microsoft Hyper-V, but not

many can run two different hypervisors at

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/2240227060/Theres-a-whole-lotta-shakin-goin-on-in-converged-infrastructurehttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/2240227060/Theres-a-whole-lotta-shakin-goin-on-in-converged-infrastructurehttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/How-hypervisor-aware-are-todays-virtualized-server-environmentshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/How-hypervisor-aware-are-todays-virtualized-server-environmentshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/How-hypervisor-aware-are-todays-virtualized-server-environmentshttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/answer/How-hypervisor-aware-are-todays-virtualized-server-environmentshttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/2240227060/Theres-a-whole-lotta-shakin-goin-on-in-converged-infrastructurehttp://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/2240227060/Theres-a-whole-lotta-shakin-goin-on-in-converged-infrastructure


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the same time. In other words, it becomes an

either/or situation.

If you need to integrate current bare-metalsystems into the converged architecture, soft-

ware-only solutions can satisfy that require-

ment. There are a few software-only solutions

that will allow a physical server to access the

shared storage being aggregated by the con-

verged infrastructure. Some may also allow the

physical server to contribute capacity to the

aggregated volume.

Where do storage services run?

Storage services are a key part of any infra-

structure, especially a converged architecture.

Many of the bundled solutions use a traditional

shared storage system for the storage part of

the architecture. That requires inclusion of a

storage network, but the complexity of a stor-

age network is greatly reduced because of the

pre-integration work done by the vendor.

Most of the integrated and all of the soft-

ware-only converged systems run the stor-

age services as part of the compute tier. The

storage software aggregates the capacity

within each node, which has the advantage of

eliminating the cost and complexity of an

additional storage controller. And these sys-

tems can use server-class storage mediainstead of enterprise-class hard disks and

flash storage. Those two features combine

to greatly reduce costs.

There are some issues to be aware of when

storage services are run within the compute

tier. These services typically run within a VM

construct, which means their level of activity

could adversely impact other VMs within the

cluster. A spike in I/O demand on a virtual-

ized SQL Server application, for example, could

cause a spike on the VMs running the stor-

age software, which could result in contention

on the I/O bus. Because each node provides

Some software-only solutions

allow a physical server to

access the shared storage

being aggregated by the converged infrastructure; some

may also allow the physical

server to contribute capacity.

http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Understanding-hosted-and-bare-metal-virtualization-hypervisor-typeshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Understanding-hosted-and-bare-metal-virtualization-hypervisor-typeshttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240179789/Easynet-opts-for-HP-compute-storage-with-SSD-tier-for-its-Agile-Platformhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240179789/Easynet-opts-for-HP-compute-storage-with-SSD-tier-for-its-Agile-Platformhttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/video/Hypervisors-complicate-storage-I-O-with-blender-effecthttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/video/Hypervisors-complicate-storage-I-O-with-blender-effecthttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/video/Hypervisors-complicate-storage-I-O-with-blender-effecthttp://searchvirtualstorage.techtarget.com/video/Hypervisors-complicate-storage-I-O-with-blender-effecthttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240179789/Easynet-opts-for-HP-compute-storage-with-SSD-tier-for-its-Agile-Platformhttp://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240179789/Easynet-opts-for-HP-compute-storage-with-SSD-tier-for-its-Agile-Platformhttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Understanding-hosted-and-bare-metal-virtualization-hypervisor-typeshttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Understanding-hosted-and-bare-metal-virtualization-hypervisor-types


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storage, compute and storage I/O, some of the

I/O issues should be mitigated, but there’s still

a concern about predictable performance.This concern may be exacerbated by the fact

that most integrated or software-only con-

verged systems cannot leverage shared storage

at all. In other words, data centers that are

concerned about this lack of predictability have

a limited ability to address it by standing up a

dedicated converged storage silo. If predictableperformance is a concern, IT planners would

be well advised to look for a solution that can

set up a dedicated storage tier and a converged

storage tier.

D KEY FEATURES OF CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE PRODUCTS

FEATURE YOUR CHOICES WHAT TO EVALUATE

Data protection RAID (dedicated storage) Rebuild time

Replication Performance during rebuild

Erasure coding

Solid-state storage Flash in server Data locality

Flash in shared array Tiering

Quality of service

Flexibility Turnkey (no choice) Install on bare-metal system

Software only Ability to add only capacity

or performance nodes

Data efficiency Deduplication Level or rate of optimization

Compression Performance impact of optimization

Thin provisioning Scalability of optimization

Writeable snapshots (clones)


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How is data dispersed for

sharing and RAID protection?

To support features like live migration, VMsrequire multiple hosts to have access to the

same virtual disks. And, of course, VMs must

be protected from a drive failure.

Again, since most bundled solutions use a

traditional shared array, there’s little concern

about data protection. The incorporated arrays

are typically enterprise-class and are built on

RAID-based data protection.Bundled and integrated solutions tend to

take a different approach. They’re tuned for

their storage software, which typically runs in

a scale-out fashion across the compute tier. It

may take one of two forms. The first is a rep-

lication model where each VM is replicated in

real time to one or two additional nodes. Most

IT planners tend to choose three-way repli-

cation so that in the event of a node failure,

they’re still in a protected state.

While replication is a simple and efficient

technique, IT planners need to be aware that

capacity consumption will increase by 3x under

this model. Each write is also magnified by a

factor of three, so it’s critical that the network

interconnecting these nodes be highly tuned.

Another option is to use a technique like

erasure coding to protect data. Erasure codingrequires less capacity overhead than replica-

tion, typically 30% vs. 3x. And because the size

of the I/O is so small, it should perform better

when writing data and when it’s in a rebuild

state. It does have the downside that usually

every node has to be involved in every I/O

operation, both read and writes.

How is data dispersed for performance?

A final consideration relates to how the con-

verged infrastructure delivers performance. For

the bundled approaches, performance is via a

shared storage device, so it’s critical to ensure

the storage network is properly configured and

tuned.

Integrated or software-based converged

infrastructures should have an advantage when

it comes to performance. Since these systems

run the storage software in the compute tier,

storage I/O access—particularly reads—should

be greatly increased. But how that plays out in

reality is largely dependent on how the soft-

ware is architected. If there is intelligence

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/essentialguide/Examining-the-future-of-the-RAID-volumehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/essentialguide/Examining-the-future-of-the-RAID-volumehttp://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/scale-out-storagehttp://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/scale-out-storagehttp://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/1390224/Considering-replication-performance-for-VMshttp://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/1390224/Considering-replication-performance-for-VMshttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Advice-for-IT-shops-on-erasure-coding-vs-replication-in-data-storagehttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Boosting-data-center-efficiency-with-converged-infrastructure-hardwarehttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Boosting-data-center-efficiency-with-converged-infrastructure-hardwarehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/answer/Advice-for-IT-shops-on-erasure-coding-vs-replication-in-data-storagehttp://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/1390224/Considering-replication-performance-for-VMshttp://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/news/1390224/Considering-replication-performance-for-VMshttp://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/scale-out-storagehttp://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/scale-out-storagehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/essentialguide/Examining-the-future-of-the-RAID-volumehttp://searchstorage.techtarget.com/essentialguide/Examining-the-future-of-the-RAID-volume


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behind the placement of data, the software can

be designed to make sure that each VM has a

local copy of its data. This should be especiallyeasy for systems that use replication for data

protection, but it may not be possible for sys-

tems that use erasure coding.

CONSIDERING CONVERGED

Converged infrastructures are certainly worth

checking into. They can reduce time to virtu-

alization and production, reduce storage costs

and increase a data center’s ability to scale. But

they should be approached with a full under-

standing of their limitations as well as their

benefits. A traditional shared storage infra-

structure can offer many of the same advan-

tages as a converged infrastructure plus provide

the advantage of dedicated storage

performance.

GEORGE CRUMP is president of Storage Switzerland,

an IT analyst firm focused on storage and virtualization.

Buyer’s Checklist: Converged Infrastructure Systems

is a SearchStorage.com e-publication.

Rich Castagna | VP of Editorial/Storage Media Group

Ellen O’Brien | Associate Editorial Director

Kim Hefner | Senior Managing Editor

Sarah Wilson | Site Editor

Erin Sullivan | Assistant Site Editor

Dave Raffo | Senior News Director

Sonia Lelii | Senior News Writer

Carol Sliwa | Senior Writer

Garry Kranz | Staff Writer

Linda Koury | Director of Online Design

Neva Maniscalco | Graphic Designer

Jillian Coffin | Publisher | [email protected]

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