Of all the developments in the data center industry, hyper-converged infrastructures are among the fastest growing. According to the research firm Gartner, it could grow into a $5 billion market by 2019 — even though it was nonexistent just a few years ago.
In terms of revenue, it is considered the category leader in pre-integrated full-stack infrastructure products, Gartner noted, ahead of integrated infrastructure, integrated stacks and reference architectures.
Here are some benefits of hyper-convergence:
More flexibility and simplicity. Deploying a new server can be extremely time-consuming for an IT department, from planning to installing an OS and an application. Hyper-converged systems are designed to simplify the deployment process since all of the hardware is sold as a bundle, including storage, computing hardware and management software. The hardware components are also designed to work together — eliminating any issues with compatibility.
It enables quicker provisioning of resources. More companies are seeking software solutions as a way to grow revenue. As a result, they want agile software development methodologies, and, of course, that puts a demand for IT to be highly flexible and able to deploy new software more frequently.
Scalability is more predictable. Because of the standardized hardware, IT professionals are finding that hyper-converged systems have the added benefit of providing more predictability — in scalability and performance. The way it is designed allows you to add capacity in the future, if needed.
Data efficiency. Hyper-converged infrastructure can effectively reduce storage, bandwidth and other areas of operations.
Cost efficiency. When compared to other integrated systems and legacy infrastructure, hyper-converged systems have a lower cost of entry.
Data protection. With a legacy system, data protection can be complex — requiring varying products to meet the need. With a hyper-converged system, comprehensive backup and recovery are built in as part of the infrastructure.
