a no-nonsense approach to hyperconvergence
TRANSCRIPT
Howdy • VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) #104
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Agenda
• Hyper-Converged Architecture
– Discuss vendor models & approaches
• Data Center Integration
– Pressure points
– Deployment triggers
• Culture and Skill-Set Shifts
– Who’s going to manage this thing?
Ecosystem is Crowded Pure Software Plays
• Maxta Virtual SAN
• Yottabyte yCenter & yStor
• VMware Virtual SAN
• Datacore SANsymphony-V
• Stratoscale
• Springpath
Hardware + Software Plays
• Nutanix
– Dell XC Series Appliance
• SimpliVity OmniCube
– Cisco OmniStack
• Scale Computing HC3
• EMC VSPEX Blue
• VMware EVO Rail
• Pivot3
Vendors Gonna Hate
Current state of the Hyper-Converged market space
(fighting over $6 billion market)
Market Leaders
Nutanix and Simplivity are the major incumbents in the data center / enterprise class HCI space.
Nutanix o Founded in 2009
o Started shipping in 2011
o 5 rounds / 9 investors
o 312.2 MM in investments
SimpliVity o Founded in 2009
o Started shipping in 2013
o 5 rounds / 7 investors
o 276.5 MM in investments
VM
s
Guest VMs
Sto
rage
Capacity Drives
Hyp
erv
iso
r
Hypervisor
Node 1
Flash Drives
Node 2 Node n
Guest VMs
Capacity Drives
Hypervisor
Flash Drives
Guest VMs
Capacity Drives
Hypervisor
Flash Drives
VM
s
Guest VMs
HC
I OS
Sto
rage
Capacity Drives
Hyp
erv
iso
r
Hypervisor
Node 1
Controller VM
Flash Drives
Distributed Operating SystemScale-Out Shared Storage via Software
Guest VMs
Capacity Drives
Hypervisor
Node 2
Controller VM
Flash Drives
Guest VMs
Capacity Drives
Hypervisor
Node n
Controller VM
Flash Drives
VM
s
Guest VMs
HC
I OS
Sto
rage
Capacity Drives
Hyp
erv
iso
r
Hypervisor
Node 1
Flash Drives
Distributed Operating SystemScale-Out Shared Storage via Software
Capacity Drives
Node 2
Flash Drives Capacity Drives
Node n
Flash Drives
KernelDriver
Guest VMs
HypervisorKernelDriver
Guest VMs
HypervisorKernelDriver
Components Discrete
• Compute
– CPU
– RAM
• Networking
– 2+ 10 GbE
– Optional 1 GbE
• Hypervisor
Shared
• Disk (Flash/Capacity)
– Via software clustering
• Power Supplies
– Redundant
• Management Plane
Design, Deploy, Consume
• Design considerations
– Storage or compute heavy?
– Redundancy: N+1, N+2, 4N (Block), Rack?
– Typical sizing + growth + workload types
• Deployment
– Usually takes longer to remove from box
– Often 4 hours from shipping dock to usable cluster(s)
Hypervisor Perspective
• Hypervisor sees the scale-out storage pool
• Leverage Intel VT-d for Direct I/O
– Storage devices are passed through to SDS stack
• Examples:
– Nutanix CVM virtual controller
– SimpliVity OmniStack virtual controller
Value from the Software Goodies Operations
• Full stack patch, driver, firmware, and version control
• Abstraction from archaic resource control (LUNs, volumes)
• Accelerated feature adoption rate - it’s software!
Financials
• Iterative growth patterns
• Linear scale of the “food groups” (this is good & bad)
• Depreciating assets are also providing immediate value
• Higher VAR margins, but on lower CapEx and rarely requires services
Why is Hyper-Converged So Attractive?
• IT has been given some serious black eyes
– Large outsourcing movements to MSPs in the mid 2000’s
– Followed by messy insourcing movements
• Technology disconnect
– Viewed as a cost center, under staffed to be super agile
• Users have freedom of choice
– Our iron fist of control has evaporated. Thanks, Amazon!
Managed Service Providers (MSP) Method for offloading the
“engineering” day-to-day tasks to 3rd party
Adds to days needed to deliver services
Adds complexity across workflows
Reduces flexibility in tools and processes
How HCI Helps vs MSP HCI stack manages
majority of day-to-day tasks
Offload firmware, patching, and even OS versions to HCI
RESTful APIs make building workflows simple and flexible
We’re Not An “IT Business” Transforming IT from a
cost center to a competitive advantage
Highly automated and self-healing infrastructure
Doing vastly more with significantly less
How HCI Helps vs “I’m a Cost Center” Offload vast majority of
infrastructure headache
Focus on building service catalog
Focus on building orchestrated workflows
Add value to services