HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE:Improve your approach to data protection and recovery

The IT Solution Experts

DATA PROTECTION

Data protection is one of the most important, yet time consuming and least-liked tasks inside the data center. A big reason for that is because many organizations have shaped their data protection strategy around technology from the client/server era where backup and recovery systems are typically a standalone technology stack, and built upon software that produces subpar recovery time and point objectives. In a lot of cases, this forces IT teams to implement complicated systems to meet the demanding service level agreement (SLA) needs in their highly virtualized environments, as well as the overall needs of the business.

With today’s computing environments becoming more and more dynamic, organizations need to liberate themselves from the limitations of client/server era technology and take a fresh look at their approach to data protection and recovery. In fact, IDC recommends1 that organizations should be actively evolving their strategy to:

One way to accomplish this is through the deployment and implementation of hyperconverged infrastructure. This eBook will explore how hyperconverged infrastructure is helping organizations not only modernize their infrastructure, but also improve their approach to data protection and availability.

Tightly integrate compute infrastructure and data protection

Reduce operational complexity

Meet evolving data loss threats such as ransomware

Deliver near-zero service levels

RESULTS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDSIDC surveyed 135 organizations1 that deployed hyperconverged infrastructure and asked them where they experienced improvement:

Almost 80% saw improvement in backup and recovery or disaster recovery

Over 60% saw reduced downtime and improved app availability

With an ever-changing compute environment and lack of older data protection methods, IT organizations need to take a fresh look at their approach to data protection.

80% 60%

1 1IDC, May 2017, Using HPE SimpliVity's Hyperconverged Infrastructure to Improve Data Protection and Recovery Effectiveness

WHY MOVE ON FROM TRADITIONAL APPROACHES?The limitations of traditional approaches to data protection and recovery create challenges for organizations.

RPOs and RTOs

Traditional backup and recovery software typically delivers somewhere around 24-hour recovery time and point objectives. These are inadequate for dynamic workloads and far off from the near-zero SLAs that are expected by business leadership.

Complicated systems

To support their highly virtualized compute environments and lofty SLA expectations from the business and users, IT is forced to implement complex systems that can include a conglomerate of snapshots, mirrors, or dedicated backup appliances.

Tons of man hours

Managing these complex systems can require full-time administrators and thousands of man-hours per year. Even more disheartening, the efforts often have no direct impact on competitive advantages. IDC said it best, “consumers don’t flock to buy widgets simply because the widget maker has a great backup1.”

Dealing with these challenges requires an IT team to take away time from the things they should be focusing on – enabling business growth and driving innovation. Because traditional backup and recovery methods are so labor-intensive and have difficulty meeting SLA requirements, many organizations are taking advantage of hyperconverged infrastructure to simplify data protection and improve service-level delivery.

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TRADITIONAL VS. HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)HCI appliances are all comprised of the same baseline components – compute, storage, hypervisor, and sometimes a proprietary management tool. This means that all the components are aware of one another and certified to work together to provide the greatest possible performance, especially for data protection use cases.

WHY HCI FOR DATA PROTECTION AND RECOVERY?With hyperconverged systems, data protection doesn’t need to be an “add-on” application or tech stack that needs separate testing and management. Instead, data protection and recovery capabilities can be built into the operating environment, allowing policies and operations to be aligned directly with workloads – simplifying data protection and improving service-level delivery.

HCI provides rapid restoration capabilities that lead to lower RPOs and RTOs

Combining infrastructure and data management streamlines operations

HCI takes the complexity out of how data is accessed, protected, and restored

Protection methods and implementations become consistent across the IT environment

Copies are automatically kept and backup images can be transferred to an offsite system

Server

NetworkSwitch

Fiber Channel Switch

Storage

Network

Storage and Server (Combined)

Traditional(Non-Converged) Hyperconverged

When researching HCI, it is important to understand how availability and data protection are provided within a vendor’s solution. HPE SimpliVity has one of the best value propositions in this area, and is a great place to start the research process.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

Read a blog post about the pros of HCI and its various use cases outside of data protection and recovery.

Watch a video to see how HCI can simplify IT infrastructure

IMPROVED RPO AND RTO

STREAMLINED IT OPERATIONS

LESS COMPLEXITY

CONSISTENT POLICIES

IMPROVED DR CAPABILITIES

BLOG VIDEO

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HPE SIMPLIVITY HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTUREHPE SimpliVity appliances can help you protect your data in a fraction of the time required by legacy solutions. Built-in, end-to-end data protection capabilities reduce storage and bandwidth requirements, resulting in more recovery points and enhanced workload protection.

Built-in data services deduplicate, compress,

and optimize data globally, guaranteeing a 90%

capacity savings2 across storage and backup

GUARANTEED DATA EFFICIENCY

HPE SimpliVity appliances include built-in backup and

replication that saves time and costs while

eliminating the use of legacy solutions

BUILT-IN DATA PROTECTION

HPE SimpliVity appliances guarantee2 backup or recovery of a 1TB virtual machine

60-seconds or less

FAST RECOVERY CAPABILITIES

All appliances are managed by a single, VM-centric interface

that enables seamless workload movement and

simplifies day-to-day operations

GLOBAL UNIFIED MANAGEMENT

HPE’s HyperGuaranteeHPE offers one of the industry’s most complete guarantees2

*****

USER

PASSWORD

Get up to 90% capacity savings

Restore a 1TB VM in under 60 seconds

Backup, restore, or move a VM in 3 clicks

Create backup policies in under 60 seconds

Roll out HPE SimpliVity appliances without downtime

42HyperGuarantee link located on https://www.hpe.com/us/en/integrated-systems/simplivity.html

With an average of 13+ years in IT, our consultants are among the most experienced and tech-savvy in the industry. Thanks to our practical expertise and partnerships with industry leaders like HPE, we can help you take advantage of hyperconverged infrastructure. From company-wide deployments to specific use cases like data protection and recovery, we will work with you identify how your organization can benefit most from it.MicroAge

HCI

MICROAGE IS YOUR HYPERCONVERGED EXPERTWhen you work with MicroAge, you get a partner that asks questions, gets to know your business, and works with you to understand your specific challenges before making any sort of recommendation. It is an approach that helps us align to one of our core values – doing it right the first time!

We’ve been at it since 1976

Our team has an average of 13+ years in IT

We serve clients nationwide

We hold more than 1K partner certifications

VMware Premier Solution Provider

HPE Platinum Partner

Dedicated Hyperconverged and Virtualization Practices

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QUESTIONS?Perry Peterson, Director of Practice Management

perry.peterson@microage.com

Dale Janda, Disaster Recovery & Storage Practice Managerdale.janda@microage.com

LEARN MORE ABOUT HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

Want to discuss how hyperconverged infrastructure can improve your approach to data protection? Reach out today to schedule a meeting with one of our experts.

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