Re-imagine the Power of Hybrid Cloud with Hyperconverged Infrastructure

With the advent of technology, cloud-based solutions continue to be in demand and act as a key driver in the enterprise management.  Terms like Hybrid Cloud, Multi cloud, Public cloud, Private cloud has become part of everyday conversation in the IT industry. But do we really understand what these terms mean? Let us find out.

A traditional data center consists of hosting the data infrastructure setup i.e. storage, compute and network at their own facility. This is called an “On-Premise” solution. As technology evolved, organizations could now move their data center to “Co-located” facilities. It became possible to outsource the management of data infrastructure to these co-located spaces, perhaps an offshore facility. This move had an impact on the business economics since the nature of the cost incurred was now in terms of operational expenses instead of an upfront lump-sum capital expense. Not to forget the physical space saved, which would have otherwise been occupied by the data center.

With the sophistication of the cloud technology, it became possible for different organizations to share cloud resources owned by service providers like Google, Microsoft or Amazon. This is known as Public Cloud solution. To have better control on data security, organizations adopt cloud solutions exclusively for their own business, which may be an on-premise solution. This is known as Private Cloud solution.

To utilize the cloud services in the best way, enterprises can today choose to distribute their datacenter setup amongst different service providers. For example, one can opt for Google cloud for its analytics and go for Amazon Web Service ‘s infrastructure as a service (IAAS) solution. In short, one enterprise having multiple footprint of where their infrastructure resides is a “Multi-cloud” solution.

Another approach to consume cloud services is having some elements of the infrastructure on premise, some in a co-located facility, while the rest to be hosted on the public cloud. This is called a “Hybrid cloud” solution.

Now that we know various cloud solutions, let us try to gauge the value of operating an enterprise data center with one such cloud solution.

Managing a datacenter infrastructure comes at a heavy cost and can be cumbersome. A datacenter comprises of various elements namely:

To manage every element, say “Archive” for an instance, a management interface called Archive Manager is required. Similarly, there are various management interfaces unique to each element like Storage, Back-up, DR adding up to almost a hundred element managers, thus making data center structure complex. This is known as a “Tool Sprawl”.

Furthermore, specialized manpower with respect to different element managers is required to operate these interfaces. This is called as “FTE Sprawl”.

Customers are looking to leverage the evolving multi cloud infrastructure services to address their pain points of resource management, from both human and infrastructure aspects.

There are various solutions to mitigate the above complexities. Let us look at one such solution, known as “Hyperconverged Infrastructure” (HCI). Now what is HCI? Multiple enterprise class servers bundled together using an intelligent software into a single server forms a Hyperconverged Infrastructure. HCI entails all the cloud like benefits such as data efficiency, lower Capex, reduced manual support, data protection and more.

At Zensar, we have formed a strategic partnership with market leading player Nutanix to create Hyperconverged infrastructure solution which is simple and easy to deploy.

Zensar’s HCI Solution powered by The Vinci™ – Autonomics driven AIOps platform, consists of a single interface which manages all the five main entities (Network, Storage, Server, Backup, DR) of a data center. The Tool Sprawl complexity is thus taken care of.

Zensar’s optimal resource pool encompasses of experts with converged skillsets, cross-trained in multiple technologies. There is no need of large number of technology-based engineers with specialized skills working in numerous shifts. One engineer has the capability to manage the whole of HyperConverged Infrastructure thus eliminating the complexity of FTE Sprawl.

Zensar being a global systems integrator with Nutanix offers some unique and differentiated benefits:

• Zensar’s HCI solution occupies only a fifth of the physical rack space, in turn eliminating the need for space required to setup multiple servers.
• Power consumption and the cooling consumption is much less as compared to that of any large number of servers.
• Cost of employing resources to manage services is reduced significantly. One IT super admin/Engineer is equipped to support HCI.
• Simplification of system as only one interface needs to be managed instead of multiple ones.

Disparity in user experience due to multiple platforms can be solved by using the appropriate autonomics platform controlled by an intelligent software and the right kind of managed service provider. That’s where Zensar’s HyperConverged Infrastructure Solution comes in, as it empowers customers access to both. Zensar’s The Vinci™ – Smart Platform ensures uniform user experience irrespective of where the data resides.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure is sure to reap benefits over a traditional three tier environment with the help of sound architecture building and capacity planning.