Is Convergence Right For You?

4 Questions To Ask

Ask the right questions,

know the right answers

• How is the converged system designed?

• How hard is it to manage?

• How does it scale?

• How does the it protect data?

Don’t Make a Converged Disaster! Available On Demand

For audio playback and Q&A go to:

http://bit.ly/Convergence4

Our Speakers

Craig is the Director of Product Management at Scale Computing. In this role, Craig speaks with

hundreds of small business IT organizations each year, prioritizing the roadmap for the HC3 family of

products and the HyperCore operating system that empowers them. Prior to joining Scale, Craig was

the CEO and founder of FitQuake, Inc., a Management Software start-up designed to automate the

back office operations for small businesses in the health and fitness industry.

George Crump is the founder of Storage Switzerland, the leading storage analyst focused on the

subjects of big data, solid state storage, virtualization, cloud computing and data protection. He is

widely recognized for his articles, white papers, and videos on such current approaches as all-flash

arrays, deduplication, SSDs, software-defined storage, backup appliances, and storage networking.

He has 25 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US.

● Analyst firm focused on

storage, cloud and

virtualization

● Knowledge of these markets

is gained through product

testing and interaction with

end users and suppliers

● The results of this research

can be found in the articles,

videos, webinars, product

analysis and case studies on

our web site:

http://storageswiss.com

Storage Swiss Background

International Presence

Indianapolis (HQ)

Silicon Valley

London

Paris

Toronto

Dubai

900+ Clusters

3500+ Systems

• Market Leader in Hyperconvergence

• Integrated IT Infrastructure– Unique technology powered by 22 patents.

• Scale’s DNA– Radically simplified management – High availability designed in– Comprehensive support

• Net Promoter Score: 75– Higher customer loyalty than the Apple iPhone

• Healthcare, Education, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Government & Defense.

Servers, Storage, and Virtualization.

Simplified.

Company Profile

Polling Question

A) 0%

A) 1-25%

A) 25-50%

A) 75-100%

What percentage of your environment is

virtualized?

Polling Question

What percentage of your environment is

virtualized?

The Virtualization Waves

• Pre Virtualization – One App

per Server

• Wave 1 - Consolidation

• Wave 2 – Increasing ROI

Pre-Virtualization Wave:Single Server, Single App, Dedicated LUN

Virtualization Wave 1: True Shared Storage And Network

Virtualization Wave 2: Maximum Density

Virtualization Wave 1.5: Maximum Density and Critical Apps

Virtualization Wave 2.0: Simplification

Virtualization Wave 2.0: Simplification

Virtualization Wave 2.0: Improved ROI

The Virtualization Waves

• Wave 1 - Consolidation• Was the first broad use case for shared

storage. As a result SAN/NAS adoption

skyrocketed.

• Wave 2 – Increasing ROI• Data centers are trying to increase VM

Density, Speed time to production,

Reduce Risk and simplify management.

Wave 2 Leads To Exploration

• High Performance Storage• Optimal mix of storage resources

• High Speed Networks• Needed For Performance

• Converged Architectures• Leverage excess server processing

power to collapse compute, network

and storage tiers.

Converged Appeal

• Converged • Turn-key VM Infrastructure, Single point

of management and rapid provisioning

BUT….

• Not All Converged Solutions

are the same• You need to know the difference

Four Question To Ask Converged

Providers

4 Keys To Success

How Converged Is The Solution

• Pre-Integrated?• Same old solutions, pre-tested and pre-

integrated

• Software Only, Bring Your

Own Server• Software defined storage running on/in

the hypervisor. Need to test and supply

server, network and storage hardware

• Turnkey• Hardware and Software designed for

convergence

How hard is it to Manage?

• How Many GUI’s?• Does Hypervisor, servers, storage

and networking all have separate

management GUIs? (vCenter Plug-

in’s don’t help)

• How Are VMs Deployed?• How many configuration steps per

VM? Drag and drop?

How hard is it to Manage?

• How Many GUIs?• Look for single GUI or plug-in

• How Are VMs Deployed?• Rapid provisioning via drag and drop

How Does The Solution Scale?

• Are resources (compute,

networking, storage) added

in lock-step• May lead to resource inefficiency

How Does The Solution Scale?

• Each resource (compute,

networking, storage) should

be added granularly• Better efficiency and lower costs

How Does The Solution Protect Data?

• How Does it Handle Disk

Failure?RAID is dead, We need something else

• How does it handle server/node

failure?Highly dense infrastructures need HA

• How does it handle Disaster?Replication should be integrated

Complexity of Virtual Infrastructure

Servers, storage and virtualization. Simplified.

• High Availability

of a virtualized

server and SAN

• Scalability of a

clustered

infrastructure

• Simplicity of a

single server

Built for Midsize Companies

HC3 - Scaling the Environment

Recording of this and other webinars available

on our website (no need to re-register)

Before we get to your questions ...

Select the Attachments

button for Papers and

Data Sheets

Thank you!

Storage Switzerland

http://www.storageswiss.com

gcrump@storage-switzerland.com

StorageSwiss on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/storageswiss

StorageSwiss on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/storageswiss

Remember! Please rate this webinar. Your reviews help us!

Scale Computing

http://www.scalecomputing.com

Scale Computing on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/scalecomputing

Scale Computing Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/scalecomputing

Is Convergence Right For You?

4 Questions To Ask

For complete Audio and Q&A please register for the

On Demand Version at:

http://bit.ly/Convergence4