Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) has
become a critical solution for modern data centers, combining computing,
storage, and networking into a single, streamlined system. Organizations,
especially those with remote offices or branch locations, are increasingly
adopting HCI to simplify operations, enhance scalability, and improve resource
management. If you are considering HCI for your business, understanding the
essential features to look for can make all the difference in selecting the
right solution.
Must-Have Features of Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Here are must-have features you need to look
at in Hyper-converged infrastructure:
Scalable Architecture
One of the main advantages of HCI is its
scalability, allowing you to expand infrastructure as needed without complex
reconfiguration. Huawei’s HCI supports Composable Disaggregated Infrastructure
(CDI), enabling independent scaling of compute and storage resources, and
eliminating upfront capacity planning. Intelligent QoS ensures optimal
performance with elastic resource allocation to adapt to fluctuating workloads.
Additionally, Huawei’s dual ecosystems, x86, and Kunpeng, provide flexibility
to optimize infrastructure for a wide range of applications, from traditional
workloads to high-performance computing needs.
Powerful Performance
High performance is essential in any HCI
deployment, requiring the ability to manage complex workloads with minimal
latency and optimal resource use. Huawei’s SmartDPU technology offloads
processing tasks from the CPU, boosting computing power density by 20% and
increasing IOPS up to 120,000 per node. Additionally, Huawei’s HCI features an
EC (Error Correction) mechanism with a 22+2 ratio, ensuring up to 91% of
available capacity. This enables the infrastructure to handle more workloads
efficiently, maximizing resource utilization.
Solid Reliability
Reliability is another key factor when
selecting an HCI solution. A dependable system reduces the risk of downtime,
minimizes data loss, and enhances business continuity.HCI features a
cross-cluster active-active (A-A) architecture with synchronous replication,
ensuring continuous data availability and disaster recovery, allowing
operations to continue seamlessly even during failures. The system offers
full-stack A-A capabilities, covering both hardware and virtualization,
providing end-to-end redundancy, and eliminating single points of failure.
It also integrates lightweight security
container solutions, securing critical workloads in a protected environment.
Additionally, intelligent health checks and fault predictions proactively
detect and address potential issues before they lead to disruptions, ensuring
system reliability.
Efficient Simplicity
While performance and reliability are
crucial, simplicity and efficiency in management should not be overlooked. An
HCI solution should reduce operational complexity and enable easy management,
even for organizations with limited IT staff.
For example, Huawei’s HCI products such as
FusionCube 1000 Hypervisor & Data can pre-integrate a distributed storage
engine. It can also integrate virtualization software and cloud management
software. These features make it perfect to use in Hybrid workload scenarios.
Moreover, HCI leverages deduplication and compression techniques, along
with data reduction capabilities. This ensures better storage efficiency and
lowers the threshold for adopting all-flash storage, allowing businesses to
maximize their storage investment.
Conclusion
Choosing the right Hyper-Converged Infrastructure solution is essential for organizations looking
to modernize their IT environment. HCI offers a miniaturized 5U hardware
solution that integrates computing, storage, and networking into a single unit.
This compact design reduces the physical footprint of your infrastructure and
minimizes the need for separate hardware components.