These benefits remain very relevant today. Organizations are looking to modernize their IT environments while keeping a lid on both CAPEX and OPEX costs. As a result, Fortune Business Insights expects the global HCI to see compound annual growth of 22.7 percent through 2032.

Traditionally, HCI was deployed for specific use cases, including virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), data protection, disaster recovery and software testing. Organizations also used HCI for server consolidation and to simplify the IT stack in remote offices.

Organizations are now utilizing HCI for a broad range of use cases to relieve today’s IT headaches. Despite the benefits, however, hyper-convergence isn’t the be-all and end-all for every IT problem and comes with its own set of challenges.

HCI Use Cases

Reducing Complexity

HCI continues to be valued for speeding deployment and reducing management complexity. Because it tightly integrates compute, storage and network resources, HCI is easier to deploy than legacy infrastructure. HCI also enables organizations to reduce their IT footprint and create a more standardized technology environment. High levels of virtualization make it possible to manage resources through one console and automate many routine IT tasks.

Enabling Scalability

Organizations need seamless scalability to meet today’s IT demands. HCI delivers by creating pools of shared resources across clusters of nodes. Expanding capacity is as simple as adding nodes to the cluster. The latest HCI solutions take a modular approach, allowing incremental scaling of compute, storage and networking resources. Some HCI solutions also make it possible to scale up by increasing the resources within existing nodes.

Supporting Edge Computing

HCI’s characteristics are ideally suited for edge computing environments. Because it has a smaller footprint than the traditional IT stack, it takes up less physical space and consumes less power. Fewer hardware layers and simplified management help relieve some of the pressure on IT teams struggling to support edge locations. Some vendors offer HCI solutions that are designed specifically for edge environments and branch locations.

Enabling Hybrid Cloud

Increasingly, organizations are repatriating cloud workloads due to increasing costs and performance and compliance concerns. In doing so, they lose the flexibility and scalability of the cloud. HCI provides cloud-like features in an onsite solution, providing the ideal platform for a hybrid cloud environment. There are tools that integrate HCI platforms with the public cloud to enable seamless data sharing and resource utilization.

HCI Challenges

Quantifying Cost Savings

Many organizations look to hyper-convergence to save money, but those savings don’t always materialize. HCI may or may not have a lower sticker price than other data center hardware. The true cost savings are found in total cost of ownership (TCO). Organizations tend to find long-term savings by accelerating deployment, reducing administrative costs, reducing the data center footprint, and simplifying management and maintenance.

Scaling Resources

Although scalability is a benefit of HCI, inefficient scaling of resources can be a problem. Some solutions don’t allow for independent scaling of computer, storage and networking resources. As a result, if organizations run out of storage resources, they may have to purchase an entire node in order to get the storage resources they need. Very often, they can end up paying for resources they don’t use.

Optimizing Workloads

Hyper-convergence isn’t ideal for all workloads. Some hyper-converged infrastructure solutions were designed primarily for remote offices that run a small number of applications, don’t have IT infrastructure and need a plug-and-play system. Others are great for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), testing and development, and disaster recovery. Hyper-convergence can struggle to support workloads with unpredictable resource requirements, such as cloud and big data applications.

How Technologent Can Help

Due to these challenges, HCI should not be viewed as a universal solution for all IT problems. Before adopting HCI, organizations should formulate a strategy and create proofs of concept. They should then run pilot projects to test the technology, measure its true value, and determine whether to expand to additional use cases and workloads.

The Technologent team has deep expertise in data center infrastructure and can help you identify the right use cases for HCI. Let us help you utilize a proven technology to address today’s IT challenges.