Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) software offers virtualized compute, storage, networking, and associated (cloud) management from a single system running on server hardware. Infrastructure & Operations leaders should consider HCI software as a technology that can address requirements related to the cloud-native, edge, hybrid cloud, and virtual desktop infrastructure use cases.
Core capabilities for HCI software include virtual compute, storage and networking, using a scale-out, shared-nothing architecture, all of which can be managed from a single pane of glass. Additional core capabilities of HCI software are local, direct-attached storage (DAS) in each node, enterprise-grade high availability (HA) and mobility for both compute and storage, enterprise-grade data services, and some level of choice in server and network hardware.
Gartner Peer Insights worked upon user reviews to generate insights on leading HCI software vendors in 2022. The figure below shows vendors categorized based on user interest and adoption and overall rating.
Leading HCI software vendors
1.Dell Technologies
HCI offerings from Dell enable optimizing workloads with ease and agility. It improves scalability and efficiency. Deployment can be made flexible. Dell offers deployment options in appliance and rack-scale systems or ready node building blocks. Built on next-generation PowerEdge servers, it delivers cloud-like agility, scalability, and simplified IT management with built-in data protection.
2. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
HPE enables enterprises seeking to accelerate innovation and time to market with its HCI solutions for driving unprecedented resilience, agility, and workload consolidation from IT. HPE offers a portfolio of HCI solutions available as a service through the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform.
The HPE SimpliVity enhances rapid backup and recovery capabilities across your entire multi-site edge estate with a centralized HPE StoreOnce long-term backup appliance and a seamless cloud backup through HPE Cloud Volumes Backup. You can solve your challenges in empowering remote employees with a reliable, high-performing, and highly secure Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution that can be easily deployed, managed, and scaled. HPE solutions also enable you to accelerate the adoption of agile, cloud-native, containerized apps.
3. Microsoft
Azure Stack HCI is a new HCI operating system delivered as an Azure service. It offers the latest security, performance, and hybrid capabilities, including the Azure Arc enablement and new management scenarios via the Azure portal. It delivers robust host security with a Secured-core server, improves performance for machine learning models with GPU enablement, and maximizes the performance of virtual desktop infrastructure. You can improve the efficiency of your storage resource with the new thin provisioning feature.
You can run your choice of hardware, including new Integrated Systems and validated nodes from a variety of vendors on Azure Stack HCI. Every Azure Stack HCI node has an enabled Azure Arc which seamlessly brings the full power of Azure services to your on-premises locations.
4. Nutanix
Nutanix HCI solutions offer improved, consistent performance, a smaller data center footprint, greater efficiency and productivity in IT teams, and maximized infrastructure ROI. It enables faster deployment infrastructure in minutes and supports a wide variety of different hardware platforms. Nutanix HCI software running on each node distributes all operating functions throughout the cluster. There can be unlimited nodes in a single cluster. With node types having differing amounts of storage, CPU, and memory resources, you can run multiple workloads with maximum efficiency.
5. Sangfor Technologies
Sangfor HCI solutions enable data center consolidation by getting rid of complexities and silos of legacy data centers through its innovative software-defined technologies. Sangfor HCI acts as the building block for enterprise cloud with built-in scalability, reliability, and agility. You can run your enterprise applications with high performance and reliability. It ensures data protection, backup to disaster recovery, and stretched cluster and business continuity at different levels.
6. Scale Computing
Scale Computing Platform provides simplicity, high availability, and scalability together. It replaces the existing infrastructure and provides high availability for running VMs in a single, easy-to-manage platform. Scale Computing HyperCoreTM enables you to move beyond traditional IT silos as your software, servers, and storage will be in a fully integrated platform. Scale Computing Fleet Manager enables IT leaders to quickly scale from 1 to over 50,000 clusters. IT Managers with multiple clusters will be able to reduce their maintenance time by 50% or more.
7. SmartX
SmartX HCI consolidates production and disaster recovery environments for different applications and also improves performance. Enterprise applications that depend on highly reliable infrastructure to achieve business continuity can use SmartX HCI’s fully-fledged, stable, and reliable platform offering advanced data protection and disaster recovery mechanisms. It can scale out easily as workloads increase. SmartX HCI offers powerful performance, agile architecture, and excellent support for Kubernetes needed for the best DevOps practices. SmartX provides an easy-to-scale, cost-effective, and easily manageable HCI solution for next-generation enterprise data centers.
8. StarWind
StarWind Virtual SAN enables SMB, Enterprise ROBO & Edge to eliminate the need for costly shared storage. It mirrors internal hard disks and flash between hypervisor servers and ensures constant application uptime from as little as two nodes. It creates powerful and highly available environments at a low cost. It can deploy into existing cluster nodes and sync with any hypervisor. It allows maintenance, scales up, and scale out without HCLs or downtime.
StarWind HyperConverged All-Flash Appliance is a single solution that combines storage, network, and compute under a single all-round support umbrella. This will significantly reduce your CapEx and OpEx while increasing ROI.
9. StorMagic
StorMagic SvSAN simplifies storage at the edge, runs your apps with ease, and offers 100% uptime. It eliminates the need for physical SANs. It offers high availability and security with only 2 nodes. Its shared storage works through active-active synchronous mirroring between two servers. Keeping an exact copy of data on each server ensures undisrupted service to the organization in case one server fails or is taken offline. StorMagic SvSAN also supports VMs and containers and runs on any x86 server, any type of storage, and CPU.
10. VMware
VMware HCI provides agile infrastructure options including both vSAN and VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware vSAN is a software-defined distributed storage solution. It leverages a rich ecosystem of partners, 500+ vSAN Ready Nodes, and appliance offerings from Dell (VxRail), Lenovo, Fujitsu, and Hitachi.
VMware Cloud Foundation brings together VMware vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and the vRealize Suite into a natively integrated stack. It delivers enterprise-ready cloud infrastructure with unique automation and management capabilities for offering a consistent operational experience across clouds.
VMware HCI solutions’ agile IT platform enables employees to work remotely and scales both on-premises and the public cloud with burst capacity. It simplifies disaster recovery (DR) in the event of site-wide outages.
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