Paving Three Paths with Hyper Converged Infrastructure
Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) extends the virtualization trend toward truly software-defined data center solutions. The software technology leverages low-cost hardware servers to create IT infrastructure that is simple to operate, economical, and flexible.
HCI is ideal for specific cases in healthcare, banking, and manufacturing, three distinct industries that can benefit from software-defined technologies. The combination of commoditized hardware and software-defined controls provide savings and agile infrastructure scaling. HCI is the most cost-effective choice where operational requirements dictate a delicate balance of cost constraints, disaster recovery, and performance.
Vendors Merge Hardware and Software Offerings
Vendors for HCI gain an advantage by providing the hardware for the server clusters and complete software packages. This approach suits them quite well, but does it offer the best choice for small and medium-sized businesses and other organizations that use it? In some specific instances, it does. Hyper convergence provides the functionality of cloud computing with high performance and reliability.
HCI gives small and lightly staffed IT teams the hardware and software to build out their IT requirements using commoditized x86 architecture-based servers and software package solutions delivered by such vendors as Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Nutanix, Microsoft, and Cisco.
In Healthcare
Healthcare service providers have stringent requirements for privacy. The healthcare industry has many situations where HCI provides the best solutions for IT. Healthcare organizations are diverse; they come in all shapes and sizes. Hospitals that are independent or regionally isolated still demand fast I/O rates and secure storage. For example, Meander Medisch Centrum in the Netherlands chose Cisco HyperFlex for HCI that combines computing, storage, and networking.
Molina Healthcare, in the United States, processes medical billing for medical payments covered by the Federal government to fifteen states of the USA. To respond and access patient data more rapidly, while reducing costs in operation, Molina built on a base of converged infrastructure with new hyper converged servers. The company used HCI technology to create a private cloud solution that protects patient privacy and provides disaster recovery while operating it from a desktop control panel.
In Banking
The strength of HCI is in SMBs it suits banks that require networks in branches or regions, without centralizing the infrastructure. While this is an agile way to expand infrastructure and scale rapidly, Banks gain similar benefits to healthcare organizations.
PeoplesBank has made a significant investment in HCI, and the team watched in amazement at how quickly the new assets switched on. The bank simultaneously achieved the goals of high compute availability, minimized costs, and enhanced disaster recovery capabilities for its seventeen branches.
In Manufacturing
Like banking and healthcare, manufacturing operations benefit from IT infrastructure that optimizes scalable operations and inexpensive hardware.Pathfinder Report from 451 Research explains in depth how HCI supports the demand for uptime in both healthcare and manufacturing and avoids the cost of excessive downtime.
The report also illuminates the path ahead for software-defined technology and how the capabilities will deliver benefits to a broader array of use cases in healthcare, banking, and manufacturing. Organizations and companies of all sizes can control network, storage and compute assets with less expensive resources and fewer technical staff using HCI.
Industries as diverse as healthcare, banking and manufacturing may have different objectives. The paths down which they travel sometimes share the characteristics that match niche opportunities to universal needs. Hyper converged infrastructure is one software-defined path that has proven capabilities as efficient IT infrastructure solutions for all three of these industries.
