Don't Miss Out On The Converged Infrastructure Growth Trend
By The Business Solutions Network
An IT solution provider discusses a major data center growth trend that every channel IT company should be taking advantage of right now.
Converged Infrastructure is one of the hottest data center concepts today, enabling organizations to manage resources, control applications and deliver rich content in new and more efficient ways. According to 451 Research’s “Voice of the Enterprise: Servers and Converged Infrastructure” study, refresh projects are a big driver of enterprise investments in servers and converged infrastructure systems in 2016. Additionally, 60% of respondents said they plan to increase spending on servers this year and 79% said they plan to spend more on converged infrastructure. Analyst group Gartner predicts this market, which started a zero in 2012, will reach $5 billion by 2019.
For those not familiar with converged infrastructure, it’s important to understand that it is not a technology. Rather, it is an approach to data center management that seeks to minimize complexity and compatibility issues among servers, storage systems and network devices while reducing infrastructure costs and the overall foot print.
Recently, I sat down with Travis Sales, president of Breakthrough Technology Group, LLC., a provider of secure private cloud, connectivity, and managed IT solutions. With more than 20 years’ experience and expertise in virtualization technologies, Sales was the perfect candidate to answer my converged infrastructure questions.
BSM: What are some of the benefits of a converged infrastructure?
Travis Sales: One of the primary appeals for an MSP is the ability to procure, configure and implement compute, storage and networking resources quickly compared to a traditional data center environment.
A converged infrastructure brings together storage, compute, and network switching products into a offering sold as a single solution. With a focus on the virtual machine or application workload, all the elements of a converged infrastructure support the virtual machine (VM) as the basic construct of the data center.
A converged infrastructure makes it easier to scale resources as required by the business. At the same time, a converged environment provides data protection, VM mobility, high availability, data efficiency and cost efficiency. Additionally, many tranditional failure points can be more readily addressed. The ability to deploy and use the environment to “scale out” dynamically is paradigm-shifting. From a business perspective, it’s a no-brainer.
With converged environments, MSPs can address challenges present in traditional IT infrastructure solutions while at the same time solving additional problems related to the delivery of services. There’s a new freedom to accommodate needs previously unattainable.
BSM: How have converged infrastructures evolved over the past few years?
Travis Sales: For several years, companies were adopting converged infrastructure strategies to build hardware appliances for niche purposes, such as VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). The downside of these earlier appliances was that they limited IT professionals to one methodology, which kept them from taking full advantage of convergence, except for what that product was designed for. There’s been a shift since that time and IT solution providers no longer need to use a specific appliance, and they don’t need vendor-specific hardware skills to create a converged environment. They can buy commodity hardware and still build a truly converged environment for their customers. This allows MSPs to be more agile in their technology adoption, and that leads to better profit margins.
BSM: How can MSPs get started?
Travis Sales: I recommend looking at your current systems; that’s where there is the most potential. Don’t approach it like you need to go buy a product to do something to get started. Look at what you already have. Most of the time, you’ll find you’re very close to being able to start buliding the foundation of a coverged environment. For instance, if you’re already running VMware, you have the ability to set up a software-defined storage environment. Eighty-percent of what you need is probably already in-house, so you just need to turn it on. Finally, take the transition in steps. Converged infrastructure can live with traditional infrastructure seamlessly. There’s no need to dive all in right away. Take your time.
BSM: What are some common mistakes MSPs make?
Travis Sales: Don’t bite off too much. Many IT professionals have a tendency to over-engineer projects. It is easier and smarter to start with the basics. Look at your virtualization. Look at what you need to build a software-defined storage layer and how to present that to your current offer stack. Leave the networking and other capabilities to the side during the initial phase of the deployment.
Also, don’t be fooled by the red herrings many vendors are introducing. For instance, some companies are touting how hardware appliances are the only way to achive a converged environment. This creates concern among MSPs and causes them to question that if they build their own solution, it won’t work as well. Simply follow hardware compatibility lists and testing best practices for your technology and your converged solution will turn out fine.