A growing trend across the globe and in nearly every sector- the Hyper-Converged Infrastructure market has shown to have a CAGR of almost 26% with USD 32.56 billion during the forecast period 2022-2027, according to a report compiled by MarketWatch. With industries ranging from healthcare and finance to government and even education, the value of HCI as the ideal computing, network, storage and management encompassing cloud IT architecture is evident. So, the question is this: For those in the market looking to upgrade to HCI as a solution, how do you go about selecting a service provider that will fulfill all of your cloud needs and do so efficiently? Sangfor explores how to choose the right HCI vendors below.

What is Hyper-Converged Infrastructure?

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solutions were designed to provide enterprises with computing, storage, and networking all on a cloud-based platform, making both management and deployment easier and faster. While HCI vendors once only created hyper-converged integrated systems (HCIS) and were lone hardware providers, the market has shifted and evolved to create HCI, which now provides virtual computing, storage, and networking with a highly scalable, secure, and power infrastructure. With HCI you get unified management, easy and secure storage, high availability, and data services. Selecting the best HCI vendor to work with is important, and with so many out there, how do you decide which vendor is right for you? Some vendors focus on a specific region or vertical, while some vendors are still in the early stages of their HCI development.

Choosing the Best HCI Vendors in 2024

How does Hyper-Converged Infrastructure work?

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) is a modern approach to data center architecture that integrates compute, storage, networking, and virtualization resources into a single, tightly integrated system. It is designed to simplify data center management, improve scalability, and enhance operational efficiency. In this response, I will explain how HCI works and its key components.

At the core of HCI is software-defined infrastructure. It abstracts the underlying hardware resources and presents them as a pool of virtualized resources. This software layer enables centralized management and automation, allowing administrators to control the entire infrastructure through a single interface.

HCI consists of three main components: computing, storing, and networking. Let's explore each component:

Computing

HCI utilizes industry-standard servers that are equipped with powerful processors, memory, and storage devices. These servers host virtual machines (VMs) or containers and run the applications and workloads. The compute resources are managed by a hypervisor, such as VMware vSphere or Nutanix AHV, which enables efficient allocation and utilization of resources.

Storage

HCI integrates storage directly into the compute nodes, eliminating the need for separate storage arrays. It leverages local hard drives or solid-state drives (SSDs) in each server to create a distributed storage pool. This storage is presented as a shared resource across the HCI cluster. Data is distributed and replicated across multiple nodes for redundancy and high availability. The distributed storage architecture enhances performance, scalability, and resilience.

Networking

Networking in HCI is typically implemented using software-defined networking (SDN) principles. The network infrastructure is virtualized and abstracted from the physical networking hardware. Software-defined networking enables administrators to create virtual networks, define network policies, and manage traffic flows efficiently. It also supports features like load balancing, quality of service (QoS), and security.

The software layer of HCI provides advanced management and orchestration capabilities. Administrators can use a centralized management interface to provision and manage VMs, allocate resources, monitor performance, and handle tasks like data protection and disaster recovery tasks. HCI platforms often include automation and self-healing capabilities, simplifying routine administrative tasks and ensuring high system availability.
 

Choosing a Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Vendor

The three most important factors in choosing an HCI vendor are vendor support, management, and price. However, once you’ve determined the rest, there are a few more suggestions on great places to get first-hand information from current users. But first, let's discuss support.

You can also read our previous year’s article on Choosing the best Hyper Converged Infrastructure Vendor in 2021 by clicking here.

HCI Vendor: Support

It’s critical to have support in your local language for a solution like HCI which is vital to your business. This is an especially unique issue for those in the APAC and European regions, where countries are close, travel is easy, and business is routinely done across borders. As HCI is so critical to the success of an enterprise, it’s vital to work with a vendor who is available 24/7 with only one call. If something isn’t working correctly with your HCI solution, the last thing you want to do is fill out paperwork, sit on hold, and wait for traveling technicians.

HCI Vendor: Management & Performance

Management of your HCI solution should be easy. While experienced IT staff is critical to the success of any enterprise, HCI should make your daily management of the network and everyone using it easy and simple, also it reduces the maintenance cost. Of what benefit is an HCI solution that is too difficult to manage?

Several elements of HCI could potentially affect performance. For example, computing power has a direct effect on the performance of your HCI solution. Discuss this with your chosen HCI vendor to determine how much power you need and how much you have available. Your chosen HCI vendor should be excited to have this conversation with you, and custom builds a solution that meets all your needs.

HCI Vendor: Price

Price is a tricky topic, as the list price often changes depending on the time of year or business quarter. In addition, you are ideally working with an HCI vendor that will custom build your HCI to your specifications – meaning the price is what you make it. Our first suggestion is to work with a vendor who can work with you on the price and fulfill your needs. HCI should not be a one-size-fits-all solution. A few of the functions you should consider paying for are data compression and resiliency, hardware and software savings, security, and operational savings. However, in selecting an HCI solution, scalability means organizations can upscale and down-scale but pay only for what they make use of.

What Are the Benefits of HCI?

Choosing the right vendor for your hyper converged infrastructure needs allows organizations to fully reap the benefits of HCI (and there are many). Some of them include

  • Reliability and stability
  • Scalability
  • High performance- Sangfor HCI’s IOPS is 50% higher than that of industry peers
  • Simplified and easy-to-use
  • Agility
  • Data Protection

All of which Sangfor’s 3rd Gen HCI places particular emphasis on.

There are many vendors, and organizations must find vendors that tailor their solutions to perfectly meet their organizational demands with ease.

Read Hyper-Converged Infrastructure / HCI Vendors Reviews!

Gartner Inc. offers a comprehensive list of HCI products available across various regions and industries including Sangfor Technologies HCI solution, and what you can expect from working with them.

Gartner Peer Insights provides trustworthy insight and reviews from industry participants who make use of a wide range of HCI vendors. Below are 2023 reviews on Sangfor HCI services:

In one review titled "Best HCI When It Comes To Recoverability, Reliability, Security And Productivity," the Division Head of IT of a Finance industry customer scored Sangfor HCI 5/5 for each category (Product Capabilities, Integration & Deployment, Service & Support, and Evaluation & Contracting) and left the following comment:

I'm a user of traditional setup where we have several host and using enterprise storage, the performance is acceptable since it is using SSD's. But maintenance is quite challenging because I need someone who will manage the server, the storage, the SAN switch and the hypervisor. With HCI the management is so easy and you don't need different Engineers to manage the infrastructure. I can say that performance of our Systems have improved so much...we have this one system wherein 1 query takes more or less 30minutes, but when we migrated to HCI query is now only 1minute.

The Head of the IT Department of a finance industry customer wrote a review titled "Creating New Server Very Easy And Excellent Quality Support Team" and made the following comment: 

Simple to maintain all the VM and Excellent GUI, software-defined IT infrastructure make the product more effective and efficient, Performance better than old system. And which makes me most happy is…. if we have any technical issue, the Technical Engineer are ready to support with quality of excellent skill to be delivered even though it’s not in office hours.

Sangfor is merely one of many vendors to be considered, but we understand that choosing the correct vendor is a decision that could improve or halt company progress. We have provided information to assist organizations in the process. Choose wisely!

Sangfor HCI Success Stories

  • J&T Express is a logistics company with the largest shipping volume in Indonesia. J&T Express deployed Sangfor Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) to create a software-defined data center for its e-commerce delivery service. HCI is equipped with the essential features that meet J&T Express’ high performance demands, such as dynamic virtual storage, automated backup, and the ability to easily run multiple apps simultaneously quickly and efficiently.
  • Mariano Marcos Memorial Hospital and Medical Center is the biggest public hospital in Llocos Norte province, Philippines. To solve the performance issue of its legacy system, it deployed Sangfor HCI. The hospital finally improved its efficiency and business continuity.
  • The Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR) is a ministry of the Government of Malaysia that is responsible for skills development, labor, occupational safety and health, trade unions, etcs. With Sangfor HCI network virtualization, MOHR can operate and maintain the entire IT infrastructure effortlessly with the “What You Draw is What You Get” feature.

Becoming a Sangfor HCI Vendor / Partner

By partnering with Sangfor, you benefit from our operational excellence, receiving full sales support throughout the sales cycle. This includes assistance with lead generation, project protection, technical help, and bidding. Partners can choose to specialize in either security or cloud business, allowing you to scale your operations based on your business needs.

We offer a Partner Engagement Plan with three different tiers, including Certified, Gold, and Platinum, each providing varying levels of benefits and values based on your business model and performance. Upon successful application, you gain access to Sangfor’s network security, cloud computing, and infrastructure solutions. If you’re interested in becoming a vendor, reach out to us by filling out this form.

About Sangfor Technologies

Sangfor Technologies is an APAC-based, global leading vendor of IT infrastructure solutions specializing in Network Security and Cloud Computing. Visit us at www.sangfor.com to learn more about Sangfor’s Security solutions and ransomware protection, and let Sangfor make your IT simpler, more secure, and valuable.

 

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Frequently Asked Questions

Most HCI vendors will be able to provide the following advantages when you implement HCI into your organisation. 

  • Simplified Management: HCI consolidates multiple components of the data center into a unified system, simplifying management and reducing complexity. IT administrators can efficiently manage compute, storage, networking, and virtualization resources through a single interface.
  • Scalability: Organizations can easily scale their infrastructure by adding more nodes to the HCI cluster. The software-defined nature of HCI allows for the integration of new resources without disrupting existing operations.
  • Cost Efficiency: By consolidating hardware components and eliminating the need for separate storage arrays, businesses can reduce upfront capital expenditures. HCI also improves resource utilization through features like data deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning, optimizing storage capacity and reducing storage costs.
  • Enhanced Performance: Data is distributed across multiple nodes, improving data access and reducing I/O bottlenecks. HCI platforms often include features like caching, load balancing, and data tiering, which further enhance performance.
  • Flexibility and Agility: With virtualization at its core, HCI enables the rapid provisioning and deployment of virtual machines and containers. This agility allows businesses to quickly adapt to changing requirements, spin up new services, and scale resources as needed.
  • Resilience and Data Protection: HCI includes built-in features for data protection and disaster recovery. The distributed nature of the storage architecture ensures redundancy and high availability. Data is replicated across multiple nodes, reducing the risk of data loss or system downtime.

While there are many advantages to implementing Hyper-Converged Infrastructure for your organization, the price can vary depending on several factors. Discuss the following with your team and vendor when you consider implementing HCI for your organization.

  • Hardware Costs: HCI typically requires specialized hardware, such as HCI-ready servers or nodes, which come preconfigured with compute, storage, and networking resources.
  • Software Costs: HCI solutions often include software licenses for the hypervisor, management software, and other components.
  • Support and Maintenance: Consider the ongoing support and maintenance costs, including vendor support contracts, software updates, and hardware maintenance agreements.
  • Networking and Infrastructure: If the existing network infrastructure needs upgrades or modifications to support HCI, additional costs may be incurred for switches, network adapters, cabling, and related equipment.
  • Data Protection and Backup: While HCI often includes built-in data protection features, organizations may still want to consider additional backup and disaster recovery solutions to meet specific business requirements. The cost of data protection solutions, such as backup software licenses and storage for backups, should be factored into the overall implementation cost.
  • Training and Expertise: As HCI introduces a new infrastructure paradigm, training or expertise may be required for IT staff to effectively manage and operate the HCI environment. Costs associated with training programs, certifications, or hiring specialized personnel should be considered.

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