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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)Move Your Organization Toward a Brighter Future

Table of Contents

Ushering in a New Era of IT 3

Data Delivery Done Differently. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

An Evolution Toward Hyper-Convergence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Businesses Need Hyper-Converged Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

The Market Leader in HCI Solutions 4

Why Organizations Choose VMware vSAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Cost Savings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Enterprise-Grade Scale and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Simplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Future-Ready Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

When Is the Best Time to Deploy HCI? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of HCI 7

How to Get Started 9

Conclusion 9

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

Ushering in a New Era of IT Technology has always been in a state of constant change. But recent innovations like big data, cloud-based services, and mobile applications have added layers of complexity that put tremendous pressure on IT—and legacy systems aren’t helping.

Traditional IT infrastructure is siloed and fragmented, unable to match the business need for agility and scalability—two requirements for every organization that wants to stay competitive. Flat or declining IT budgets add even more stress.

Amid these rapid changes and evolving demands, there’s no doubt: IT is entering a whole new age.

Data Delivery Done DifferentlyAs people consume data in new and different ways, it makes a direct impact on how organizations deliver and process that data. How organizations handle this is influenced by technological advances such as the commoditization of servers, the declining cost of all-flash, and the widespread adoption of virtualization, coupled with contemporary applications like cloud-native apps and micro-services.

In grappling with what approach to take, IT must consider the following factors:

• Exploding data growth requires the scalability of a grow-as-you-go model

• Unpredictable business environments require a flexible infrastructure capable of supporting the apps of today—and tomorrow

• Mission-critical applications require consistent levels of performance

• An always-on world cannot tolerate downtime and disruptions

• Strict SLAs require simplified management by automating manual and repetitive tasks

The bottom line: This isn’t easy. Simply throwing more IT staff, more money, and more hardware at the challenge won’t solve it.

It’s time for change at the infrastructure level.

1 Gartner, Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure, 14 July 2015. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Figure 1. Illustration of two HCI components: the hyper-converged software stack and industry-standard x86 servers

Hyper-Converged Software Industry-Standard Hardware

Compute, storage, and management

Tightly integrated software stack

Convergence of physical storage on

x86 hardware

Building-block approach

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

An Evolution Toward Hyper-ConvergenceDriven by the need to deploy, manage, and support a growing volume of data and applications, data center infrastructure is undergoing a total transformation.

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) has emerged as a smart, future-ready solution that eliminates silos and allows organizations to move at the speed of business. HCI allows the convergence of compute, storage, and management onto industry-standard x86 servers. All key data center functions run as software on the hypervisor in a tightly integrated software layer.

In this way, HCI delivers services that were typically provided by hardware-centric infrastructure through software, for big improvements in cost, agility, and efficiency.

Businesses Need Hyper-Converged InfrastructureWhere does your business struggle? Where does it thrive? Understanding your strengths—and your weaknesses—will help you learn just where an HCI solution can help you most.

VMware® powers the lowest-cost and highest-performance next-generation HCI solutions with radically simple VMware vSAN™ storage, the market-leading VMware vSphere® hypervisor, and the VMware vCenter Server™ unified management platform. From seamless deployment and maintenance to greater stability and availability, VMware vSAN™ can help you meet your goals.

The Market Leader in HCI SolutionsHCI powered by vSAN is the industry-leading HCI solution for a reason. With vSAN, you can expect cost savings, enterprise-grade scale and performance, simplicity, and the ability to adapt in the future.

Why Organizations are Choose VMware vSANAmong the many reasons organizations choose vSAN, the fact that it can easily be integrated with an existing hypervisor is at the top of the list.

What were the three most important criteria that helped you choose your VMware vSAN solution?

Integration withHypervisor of Choice 57%

44%

38%

33%

25%

23%

Fast, Easy Deployment

Low Purchase Price/TCO

Already Have aRelationship with Vendor

Vendor Reputation

Hardware/SoftwareCertification and Support

Figure 2. Survey results on VMware vSAN selection criteria

VMWARE: THE MARKET LEADER

More than 500,000 enterprises, including 100% of the Fortune 100, trust VMware as their virtualization infrastructure platform.

VMware has been recognized as a leader in the 2015 Gartner “Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure”. This is the sixth year in a row VMware has received this recognition.1

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

Cost Savings

• Lowers hardware spend by enabling the use of industry-standard hardware

• Reduces OpEx and accelerates responsiveness by automating operational processes and eliminating support silos

• Eliminates overprovisioning with scale-up and scale-out on-demand capabilities

• Enables rapid deployment and fast time to value—native architecture requires zero installation so you can be up and running with your HCI appliance in less than 15 minutes

Highest Performance and Maximum Scalability per vSAN Cluster

Enterprise-Grade Scale and Performance• Delivers better performance at a lower cost with all-flash optimization

• Supports the next-generation hardware technologies so you can adopt them as soon as they become available

• Removes dependence on longer, slower hardware refresh cycles

• Provides efficient resource utilization so you can enjoy greater virtual machine density, and higher virtual machine consolidation ratios

• Delivers elastic and linear scalability so you can scale to your needs. Start small with a 2- or 3-node configuration and scale up to a 64-node cluster.

• Embeds storage directly into the hypervisor, optimizing the I/O path to deliver consistently fast response times.

“ In the past, we were always worried about overprovisioning, but with the thin provisioning afforded by VMware vSAN, we’ve gained so much space this is simply not an issue.”

NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

HybridArray

$100,000

$22,000

$9,000

$10,000 $41,000

$1.60 $1.42$1.45

$6.7

$5.0

$4.0

vSAN

Year 1

vSAN $/GB Hybrid Array $/GB

Year 2Year 1Year 1 Year 2

Year 3Year 3 TOTAL

Traditional Upfront Storage vs. Granular Scale-Out

Effective $/GB Paid for Utilized Capacity

Figure 3. Cost comparison between vSAN and traditional hardware solutions

Figure 4. Performance characteristics of VMware vSAN

Simplicity • Reduces complexity with a single integrated software stack

• Automatically rebuilds and rebalances storage and compute with automated storage provisioning and a self-tuning platform

• Identifies problems early with centralized policy-based management that enables enhanced monitoring and built-in reporting

• Leverages existing investments and skill sets by providing a familiar interface

• Eliminates costly and risky hardware forklift upgrades during the normal 3- to 5-year hardware refresh cycle

BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

“ Everything is right there inside the VMware console, so there were no new interfaces to install or learn. And we no longer have to watch the storage allocation constantly, always asking if we still need this server, or if a LUN is using too much disk space. We don’t have to worry about LUNs and provisioning anymore.”

CARL SHRIVER IT OPERATIONS MANAGER WACHTER, INC.

Future-Ready Architecture• Can easily expand with network virtualization and advanced management

• Offers a scalable, high-performance solution for cloud-native applications, containers, and microservices

• Enables streamlined data management and data governance by reducing time spent on infrastructure management

• Gives teams the ability to focus on data, instead of storage infrastructure

“ Our customers are surprised by the speed and responsiveness of their applications. Cloud Carib now has the ability to host any demanding application a customer wants to run.”

STELIOS XEROUDAKIS FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR CLOUD CARIB

In-Kernel Architecture Delivers Greater Efficiency

Ensure a Seamless Path to Private and Public Clouds

Storage VM(Per Server)

vSphere

VM VM

vSphere & vSAN

VMVM

Storage VM consumes resources

Data paths are inefficient

Management must be bolted on

2x CPU and 3x memory efficiency

Native vMotion and DRS

Simple, single management pane

Figure 5. Comparison of storage efficiency between traditional and hyper-converged architecture

Figure 6. Illustration of the VMware foundation for multi-cloud environments

vSphere

VMware Cloud Foundation

Private cloud Public cloud

vSAN NSX

APPAPP

APPAPP

APP

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

When Is the Best Time to Deploy HCI?Many IT organizations start looking at HCI when they need to make a change in their environment, such as refreshing servers or refreshing, expanding, or upgrading storage.

Deploying VMware vSphere for the first time is another common trigger. Projects that need modern infrastructure provide a great opportunity to investigate.

Understanding the use cases for HCI can help you build a strong business case around it. Here are some of the most common ways organizations are using HCI:

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of HCI Traditional infrastructure comes with a high price tag, but moving to HCI provides reductions across the board. It’s important to know that the cost composition changes over a 3- to 5-year period. OpEx costs tend to grow larger than CapEx over a period of years, so you’ll want to look at the broad view.

HARD SAVINGS

CapEx Cost type Discussion

Hardware New systems costs

With HCI, you can use industry standard x86 hardware—resulting a big reduction in overall cost.

Storage costs HCI causes storage costs to plummet, both in terms of capacity ($/GB) and performance ($/IOPS). Data efficiency features like deduplication and compression reduce storage hardware costs even further.

Overbuying HCI offers a grow-as-you-go model, eliminating the cost of overbuying upfront with traditional infrastructure. Furthermore, the excess capacity from overbuying with traditional infrastructure also incurs additional costs from more rack space, power, and cooling.

Software Licensing Pay as low as $0 in software licensing fees for some HCI solutions. vSAN is included in Horizon Advanced and Enterprise Suite, so there’s no additional cost for licensing.

ROBOTest/Dev

DisasterRecovery

Business-CriticalApps

Virtual DesktopInfrastructure

StagingDMZ

ManagementClusters

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

OpEx Cost type Discussion

Services Installation and configuration services

Use existing interfaces and skill sets to deploy HCI, with some solutions requiring zero installation due to native architecture.

Migration and integration

HCI solutions with native architecture minimize the cost of migrating from or integrating with existing IT infrastructure.

Support Maintenance fees

Eliminate separate server, storage, and networking equipment support costs to lower maintenance fees.

Support calls Reduce infrastructure-related support calls/tickets due to less complexity.

Infrastructure consolidation

Power and cooling

HCI’s compact and efficient form factor provides power savings.

Real estate/Floor space

HCI provides space savings due to its smaller footprint.

Hard costs aren’t the only things eating away at your budget. There are also more subtle expenses that add up over time—expenses that can easily be overlooked, yet make a big difference in the total cost of ownership.

SOFT SAVINGS

IT Efficiency Discussion

VM administration HCI accelerates responsiveness by providing faster, more efficient planning, deployment, and streamlined day-to-day operations. Enjoy single-pane-of-glass management and single-vendor support that enables IT to be more efficient.

Available time Auto-provisioning, automated performance monitoring, and capacity optimization free up IT to focus on differentiation.

User Productivity

Less downtime VMware-powered HCI provides 5-nines availability and non-disruptive upgrades. Faster time to deployment and the more agile infrastructure of HCI mean less downtime—saving organizations up to $7,900/minute on unplanned downtime.2

Time to Value

Opportunity cost With HCI, refresh is ongoing, making it possible to use newer and faster technologies as they become available.

REAL-WORLD RESULTS

VMware vSAN customers are realizing significant savings from their HCI solutions—and that number is expected to grow as they increase their use of vSAN and migrate additional workloads to the systems. An IDC survey3 of vSAN customers showed that they experienced:

• 32% reduction in CapEx costs compared to their previous hardware solution

• 23% reduction in IT staff time spent on managing storage

• 12% reduction in cost of data center/facility space

• 10.4% reduction in total cost to power and cool the solutions

• 5% reduction in the number of full-time employees required to manage resources

2 Data Center Knowledge, Study: Data Center Downtime Costs $7,900 Per Minute, 2013

3 IDC White Paper, sponsored by VMware, Reviewing the Current State of Hyperconvergence and Real-World Benefits of VMware vSAN Deployments, July 2016

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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR HYPER-CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE (HCI)

How to Get Started Getting started with vSAN isn’t as complicated as it seems. You’ll need to:

• Get management buy-in all the way. Eliminate politics between different silos, so you can actively collaborate with others on virtualization, cloud, and SDDC teams. Work together to develop policies, apply automation, and find ways to further innovation.

• Trust but verify. Start with a Proof of Concept (POC). Use a small pilot project, or a specific use case, such as VDI refresh, to get a better idea of what works for you.

• Do your homework. Understand your existing environment and goals before you build a business case. Learn about the different automation tools and look for opportunities where you can add business value. You’ll also want to pick a market-leading vendor that can provide the support you need.

• Broaden your approach. To convince stakeholders across the company, you’ll need to shift from a vertical perspective to a broader knowledge of the entire data center and how it makes an impact on business priorities. As your role changes in response to a software-defined infrastructure, you’ll need to learn new things.

• Leverage practical tools. Take advantage of the vSAN assessment process, including the Virtual Infrastructure Planner (VIP) tool, and our online sizing and TCO calculator.

Conclusion Legacy infrastructures can no longer meet the growing demand for speed and agility. As a result, many organizations are under pressure to implement change—and the simple, modular architecture that HCI provides is exactly what they need.

For your IT organization to justify this move, it’s important to build a good business case, taking into account both the hard and soft cost benefits, and selecting the right HCI solution that meets your specific needs. The data from your cost-benefit analysis can help you build a business case for making hyper-converged the new standard for data center infrastructure purchases.

Why VMware-powered Hyper-Converged Infrastructure?VMware, the market leader in hyper-converged infrastructure, enables the lowest-cost and highest-performance next-generation HCI solutions. The natively integrated software from VMware combines radically simple vSAN storage, the market-leading vSphere hypervisor, and the vCenter Server unified management solution with the broadest and deepest set of HCI deployment choices.

Learn more about VMware-powered HCI >Try vSAN in a Hands-on Lab >

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