To converge or not to converge?

Slightly Shakespearean, which is quite apt when you start to consider trying to modernise legacy IT and considering after 23yrs in IT, I am still talking infrastructure.

For the past decade, we have seen continual commentary on embracing converged or hyper-converged systems. We have been told that everything needs to enable your "journey to cloud" and help create this panacea we all seek.

• IT was previously built and procured to solve specific business issues, a very siloed approach which became unmanageable and added a lot of risk to business and scuppered growth.
• We saw the birth of virtualisation, combing compute across shared storage and enabling a new consolidated and semi-optimised approach to IT.
• The next evolutionary step was converged systems - multiple components built into a single, optimised compute solution to further optimise workloads.
• Hyper-converged systems take this concept of convergence to the next level.?Hyper-converged systems are modular systems designed to scale out by adding additional modules.?

The fundamental differences between the old siloed systems and a hyper-converged system are connectivity and software.

With continual advances, many still approach IT on a component / workload basis versus a platform for the business! The business needs a platform to operate efficiently and effectively, the underlying technology / brand to an extent is irrelevant (ouch! Did I really say that?)

A simple platform needs to;

1. Support the current business need
2. Provide a platform for growth
3. Is adaptable and flexible to change
4. Is supportable and manageable

This is where Hyper-Converged has huge benefits for businesses today.

Here’s the salesy car analogy part: Cars and technology advance so much in such a short space that there are new predictions that by 2030 you may not even own a car, as Transport-as-a-Service grows, the same can be seen now in IT with Infrastructure as a Service and Converged Systems.

An article on The Register recently stated; “The converged systems market is going through a period of change," he said. “We are seeing strong growth from products with new architectures, increased levels of automation, and heavy use of software-defined technologies. This growth has been offset by reduced spending on traditional converged systems and a conscious decision by some vendors to terminate some parts of their product portfolio.”

We continue to transition to doing more for less and doing more WITH less.

To Converge or Not to Converge depends on your business needs and future plans. I firmly believe that businesses need to embrace new technologies with further automation and hybrid-cloud-connectivity. This not only provides a consolidated platform with workload optimisation from Virtual Desktops (VDI) to Databases (MS SQL, Oracle) and Applications (SharePoint, Exchange) and importantly greater efficiencies for the business.

The converged-hybrid-cloud model is not just “big business”, from SMBs to Enterprise, Hyper-Converged and Hybrid Cloud Solutions can truly provide a more agile, simplified and optimised platform for your business!