Talk:Hyper-converged infrastructure

But what is it?

There is a bunch of discussion promoting this term, but it is sill not clear what it is. Computer hardware product? Software? A way of selling? Sounds like converged infrastructure (already a buzzword) with hype added to it? W Nowicki (talk) 21:49, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

@W Nowicki: Two sentences from the article:

"The difference between converged and hyper-converged infrastructures is that the building blocks of each of the subsystems in converged infrastructures are discrete; the server is separate and used as a server, just as the storage subsystem is separate and used as functional storage."

"Hyperconvergence moves away from multiple discrete systems that are packaged together and evolve into software-defined intelligent environments that all run in commodity, off-the-shelf x86 rack servers."

Wikipedia articles can be useful to decode hype. Can you say what needs clarification here? Thanks. Paul Foxworthy (talk) 23:43, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we do want to decode the hype! It still is confusing. The lead says it is a neologism which is might be a new term for a concept that is not novel. Certainly IBM was shipping racks full of disks and computers with virtual machines and software to configure them, way back in the 1970s at least. Also might make it clear that it has nothing to do with real infrastructure but applies to business computer products, but does appear to be related to hyperbole. In the meanwhile I ran across articles like converged network adapter converged storage network convergence (seems very different). Sorting this out might take some time. Thanks for any help. W Nowicki (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

@W Nowicki: The word "infrastructure" in IT is used by analogy to physical infrastructure like highways. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but I think the point of this article should be to explain what the phrase means, rather than trying to correct people's language. So in IT the word is used for "the stuff that supports applications": servers, networks, network switches, storage, etc. Thus Infrastructure as a service.

To my mind, the point of Hyper-converged infrastructure is that you start with identical, generic, and therefore cheap, hardware. You use software to configure some of those things to provide storage, some to provide networking, and some to provide application servers. All of the above are virtualized so can be redeployed to different hardware. Software defined networking replaces dedicated hardware switches from Cisco and the like. Software is used instead of dedicated hardware SANs and RAID arrays.

A converged network adapter is still hardware and I think not relevant to this article. Network convergence is wide area network connections carrying voice and data, nothing to do with data centres and so again not greatly relevant to this article.

Perhaps I'm over simplifying, but I think Hyper-converged infrastructure = virtualization + converged storage + software defined networking. It seems to me hyper-converged infrastructure is similar to, perhaps synonymous with Software-defined data center. Anyone care to comment? This article might be useful: [1] Paul Foxworthy (talk) 11:29, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Paul, I think this (algebraically) captures the essence. If we can put this into language, I think this is the right formula. StorageJEDI (talk) 19:11, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Doesn't the "hyper" in hyper-converged also refer to the hypervisor in a VM, rather than hyperbole? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 17.214.195.16 (talk) 23:45, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't think it refers to a hypervisor. Hyperbole is in the eye of the beholder :-). Hyperconverged in the sense of "extremely converged", going beyond converged storage to include software-defined networking as well. Paul Foxworthy (talk) 04:35, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

The "hyper" in hyperconverged means that everything is converged at or above the level of the hypervisor. Hyper-converged means all hardware functions of a conventional IT infrastructure are implemented virtually under the common umbrella of the hypervisor and managed as virtual entities. Now...let's consider what we'd have if this were NOT true -- we'd have 'super-converged', 'ultra-converged', super-ultra-hyper-converged etc. If 'Hyper-converged' is a hyperbolic of 'Converged', then the word is nothing but jargon. StorageJEDI (talk) 19:36, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Agree with previous comments that this definition seems unclear and a little dated ... sourced from a 2014 definition that is awhile ago in the world of IT technology, especially things like HCI that have evolved a lot in the span of a few years. If I look at how analysts, press and vendors talk about it today, it seems like a better -- maybe not perfect but better -- definition would be something like:

"Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), also called a hyper-converged integrated system (HCIS), is an IT infrastructure solution of hardware and software that includes, at a minimum, compute with server virtualization, software-defined storage and management that runs on industry-standard x86 servers."

Any comments or feedback on that line? How we can help address previous edits and update this one with more of a current view? Another angle of course is the debate of whether HCI is a factory-integrated appliance (with SW and HW) or simply the software and hardware result of deploying together (whether purchased together or separately). Here are some more updated sources and definitions. Sfgiants32 (talk) 19:15, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

@Sfgiants32: I think the definition needs to include software defined networking as well. Compute + storage is converged storage, not "hyper" converged.2001:44B8:415D:FD00:C8C0:4EA0:8D26:ABD2 (talk) 08:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Sfgiants32: I like the proposed definition with the addition of SDN, but without the limitation of x86. IBM (for example) implements Hyperconverged infrastructure by running a virtual instance of GPFS on Power systems and that is very clearly HCI, but can run on either x86 or Power. I will plug this into the lead. StorageJEDI (talk) 15:17, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

A couple of days ago I looked at the lead (was not signed in) and found that the definition was based on one particular vendor's jargon . Then, I checked the source that was cited and found that the source did not support the statement. Under WP:BOLD I removed the stuff about 'natively converges' (what does 'natively' mean anyway?). I think the definition in the lead still needs work but the POV is more neutral now. StorageJEDI (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

References

Time to adopt Hyperconverged (no hypen)?

Hyperconverged is preferred by people searching google: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=hyperconverged,hyper-converged

Hyperconverged is used by industry leaders:

• Cisco — https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/hyperconverged-infrastructure/hyperflex-hx-series/index.html
• Dell EMC — https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/converged-infrastructure/hyper-converged-infrastructure.htm (The URL implies that they used to hyphenate, but the page text is all one word)
• VMware — https://www.vmware.com/products/hyper-converged-infrastructure.html (Like Dell EMC, the URL indicates that they used to hyphenate, but the page show they have changed)
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise — https://www.hpe.com/us/en/integrated-systems/hyper-converged.html (Another URL vs. page verbiage evolution)
• IBM — https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/power/hyperconverged
• Nutanix — https://www.nutanix.com/go/top-20-hyperconvergence-questions-answered

Grika Ⓣ 14:59, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

federated management -> federated identity management

I changed federated management -> federated identity management. Correct me if I'm wrong. Algotr (talk) 19:11, 8 May 2023 (UTC)