Tag: HX

HyperFlex Edge

On By MikeIn Data Center, Evolving TechnologiesLeave a comment


What is HyperFlex Edge? 

HyperFlex Edge is a 1U form factor of Cisco hyperconvered solution designed for the branch office. It offers all-flash storage and NVMe cache, support for containers on VMware and bare metal. HyperFlex Edge makes for an easy deployment of core services like DNS and DHCP at the branch or remote office.

Cisco HyperFlex HXAF-E-220M5SX Edge Node

What are some advantages of HyperFlex Edge? 

Simplicity of the HyperFlex solution cannot be overlooked. From rack to install of a 3-node cluster takes roughly two hours. 

The most interesting part of HyperFlex Edge is that the solution leverages your current branch infrastructure. It operates using existing top of rack switching at the branch office with single or dual uplink options.

Uplink options are currently 1GbE or 10GbE

Single Switch Configuration

Operation and Administration

HyperFlex Edge is deployed in a 2, 3, or 4-node cluster and configured with a replication factor of 2 (RF2). Simply put, a full node can fail and the cluster is still operational. It can scale up to 64 nodes in the current release.

Managing the infrastructure is done through Cisco Intersight where you can manage every HyperFlex cluster through one pane of glass. Intersight supports UCS blades and servers to allow for central management of your blade, server and hyperconverged infrastructure.

I hope that this has been helpful.

You can visit my previous post on Cisco HX to get an overview of Cisco’s HCI offering.

Mike

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Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) | Cisco HX

On By MikeIn Data Center, Evolving TechnologiesLeave a comment

IT is constantly being asked to deliver value on infrastructure, reduce operational cost, and meet application demand all with a constrained budget. Legacy infrastructure doesn’t keep pace with the agile operations of development teams or their applications. The threat of the infrastructure shifting to a pure Cloud model is on every CXO mind.

It’s time for a new infrastructure, one that doesn’t require a large upfront capital expense, avoids vendor lock-in and keeps pace with modern business. This is what Hyperconverged infrastructure solves.

So what is Hyperconverged infrastructure?

Hyperconverged infrastructure integrates storage, compute, storage networking and virtualization into one solution while providing a single point of management and the flexibility to scale on-demand. It aims to replace expensive legacy datacenter infrastructure.

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Cisco HyperFlex Solution

Cisco HyperFlex is a complete HCI solution. HX leverages intelligent software to combine datacenter hardware using locally attached storage (SSDs or HDD). Each server also known as a node is powered by an Intel-x86 chip. The HX software runs on each node and “clusters” operating resources to enable a distributed architecture.

A small virtual machine known as the data platform controller sits and runs on every node in the cluster. The CDP is responsible for unifying the data plane and the management plane for the cluster. The CDP is key to the distributed architecture mentioned above.

Several HX hardware platforms are available for varying workloads.

You can get a list of them here HX-Series

Why do I care?

  1. Cost

The adoption of Cloud computing has accelerated innovation. The 3-5 year guess work and cost that goes into infrastructure sizing is no longer a thing. We simple innovate too fast. Reduce your upfront cost and guess work by investing in HX, replace legacy infrastructure and keep pace with innovation.

  1. Scalability

Avoid the fork-lift approach, adopt the lift-n-shift approach. Future planning with HX will allow you to transition to a hybrid-cloud infrastructure when the time is right. You will be thanking yourself later. This avoids the fork-lift approach associated with legacy infrastructure when you need to expand storage or replace it all together.

In summary, if you are not adopting a pure Cloud infrastructure you need to be adopting HCI to close the gap between traditional networks and the Cloud. As a biproduct, you will reduce cost, keep pace with innovation, and meet the demands of modern business.

Mike