Essential Guide

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Editor's note

In the race to digitally transform, satisfy the demands of hybrid and remote workforces, and gain a competitive edge, businesses are expanding their IT infrastructures, migrating to multi-cloud environments and adding layers of specialized, separately managed resources and workloads. All of which places a heavy burden on IT to manage and consolidate a fractured infrastructure comprised of data centers and assorted hardware, software, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS platforms.

As hyper-converged environments evolve into composable infrastructures to support virtual, physical and containerized workloads, CIOs have the flexibility to combine compute, data storage and networking into one framework on premises and in the cloud, while better controlling costs. Hyper-converged environments can be more flexible, manageable and scalable, without necessarily leaning on IT professionals for every technology decision.

This essential guide reports the latest as-a-service trends and developments in multi-cloud composable infrastructure and data storage. We also provide in-depth videos from hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) experts, who examine the many components of today's data center, weigh HCI's advantages and disadvantages, and recommend the right time to consolidate.

1Composable infrastructure reaches into the data center

Composable infrastructure's software-centric approach allows CIOs to build a programmable infrastructure that can quickly and easily scale on demand with a pay-as-you-go approach to simplify, automate and streamline IT operations. This flexible, consumption-based pricing, combined with the ability to burst into the cloud when demand spikes, can help IT leaders control usage costs and optimize performance, while retaining strict security, compliance and access control.

2As-a-service consumption-based infrastructures ease data storage demands

Composable infrastructure provides value to companies that must accommodate the computing and storage demands of big data analytics, AI and machine learning. As-a-service consumption-based offerings allow enterprises to lease storage the same way they buy other cloud services from a managed service provider, multi-cloud service provider or storage vendor.

3Understanding HCI, composable infrastructures and when the time is right

As data centers evolve into composable architectures, IT leaders need to understand the pros and cons of hyper-converged infrastructures. With the ability to operate as one framework on premises and in the cloud, composable infrastructures are more flexible, manageable and scalable. Data center experts discuss the advantages, disadvantages and when it's the right time to pursue an HCI pay-as-you-grow strategy.