2020-05-20T08:49:00Z

Cloud vs HCI: Pros and Cons

Hi dear community members,

What are the benefits of using cloud versus hyper-converged infrastructure

What should enterprises take into account when choosing between these storage options?

Rony_Sklar - PeerSpot reviewer
Community Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
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PeerSpot user
8 Answers
CE
Technology Manager at Grupo Net S.A.
Consultant
2020-05-26T13:07:37Z
May 26, 2020

I think that the key points to consider are: security, performance, and CAPEX vs OPEX
Security: Having HCI on-premise allows you to keep your current security policies. For some customers having sensitive data on the cloud is not even an option due to their policies. If you go to the cloud you must remember that you are responsible for the security of your data, not the cloud service provider and new policy schemes may be needed.
Performance: You have to evaluate if the cloud provide the bandwidth, throughput, and availability that your operation requires vs. on-premise.
CAPEX vs OPEX: Even though there are some schemes that allow you to have HCI on-premise as EaaS (Everything as a Service like HPE GreenLake) most of the customers own their HCI infrastructure so depending on your expenditure convenience you will favor one or the other.

Search for a product comparison in HCI
DP
Infrastrucutre Solutions Architect-Hybrid IT at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
User
2020-05-27T08:29:00Z
May 27, 2020

Cloud v HCI
In essence, Cloud 1st Strategy or whether to use Hyperconvergence Solutions does depend on the Customer Business Drivers moving forwards to the future, and then more importantly, analysis of the Applications, Data, and the Dependencies, so we can truly analyse :-

1. What Apps and Data can move to the Cloud – Including a true Analysis of Security and Data Sovereignty
2. What percentage of the Infrastructure needs to be On-Premise, across Multiple Sites, incorporating Disaster Recovery and Business Continuance
* There will be Data that is NOT suitable for Cloud Transition

So, for Apps and Data that conform to a NON-Cloud Strategy, I;e, they run On-Premise/Multi-Site/COLO, platforms such as HCI really make their mark around :-

1. Consolidation of footprint – Power/Cooling/Networking and Compute/Networking/Storage into a Node format which forms part of the HCI Cluster. Nodes can be added and scaled to grow the Cluster to keep pace with the Customer Business Needs. This is the case of SimpliVity, where INTEL XEON or AMD CPU Options/Nodes are deployed, a Cluster is formed to provide the HCI element, and the Cluster is built from the SimpliVity Nodes, and scaled to add on-demand growth
2. dHCI Technology takes this further by allowing Industry Leading commodity Servers to be used for the Compute Element, Networking products from the HPE Aruba/Mellanox/Cisco vendors to form the iSCSI element of the build, and finally high performance Storage, such as the HPE Nimble AF/HF Platforms to offer the Storage Tier.
* This type of HCI, allows the Customer to independently scale Compute to meet business needs, or even, scale the Storage without having to increase or change Compute. dHCI offers true Flexibility/Agility/Scalability

Finally, HCI Platforms such as the dHCI Technologies, have integration into HPE Cloud Volumes/AWS/Azure, so we can truly leverage Apps and Data requirements across On-Premise and Cloud

Hope this all helps.

CB
Senior Data Center Solutions Architect at ChaanBeard.com
Reseller
Top 20Leaderboard
2020-05-26T14:17:19Z
May 26, 2020

There are several benefits of both Cloud and HCI that can be leveraged to the advantage of the feature rich HCI stack user hybrid style. The first is that many applications have not been designed for the cloud and require an on premise stack that can save data in the cloud and offer the same simplicity as cloud operations. If you select an HCI vendor that supports all of the Hypervisors and all of the clouds you can make your applications leverage each technology to your best advantage and lower OPEX costs by up to 60% without rewriting your applications to be cloud friendly. You can also simplify the entire stack and enjoy 5 microsecond latency and not make storage API calls that leave the kernel and introduce even more latency while they access storage from SAN and NAS devices. You can also serve up applications using FRAME technology with this stack that allows you to deploy solutions for remote workers in minutes that are fully secure. AOS offers full encryption and FIPS level 140-2 and better security built into the HCI stack right out the box, no need to go bolting on complex Frankenstein solutions like NSX that require several residents with deep knowledge of 8 different VMware stacks to operate the whole enchilada which increases your OPEX costs dramatically. AOS based HCI eliminates separate SAN, NAS and Object store silo's, it also eliminates system security and server with virtualization silo's and condenses them into one stack, so simple 8 year old children can administer it in a few mouse clicks. Mature HCI based also offers BC/DR benefits that will allow you to use the cloud for what the cloud os good at, BC/DR. Mature HCI vendors also offer their entire HCI stack for AWS and Azure so that you can drag Virtual machines from on prem to the cloud seamlessly. The San Jose based HCI vendor that does this is 4 years ahead of its competition (Dell-EMC) who only work with one Hypervisor while they work with any Hypervisor and all the cloud stacks concurrently. Nutanix Acropolis Operating System is the wave of the future and it runs on any hardware on their HCL from any server vendor. The HCL list is long. It is also a cluster based architecture that can be expanded one node at a time and they have GPU nodes as well. Nutanix Software Defined Valhalla is here today, so advanced everyone will think you are with the gods!!

TW
Solutions Architect/Team Lead - Business Data and Data Protection at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
2020-05-26T13:13:43Z
May 26, 2020

HCI is on-prem, so it's simpler and easier to manage and integrate with applications and your network. Something like a Nutanix can give you a lot of functionality of the cloud without having to deal with the massive headache that is designing your network and applications to be able to utilize the cloud effectively (for Infrastructure). SaaS is a fantastic use of the cloud, but infrastructure-as-a-service hasn't matured in process or manageability yet to justify. It will always cost more to be in the cloud, and it will always be more difficult to get to it.

The cloud is amazing if you use it right.

JT
Product Manager / Business Strategist at Eaton Corporation
User
2020-05-27T16:32:57Z
May 27, 2020

HCI is on prem and requires support to keep it running. There are times when there may be an power outage where it may be difficult to the get HCI up and running again after a crash. HCI is costly, some 3 node clusters nearing $100k, but HCI is also available below $50k. Cloud is pay as you go, and cloud can grow with the end users requirements. However, over time, the cloud (opex) may exceed the cost of the HCI (capex). The other issue is on-prem (HCI) should have better performance as it is in-house and the end user is in total control of the security,

LR
Business Development Manager and Solutions Sales for Infrastructure & Cloud at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
MSP
2020-05-27T16:03:36Z
May 27, 2020

The main benefit is about the elastic and fast deployment of the cloud vs the time with purchase and deliver of HW for HCI.

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RC
Product Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
MSP
2020-05-27T13:56:18Z
May 27, 2020

Why Cloud vs HCI?
The best option for Cloud is a hybrid Cloud and the best option (on premises or cloud) for performance, resilience and so on is HCI.
If the demand analysis points to Cloud: It should be addressed whit Cloud. Otherwise, if the demand analysis points to HCI: It should be addressed whit HCI.

AH
Pre-sales Consultant at Beta Information Technology
Real User
2020-05-27T10:55:32Z
May 27, 2020

I think there is no one answer for this question
You may go both HCI and cloud together because it depends on the services you want to utilise
Sometimes the cloud is more expensive than HCI like if you want to design a 10 server each one with minimum of 128 go memory and 12 or more core it will cost you a lot in the cloud As Capex or Opex
But for like high transaction web services it will cost you less specially the cost of internet and high availability you will consider for this web site

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Hello community,  I am currently researching Hyper-Converged solutions. Which solution performs better: Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure or VMware vSAN? Which solution do you prefer and why? Thank you for your help.
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In the early days, Nutanix had the better solution, by now especially when you use a vSphere hypervisor I would go with vSAN for better integration and with ReadyNodes no complex config anymore. Also, I had several customers who complained that Nutanix got very expensive on the first renewal vs. massive initial discounts, however, I can't judge if that is true.
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Both can get you the performance you might want, however, you should also consider what else you get with the solution. For Nutanix, you're stuck on Acropolis if you start with that. It would be best to run either VMware or Hyper-V on top of that so migration isn't a gym show, plus the renewal cost will be very high. vSAN is a fine option, just ensure it is designed well with enough nodes to tolerate any amount of disk failure. Both options have their unique value but the most important thing is the data. You'll need data protection solutions like Veeam, Nakivo, or Zerto.  For an all-in-one high-performance solution with built-in data protection consider HPE SimpliVity with VMware. You'll also likely buy fewer nodes than the others with SimpliVity.
SV
Principal Engineer at QNAP Systems, Inc.
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Hello community,  I am a Principal Engineer at a large tech company. I am currently researching HCI tools. Which tool performs better: Nutanix HCI or VMware VxRail? Which tool has better scalability? Thank you for your help.
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Farhan Parkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Consultant (Presales) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Jan 16, 2023
Hi Suresh, In order to answer your question it is better to understand your requirement. Nutanix HCI supports all major hardware vendors, and hypervisors like VMware, Hyper-V, and native Nutanix AHV) and has award-winning post-sales support. Now VxRail is a Dell product offering based on PowerEdge servers running VMware only with VMware vSAN. It is limited to Dell hardware and a single hypervisor VMware. Moving forward as Vmware is no more part of Dell and has been part of Broadcom no one is sure what will be next. Other than that, there are key differentiators to make decisions and that's where Nutanix shines, you can DM me if you need one to one explanation. Farhan Parkar
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