Cisco announced this week, new capabilities for its HyperFlex Systems portfolio and revealed validated test results that demonstrate unmatched application performance for its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).
Cisco’s approach integrates the Cisco HX Data Platform, a distributed file system built specifically for HCI clusters, with low-latency UCS fabric and deep network policy engineering to deliver IO consistency and breakthrough performance.
HyperFlex is a completely engineered solution with integrated network, compute and storage that provides operational simplicity, a better user experience, and more efficient scaling options.
(Based on Cisco UCS technology, Cisco HyperFlex™ Systems represent the next generation in hyperconverged infrastructure with a leap in technology that delivers the industry’s first complete end-to-end hyperconverged solution. Courtesy of Cisco and YouTube)
The simplicity of hyperconverged infrastructure has made it one of the fastest growing technology areas.
Yet first-generation HCI solutions use software running on conventional servers and lack cluster networking integration, which limits application performance and makes solutions extremely complex to deploy, troubleshoot and maintain.
These disjointed overlay approaches are further compounded by the use of latency-inducing software wrappers around legacy, open-source files systems.
As a result, while these legacy HCI offerings have been suited for light isolated workloads, they have limited customers’ ability to efficiently expand hyperconvergence to latency-sensitive and business critical applications.
Purpose-Built, Ground-up Innovation for Hyperconverged Infrastructure
The latest release of HyperFlex delivers high performance component options, intuitive management enhancements, and new enterprise data protection and security features, including:
- High-capacity all-flash nodes and support for 40 Gbps UCS fabric networking to expand customer options for extreme application performance.
- New intuitive platform management with HyperFlex Connect, featuring dynamic system analytics and a standalone HTML5 interface for the management and orchestration of HyperFlex clusters from any device.
- Enterprise-grade data management, protection and security for the most sensitive workloads, with the introduction of a native replication feature to protect applications and new data-at-rest security options using self-encrypting drives.
- Hybrid cloud mobility with the integration of Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite’s (ECS) CloudCenter for private and public cloud elasticity
- Self-service catalogs with metering and workload automation through the recent release of ECS UCS Director integrations that provide customers with IaaS orchestration for private and hybrid services
“In less than a year, more than 1,100 customers have embraced HyperFlex to simplify and transform their data center operations,” said Liz Centoni, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Computing Systems Product Group.
“We purpose-built HX Data Platform, our distributed file system for HCI, to deliver the high performance and consistently low latency needed to allow customers to expand from initial use-cases like VDI to a much broader range of business critical apps.”
Industry-best HCI Performance
HyperFlex has raised the industry bar by delivering the performance required to extend HCI far beyond VDI and server virtualization to more demanding, data intensive workloads.
Lab testing conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) compared Cisco HyperFlex with three other solutions using an industry standard benchmark for application performance on HCI.
Highlights include:
- HyperFlex supports up to three times higher VM density
- Lowest VM read/write latencies
- Seven times reduction in IOPS variability compared to other solutions
“ESG Lab validated that Cisco HyperFlex hybrid and all-flash systems delivered higher, more consistent performance than other similarly configured HCI solutions using simulated OLTP and SQL workloads,” said Tony Palmer, Sr. ESG Lab Analyst and co-author of the ESG Lab HCI Report.
“For hybrid clusters, HyperFlex not only consistently outpaced competitors in terms of IOPS and latency, it supported more than twice the number of VMs than both software-based and engineered proprietary systems while maintaining high performance.”
Cisco ASAP Data Center
Cisco HyperFlex is a key part of Cisco’s ASAP data center strategy to help enable digital transformation. ASAP— which stands for Analyze, Simplify, Automate, and Protect.
(Dhritiman Dasgupta, VP of Data Center Marketing, explains the ASAP data center strategy and how to deliver it to a customer in 2 minutes. ASAP (Analyze, Simplify, Automate, Protect) is a simple way to explain to customers Cisco’s vision for the data center and how, specifically, Cisco can help customers get there. Courtesy of NextNet Partners and YouTube)
This architectural approach enables organizations to modernize their data center and IT infrastructure with a hybrid IT solution that maximizes application performance, mitigates risk, and increases operational agility in support of digital transformation.
Cisco’s comprehensive data center portfolio underscores its commitment to innovation with award-winning products such as: Cisco Nexus ® 9000 switches, Cisco ACI™, Cisco CloudCenter, Tetration Analytics, Cisco UCS®, and HyperFlex.
