Cloud Platforms With On-demand Hyperconverged Infrastructure
Hybrid IT, Colocation, Marketplace in Data Centers
Cyxtera’s On-Demand Data Center at Work recently showcased how to build cloud infrastructure with on-demand HCI featuring Nutanix.
Marcel Messing, Cloud Architect at Nutanix and Jim Lipps, VP Sales Engineering, DCS at Cyxtera provided insight into how to quickly and cost-effectively deploy private enterprise and service provider cloud platforms with hyperconverged infrastructure. Read the summary below or watch the recording.
Baseline: What is hyperconverged infrastructure from Nutanix
The goal of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is to reduce complexity. IT infrastructure from the last 10-15 years traditionally followed a three-tier architecture – compute, network, and storage. Each of the three areas was managed and scaled somewhat independently of the others. HCI has changed all that. With HCI standard server hardware can be used with a new software layer that virtualizes the hardware allowing easy, linear scaling of all components. HCI market leader, Nutanix, has created a system that reduces complexity by providing the software and an appliance hardware model. The result is a virtualization platform for your IT infrastructure where scaling is no longer painful, and silos are reduced. You can start small and scale with your changing business requirements.
Beyond virtualization, Nutanix helps to make your IT organization more agile, by providing the ability to scale up capacity without major step change upgrades like adding a new storage controller when all disk ports are filled on the current controller. With Nutanix HCI the controller is virtualized, so as you add additional nodes to handle growing capacity needs, you get the compute, storage, and storage network resources in a simple appliance.
HCI in the On-Demand Data Center
Cyxtera chose Nutanix as its HCI launch partner, of our new on-demand data center platform, the Cyxtera Extensible Data Center (CXD). CXD fundamentally changes how we provision into colocation. Moving from a physical rack-n-stack with screwdrivers and cabling crimpers, to point-n-click provisioning through APIs or web console. CXD is a massively scalable software power data center platform that gives us the ability to change the way we provision by eliminating manual steps and instead automating those for customers. Nutanix technology powers Cyxtera’s CXD Compute Nodes. Compute Nodes provide Nutanix HCI in a cloud-like on-demand consumption model. For a traditional colocation customer to get a network and IT infrastructure up and running is typically three to six months. With CXD, deployment of the core network, top of rack switches, and dedicated compute and storage infrastructure has been reduced to as little as a business day.
Connectivity
- Reduce complexity
- Respond quickly to changes in demand
- Reduce IT cost and trips to the data center
Compute
- Speeds time to market for new workloads by 90%
- Retain full control of your collocated infrastructure
- Lowers dedicated IT infrastructure cost 25-50%
Some of the key benefits that you get with the on-demand data center, powered by Nutanix, is the cloud-like speed and flexibility that simplifies provisioning and management. This can reduce the design to deployment timeline by 90%. The on-demand model also eliminates the need to “design to peak”, allowing you to scale up just ahead of demand. This alone can reduce IT infrastructure costs by 25-50%.
Use Cases: Private Cloud Deployments with On-Demand HCI
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of Cyxtera’s on-demand data center and explore three real world customer case studies utilizing the CXD platform and CXD Compute Nodes to build cloud infrastructure to support ERP, a managed services business, and a security as a service solution, check out the replay of our recent webinar, Build Cloud Infrastructure with On-demand HCI.
The next webinar in this three part series focuses on on-demand connectivity. Register for the September webinar now.
Views and opinions expressed in our blog posts are those of the employees who made them and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Company. A reader should not unduly rely on any statements made therein.
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