Upgrade Outdated hardware Infrastructure with Hyper Converged Appliance (HCA)?

This pow will describe some thoughts on today's modern hardware and software and we'll look at a possibility to Upgrade Outdated hardware Infrastructure with Hyper-Converged Appliance (HCA). When your aging hardware starts causing security problems because not able to run the latest software with all necessary security patches, it's time to look at what ways you have to upgrade the existing hardware. We'll talk about upgrading of hardware for virtualization, hardware for VMware vSphere or Hyper-V (even if Free Hyper-V future development is kind of … frozen).

Imagine you're running vSphere 6.x with the support coming to the end in near future. The end of support for VMware vSphere 6.0 was March 12 2020. For vSphere 6.5 will end on October 15, 2022. After that, if your hardware isn't supported on vSphere 6.7, you're left with a dilemma whether to run your production data on unsupported hardware or plan ahead for your upgrade.

You know that hyperconverged (HCI) infrastructure has some advantages over traditional ones, with shared storage. Of course, HCI uses less hardware by design, but when replacing servers, you'll often also replace some old technologies. New servers usually don't use rotating media but SSD drives or NVMe Flash devices.

While HCI isn't something really new, the move from traditional to HCI is still taking place and for some infrastructures, it's still the traditional way the preferred. HCI, on the other hand, can take advantage of faster and more efficient servers, storage, and memory platforms to deliver more with less, for cheaper. Simply because not buying hardware gets you big savings, after all.

If you can design a cluster without a shared storage device, then the shared device's price is not something you should be interested in. Instead, just fully populate the internal disks of your new servers and build the shared storage by using those internal disks. Software-defined Storage (SDS) they call it.

And pushing this even further, why would you try to build something when you can get your cluster fully configured for the latest VMware Hypervisor, without paying for VMware vSAN License? (Yes, I know some customers prefer to stay full VMware and do so, but those who do not, know that there is another choice).

One of the choices for upgrades of infrastructure with Hyper-Converged Appliance (HCA) hardware is StarWind All-Flash HCA Appliances. The readers of our blog know that StarWind not only builds some great software, but they also provide HCI appliances so you have the hardware, pre-installed and pre-configured software, and… and… and enterprise support. All in one bundle.

Check further details at StarWind . They can help you for FREE with your migration as well. You'll find Dell, IntelOptane, Mellanox, and Nvidia hardware under the hood of StarWind HCA. Depending on your configuration and your needs, you can pick either node that needs more storage or more CPU power. All this is backed up by StarWind VSAN which offers shared storage for the VMs.

I wrote about StarWind VSAN technology many times here on the blog:

• StarWind VSAN on 3 ESXi Nodes detailed setup
• VMware vSphere and HyperConverged 2-Node Scenario from StarWind – Step By Step(Opens in a new browser tab)
• StarWind HyperConverged Appliance for Video and Surveillance
• StarWind SAN VSAN can be Two-way or Three-way setup
• StarWind HCAs Now with Intel Optane
• StarWind VSAN 2-Nodes Direct Connect Networking Setup Tips
• VMware ESXi Free and StarWind – Two node setup for remote offices

What's interesting is that All-Flash infrastructure is also more efficient, CPU is less used and more reliable. (Do you still remember the rebuild times on RAID5 HDD spinning media?).

Compared to 10K and 15K SAS drives, SSDs offer more capacity, better performance, and higher endurance while being cost-efficient.

There are no moving parts in SSDs, which means lower risk of failure in vibration and high-shock environments or extreme temperatures. Their form also saves a vast amount of drive bays previously populated by HDDs, which leads to flexible scalability. All that goodness will now come at a price no different than before.

StarWind will be your single point of support with strict (one-hour or less) SLAs round-the-clock. Your environment’s health will be monitored 24/7/365 by ProActive Premium Support, a StarWind Intelligent monitoring service, and a dedicated team of engineers to prevent any issues. All software and hardware upgrades are included over the life of the license.

Quote:

In order to take advantage of hyperconverged solutions successfully, you need to keep them up-to-date. The refresh cycles for hyperconverged systems are 3-5 years. This means that to keep your IT infrastructure updated, you have to upgrade the relevant hardware! However, mixing and matching different infrastructure components can prove to be quite a challenge. Daily responsibilities, budgetary constraints, lack of necessary knowledge and time can hinder successful and timely infrastructure upgrades. Nonetheless, there is a way out of those pains: StarWind All-Flash HyperConverged Appliance (HCA). The solution allows you to deploy a completely pre-configured infrastructure that has been fine-tuned to your personal requirements. One small two-node box to replace an array of your outdated hardware elements.

Source: StarWind HCA page

New update to StarWind Command Center

StarWind Command Center is centralized management for StarWind clusters. There is a new update released with some improvements. StarWind Command Center OS updated to Ubuntu 20.04 (the previous version was Ubuntu 16.04), Improved network configuration management, Improved VM console, Improved error processing.

New Features:

• Microsoft AD integration
• Role-Based access control
• Failover Cluster Roles monitoring and management
• Integration with Veeam Backup and Replication – Added Backup tab where you can manage and monitor backup jobs performed with Veeam Backup and Replication
• UI-Based update Wizard
• Added Migration from Existing Hyper-V server – You can now connect your existing Hyper-V server to StarWind Command Center in order to move VMs from it to StarWind HCI Appliance

Details here.

More posts about StarWind on ESX Virtualization:

• StarWind VTL allows fight ransomware by setting up Virtual Tape Library stored on Disk drive
• Fibre Channel StarWind VSAN Configuration Advantages
• How to configure automatic storage rescan in StarWind VSAN for VMware vSphere
• Free StarWind iSCSI accelerator download
• VMware vSphere and HyperConverged 2-Node Scenario from StarWind – Step By Step(Opens in a new browser tab)
• StarWind Storage Gateway for Wasabi Released
• How To Create NVMe-Of Target With StarWind VSAN
• Veeam 3-2-1 Backup Rule Now With Starwind VTL
• StarWind and Highly Available NFS
• StarWind VVOLS Support and details of integration with VMware vSphere
• StarWind VSAN on 3 ESXi Nodes detailed setup
• VMware VSAN Ready Nodes in StarWind HyperConverged Appliance

More posts from ESX Virtualization:

• VMware vCenter Converter Discontinued – what’s your options?
• How to upgrade VMware VCSA 7 Offline via patch ISO
• vSphere 7.0 U3C Released
• vSphere 7.0 Page [All details about vSphere and related products here]
• VMware vSphere 7.0 Announced – vCenter Server Details
• VMware vSphere 7.0 DRS Improvements – What's New
• How to Patch vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) – [Guide]
• What is The Difference between VMware vSphere, ESXi and vCenter
• How to Configure VMware High Availability (HA) Cluster

Stay tuned through RSS, and social media channels (Twitter, FB, YouTube)