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There are currently three primary architecture alternatives for application and desktop
virtualization, or EUC solutions broadly. The alternatives are build your own (BYO),
converged infrastructure (CI), and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).
Build Your Own
The BYO infrastructure alternative is really just what the title implies, the architect
or team independently chooses products that they like or feel are best of breed.
This alternative results in a significant increase in the upfront planning and research
period, as the team must evaluate each product separately and how they may or
may not work together.
This alternative also provides the ability to select and follow a reference architecture
that a vendor has published for the type of solution that is being built. These reference
architectures are typically published by a single vendor and focus on their product.
These DIY reference architectures can save time and reduce some risk, but they do
not always apply to your design requirements, use cases, and environment.
At minimum, a BYO alternative for an EUC-based design will contain compute and
storage resources. You may be able to use existing network connectivity, so it may
not be a component of this alternative. Figure 2 illustrates a simple example of the
parts of a BYO alternative. With flexibility in scaling, costs are fairly predictable; the
only exception would be on the storage side. Depending on the maximum size of
your design and the storage choice made, you may require multiple storage arrays
or appliances. As you scale the storage and need to add a new array or appliance,
the cost will spike at those points.
Infrastructure
Alternatives
