Issue link: https://insights.oneneck.com/i/1450344
CHAPTER 2 Defining and Extending Hyperconverged Infrastructure 15 These materials are © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Delineating hardware and software in HCI "HCI is software!" "HCI is hardware!" You'll hear arguments from both sides on this topic. The answer is: It's both. HCI is hardware, but it's also software and this is where the real magic happens. The underlying hardware, although important, is interchangeable, as long as its general capabilities can support whatever workloads you intend to operate. Nutanix focuses on the software in next-generation HCI and makes it available across a broad ecosystem of supported hard- warefromvariousvendors.Nutanixalsoofferscompleteturnkey solutions (hardware and software) for organizations that want something they can simply rack, stack, and turn on. As vendors release new versions of their software and hardware, you can upgrade your next-generation HCI to leverage any new features that have been introduced. Implementing a fractional consumption model HCIeffectivelyeliminatestheneedforforkliftupgradesevery three to five years, in which you buy new storage and then migrate all your applications and data from your old storage to yournewstorage.Forkliftupgradesarenotonlyexpensive,but also time-consuming and risk-laden. FIGURE 2-1: Linear scale-out in Nutanix next-generation HCI.