When implementing new IT infrastructure there are always risks. These risks include under-provisioning or over-provisioning, hardware incompatibility, software incompatibility, network issues and outages, migration issues, downtime, disaster recovery, vendor reliability, and unexpected costs. These risks can be inflated when ripping and replacing an entire infrastructure, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Hyperconverged infrastructure solutions like HC3 from Scale Computing can reduce or even eliminate risks that have become common with traditional virtualization infrastructure.

The term hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has become an industry buzzword that has been applied to a number of different new computing technologies. The misuse of the term has caused confusion for many IT professionals looking at HCI as an infrastructure solution. In this document we will shed some light on what HCI really means and why it might be the right IT solution for you.

Disaster recovery is a concept that asks the question, “How can an organization survive and respond to a wide variety of threats ranging from small hiccups to catastrophic destruction?” The threats to ongoing operations range from human error to malicious attacks to natural disasters. Organizations need to prepare in ways that involve both human and technological response. Technology is an important part of any organization. At Scale Computing, we recognize that in today’s 24/7 marketplace, IT infrastructure must be both resilient and highly available to keep organizations operational.

In our HC3 architecture, keeping in mind our typical simplicity and ease of use, we have built-in a number of disaster recovery capabilities. These allow our users to recover quickly from a variety of disasters that may affect anywhere from a single file to an entire site. Disaster recovery is often planned for and measured in terms of recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO). HC3 provides features to achieve both RPO and RTO measured in minutes to minimize both downtime and data loss.

When considering a new IT infrastructure solution, the acquisition cost of the hardware and software to standup the infrastructure is only the starting point for cost analysis. It is important to look into the operational costs of deployment, training, licensing, scale out, downtime, and management. All of these considerations contribute to the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the solution.

This document will dive into the TCO of the Scale Computing HC3 infrastructure solution and discuss how it compares to traditional architecture models. The combined considerations of different areas of costs will give a broader and more complete picture of how HC3 affects IT costs. With a focus on serving small and midmarket IT, Scale Computing is committed to making virtualization infrastructure both accessible and affordable for any size organization.

Scale Computing’s award winning HC3 solution has long been a leader in the hyperconverged infrastructure space. Now targeting even higher performing workloads, Scale Computing is announcing HyperCore-Direct, the first hyperconverged solution to provide software defined block storage utilizing NVMe over fabrics at near bare-metal performance. In this whitepaper, we will showcase the performance of a Scale HyperCore-Direct cluster which has been equipped with Intel P3700 NVMe drives, as well as a single-node HyperCore-Direct system with Intel Optane P4800X NVMe drives. Various workloads have been tested using off-the-shelf Linux and Windows virtual machine instances. The results show that HyperCore-Direct’s new NVMe optimized version of SCRIBE, the same software-defined- storage powering every HC3 cluster in production today, is able to offer the lowest latency per IO delivered to virtual machines.

This document is intended to describe the technology, concepts and operating theory behind the Scale Computing HC3 System (Hyper-converged Compute Cluster) and the HyperCore OS that powers it, including the SCRIBE (Scale Computing Reliable Independent Block Engine) storage layer.

The security of your information and data is paramount to Scale Computing. In order to be agile in the ever-changing security landscape, all technology platforms must adapt quickly. Threat vectors from new avenues are emerging on a daily basis.

Our culture has always been about having an exceptionally efficient and focused engineering team. A tight-knit, highly skilled team of engineers and developers cuts back on the red tape and delay that may be present in other organizations and keeps the focus on what matters in this ever-changing and always demanding landscape: innovation, stability, and security for the customer. In keeping with this culture, we have built the HC3 appliance using our own proprietary software in combination with common building blocks of well-tested open source technologies.

When Jake Snyder joined Salem State University’s IT department, the public university located just outside of Boston, Mass. was only using traditional PCs. “95% of the PCs were still on Windows 7 and there was no clear migration path in sight to Windows 10,” recalls Snyder. “Additionally, all updates to these aging desktop computers were being done locally in the university’s computer labs. Management was difficult and time consuming.”

The university realized something had to change, and that was one of the reasons why they brought Snyder on board – to upgrade its end-user computing environment to VDI. Salem State was looking for the security and manageability that a VDI solution could provide. “One of the biggest challenges that the university had been experiencing was managing desktop imaging and applications,” said Snyder. “They wanted to be able to keep their student, faculty and staff end-points up to date and secure, while at the same time easing the troubleshooting process. They weren’t able to do any of this with their current set-up.”

Snyder first saw a demo of the IGEL solution at the final BriForum event in Boston in 2016. “It was great to see IGEL at that event as I had heard a lot of good buzz around their products and solutions, especially from other colleagues in the industry,” said Snyder. “After BriForum, I went back and ordered some evaluation units to test out within our EUC environment.”

What Snyder quickly discovered during the evaluation period was that the IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS) was not just plug-and-play, like he had expected. “The IGEL UMS was a very customizable solution, and I liked the robust interface,” continued Snyder. “Despite competitive solutions, it was clear from the start that the IGEL devices were going to be easier to use and cheaper in the long run. IGEL really was a ‘no-brainer’ when you consider the management capabilities and five-year warranty they offer on their hardware.”

Salem State University currently has 400 IGEL Universal Desktop software-defined thin clients deployed on its campus including 360 UD3 thin clients, which are the workhorse of the IGEL portfolio, and 40 UD6 thin clients, which support high-end graphics capabilities for multimedia users. Salem State has also purchased IGEL UD Pocket micro thin clients which they are now testing.

As IT professionals and leaders in lines of business make technology decisions, they must thoughtfully balance those decisions against competing needs. This is especially true when it comes to weighing data center technology resources against allocation of IT resources for the operational parts of the business. It’s also imperative for organizations to move away from managing resources and IT engineering skills – including data centers and remote offices – in silos. This white paper explores how emerging data center technology – particularly purpose-built hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI) – can help address these challenges while driving additional benefits across the enterprise.