Why Migrating to Scale Computing's Virtualization Solution is the Smart Choice
Introduction
When it comes to virtualization technology, you have more options than you probably realize. With the number of options available, you can choose an IT infrastructure platform that offers a simplified, highly automated infrastructure that keeps your applications and organization running efficiently.
Many of today’s virtualization solutions are comprised of multiple vendor products—one for the hypervisor, servers, and storage hardware—making it more complicated and expensive than it needs to be. Configuring those disparate server and storage components just the right way wastes valuable time.
Then you have to install and configure the hypervisor and add time to test for compatibility and performance, further delaying deployment. To succeed, you need expertise in all those different platforms, some of which are so complicated that you’re expected to be certified in them.
Once you’ve got it all up and running, it can be hard to scale out when you need more resources, especially if you’re not able to add the exact same components. You may need to bring in more expertise and conduct more testing. Then you have the ongoing cost of licensing renewals, support, and maintenance for multiple pieces from multiple vendors, including different licenses for different features. Add disaster recovery—an additional piece of the puzzle that can add yet another vendor, requiring more expertise and further complicating matters. There goes more time and more money.
Whether you’re considering migrating from your existing virtualization platform or are virtualizing from scratch for the first time, there’s a better way to do it. Whether you are looking at a single location or implementing an edge computing platform across hundreds of sites, Scale Computing’s hyperconverged approach is the shortest path to affordable virtualization that’s easy to deploy, easy to manage, and easy to scale.
Scale Computing’s virtualization software and appliances are based on patented technologies designed from the ground up to minimize infrastructure complexity and cost. Scale Computing Platform has helped IT organizations across all industries deploy robust virtualization solutions.
This white paper explores the advantages SC//Platform offers over competing virtualization solutions, looks at potential migration options, and shows how Scale Computing is making a difference in organizations like yours.
The Advantages of SC//Platform
Scale Computing’s innovative virtualization platform is often delivered as a complete “data center in a box” with server, storage, and virtualization components, as well as disaster recovery capabilities, integrated into a single appliance. Backed by 22 patents, this unique virtualization solution offers dramatic IT and business advantages.
A super-simple platform
Right off the bat, SC//Platform’s integration of compute, storage, and hypervisor into a single architecture eliminates complexity. The solution requires no specialized storage, virtualization, or disaster recovery expertise, making it:
Right size, right price
Many HCI solutions on the market today don’t “scale down” well due to their high system overhead needs - but Scale Computing IT infrastructure can run efficiently on everything from small form factor, low-cost edge devices and scale up to high-performance NVMe, GPUs and ultra-fast networking based on your evolving needs. With powerful flexibility and scalability features, there’s no need to over-provision at the outset—or ever—which is a major source of cost savings over traditional cluster configurations. Its right-sized footprint means there’s no reason to “go big or go home.” You don’t even need data center space and cooling. And thanks to an innovative, lightweight platform, SC//Platform provides powerful virtualization at a fraction of the processing overhead of competing solutions. And don’t forget, you’ve already saved budget by eliminating the need for specialized skill sets for deployment, management, and maintenance.
What’s more, SC//Platform is a complete stack, including KVM hypervisor, tightly integrated software-defined storage and HyperCore™ management software, and it’s priced right for any size organization or implementation. It’s integrated to include everything you need for a strong and stable IT infrastructure platform, which means there are no additional third-party licensing costs or extra costs for extra hypervisor features. With SC//Platform, there’s no tax for every feature—including features you don’t even use—but instead, get a full solution at a reasonable up-front price. In fact, based on Scale Computing’s TCO calculator, most customers save around 40% over traditional virtualization solutions. The solution also saves time (and money) by eliminating virtualization license management and renewals.
KVM: Did You Know?
KVM-based alternatives are the fastest-growing sub-segment within hyperconverged infrastructure1. Even large enterprises are taking advantage of it. A few years ago, Apple famously canceled its Enterprise License Agreement with VMware to start using KVM as its hypervisor, anticipating cost savings of $20 million. Today, with an integrated KVM-based hypervisor, SC//Platform has five-star ratings on Spiceworks and Gartner Peer Insights, and is a top-rated HCI solution on TrustRadius.
Flexibility + scalability
SC//Platform is designed to accommodate a wide range of implementation needs, providing more flexibility than traditional cluster configurations—yet another way it can save you money. It offers mix-and-match flexibility to build and expand clusters with different nodes, or you can deploy a single-node configuration, such as for remote and branch offices, edge environments, and other use cases that used to be treated separately. SC//Platform allows you to address the need for very small infrastructure requirements at locations that support a few users and specialized systems. And, with your choice of processor, RAM, and an array of storage and networking options, you can dial in the right configuration for your workloads.
When it’s time to scale capacity or boost performance, it’s a seamless process with no additional licensing requirements. SC//Platform offers a scale-out architecture that easily expands with no downtime. That means there’s no need to provision for the future now, wasting valuable power and space, or making guesses about future requirements. You only pay for what you need now, then grow as your business grows by quickly adding resources to your infrastructure—without disrupting business operations.
There are no forklift upgrades here. You can expand by adding the latest and greatest nodes, mixing and matching node types with different storage, RAM, and CPU footprints. Scale Computing offers a range of nodes to let you expand your cluster with the resources you need, whether it’s more CPU and RAM, simply expanding storage capacity or even increasing the storage performance of your existing applications by adding more high-performance flash to your cluster. It’s a turnkey, out-of-the-box, plug-and-play expansion.
SC//Platform: Auburn University
When Auburn University’s College of Architecture, Design & Construction decided to update and streamline its virtualized environment, Scale Computing was at the top of the vendor list. “With three people supporting 5,000 users—and no money for additional personnel—l had to find a solution that was super simple,” says Phil Forrest, an IT Manager at Auburn. “VMware can get complicated really fast.”
The department chose SC//Platform because it brings storage, servers, virtualization, and management together in a single, comprehensive system. “With its built-in hypervisor, I don’t have to deal with or pay another vendor,” he says. “Scale Computing hits the sweet spot with what’s possible.”
High availability and built-in disaster recovery
All VMs created on SC//Platform are highly available, thanks to:
- Fully self-healing technology, including automatic failover of VMs
- Automatic re-striping of data for failed disks
- Non-disruptive software upgrades and patching
- No single point of failure
SC//Platform also provides native backup and replication as well as disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) capabilities, solving a significant problem for many IT organizations—disaster recovery. These features also save you yet more time and money.
Key features include:
- Remote, snapshot-based, VM-level replication with manual failover
- Point-in-time rollback with application-consistent snapshots
- Instant VM restore using agentless VM-level snapshots
- Instant cloning for file-level and object-level recovery
- Five-minute recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO)
No matter the size of your environment, you can protect your workloads down to the individual VM level.
Ready to implement a disaster recovery strategy? Simply add another appliance at your DR location; all the rest is built in at no additional cost. No need to add on any other products or pay additional licensing fees.
SC//Platform also works with an ecosystem of best-in-class backup products, such as Acronis, with their agentless integration into SC//Platform to provide additional functionality beyond the built-in features.
Single vendor, superior support
SC//Platform’s all-in-one solution means you’re dealing with a single vendor—Scale Computing. Eliminating multiple vendors automatically reduces complexity and removes the finger-pointing and support run-around you often experience with a multi-vendor solution. Having a single source of support accelerates issue resolution, minimizing downtime, and it reduces the number of support contracts you have to manage and renew, saving, you guessed it: time and money.
Scale Computing provides comprehensive 24/7/365 US-based support. Full warranty coverage is included in the cost of the solution, as is installation and your first year of ScaleCare Support. Scale Computing also offers the specialized support services you may need, including premium installation, switch configuration, workload migration, disaster recovery planning, and cloud-based DRaaS.
Migration: Have It Your Way
As with any migration, moving to SC//Platform can take many forms, from non-disruptive in-place migrations to do-it-yourself migrations using free migration tools. Scale Computing can provide precisely the level of help you need, whether that’s showing you how to do it, migrating a single VM, or migrating every VM and workload in your environment. With different levels of service and support at different price points, you can develop a migration strategy that works for your organization.
Scale Computing offers many advanced migration capabilities, including:
- Updating DNS for migrations across network subnets
- Migrating to new VMs that have a different number of drives, drive sizes, CPUs, or memory than the original source
- Capturing all changes users make during the migration and replicating them to the new VM in real-time
- Cutting over to the new VM manually or automatically
- Migrating the entire system or just file or application data for file and application servers—and even domain controllers
Perform migration at any time that makes sense for your business, including during business hours. A simple interface lets you efficiently manage large migration projects. With complete control over the migration, you can take advantage of Test Cutover Capabilities to proactively validate that your migration cutover will work as planned.
Explore the Possibilities
Every day, IT organizations like yours choose Scale Computing Platform to reduce complexity and cost from IT infrastructure—so they can stay focused on the projects that matter most. Explore how Scale Computing solutions can help your organization find the shortest, easiest path to virtualization excellence.
Learn more at www.scalecomputing.com.
Sources
1 Management estimate based on Scale Computing and Nutanix Acropolis growth.