Cisco’s HyperFlex solution to expand its HX Data Platform

Cisco has announced new capabilities for its HyperFlex Systems portfolio and revealed validated test results that demonstrate unmatched application performance for its hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). Cisco’s approach integrates the Cisco HX Data Platform, a distributed file system built specifically for HCI clusters, with low-latency UCS fabric and deep network policy engineering to deliver IO consistency and breakthrough performance. HyperFlex is a completely engineered solution with integrated network, compute and storage that provides operational simplicity, a better user experience, and more efficient scaling options.

The simplicity of hyperconverged infrastructure has made it one of the fastest growing technology areas. Yet first-generation HCI solutions use software running on conventional servers and lack cluster networking integration, which limits application performance and makes solutions extremely complex to deploy, troubleshoot and maintain. These disjointed overlay approaches are further compounded by the use of latency-inducing software wrappers around legacy, open-source files systems. As a result, while these legacy HCI offerings have been suited for light isolated workloads, they have limited customers’ ability to efficiently expand hyperconvergence to latency-sensitive and business critical applications.

The latest release of HyperFlex delivers high performance component options, intuitive management enhancements, and new enterprise data protection and security features, including:

* High-capacity all-flash nodes and support for 40 Gbps UCS fabric networking to expand customer options for extreme application performance.

* New intuitive platform management with HyperFlex Connect, featuring dynamic system analytics and a standalone HTML5 interface for the management and orchestration of HyperFlex clusters from any device.

* Enterprise-grade data management, protection and security for the most sensitive workloads, with the introduction of a native replication feature to protect applications and new data-at-rest security options using self-encrypting drives.

* Hybrid cloud mobility with the integration of Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite’s (ECS) CloudCenter for private and public cloud elasticity

* Self-service catalogs with metering and workload automation through the recent release of ECS UCS Director integrations that provide customers with IaaS orchestration for private and hybrid services.

“In less than a year, more than 1,100 customers have embraced HyperFlex to simplify and transform their data center operations,” said Liz Centoni, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Computing Systems Product Group. “We purpose-built HX Data Platform, our distributed file system for HCI, to deliver the high performance and consistently low latency needed to allow customers to expand from initial use-cases like VDI to a much broader range of business critical apps.”

HyperFlex has raised the industry bar by delivering the performance required to extend HCI far beyond VDI and server virtualization to more demanding, data intensive workloads. Lab testing conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) compared Cisco HyperFlex with three other solutions using an industry standard benchmark for application performance on HCI.