Networks Europe Nov-Dec 2016 | Page 28

28 XXX XXX CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURES By Neil Staley, Product Marketing Executive, Mayflex www.mayflex.com Converged infrastructures allow for an agile network that’s quickly scalable to create larger, more efficient and effective solutions offering synergy The compute world is moving at pace, expanding its reach ever deeper into everything we do. With this expansion comes the merging and blurring of the lines, where one system ends and another starts, and in this comes the coining of phrases like converged infrastructures. From one sector to another the term has different meanings, but within the data centre industry converged infrastructure is the packaging of storage, software and switching, as well as connectivity to produce a concise set of IT resources that provide increased efficiency. This allows IT to deliver a quickly scalable network. However, the payoff is that it’s fixed and ridged. It’s finite and can, if a business grows out of resources deployed or changes direction, potentially restrict growth due to the fixed infrastructure. Hyper-converged solutions Then there are hyper-converged solutions that break through any ceilings and give ultimate flexibility, but are designed and deployed in a completely different structure. www.networkseuropemagazine.com