Converged, and even more so, hyperconverged computing, is all premised around the notion of build vs buy. Are you better off having your IT staff build your infrastructure from the ground up, managing it in silos of teams, or are you do you want to buy tightly integrated kit, land it on the floor and start using it immediately?
Dell-EMC’s team use the analogy – do you build your car, or do you buy it? I think this is a good analogy: it speaks to how the vast majority of car users consume vehicle technology. They buy a complete, engineered car as a package, and drive it off the car sales lot complete. Sure, there’s tinkerers who might like to build a car from scratch, but they’re not the average consumer. For me it’s a bit like personal computing – I gave up years ago wanting to build my own computers. I’m not interested in buying CPUs, RAM, motherboards, power supplies, etc., dealing with the landmines of compatibility, drivers and physical installation before I can get a usable piece of equipment.
This is where many people believe IT is moving, and there’s some common sense in it – it’s about time to usefulness.
A question I’m periodically posed is – what has backup got to do with the build vs buy aspect of hyperconverged? For one, it’s not just backup – it’s data protection – but secondly, it has everything to do with hyperconverged.
If we return to that build vs buy example of – would you build a car or buy a car, let me ask a question of you as a car consumer – a buyer rather than a builder of a car. Would you get airbags included, or would you search around for third party airbags?
To be honest, I’m not aware of anyone who buys a car, drives it off the lot, and starts thinking, “Do I go to Airbags R Us, or Art’s Airbag Emporium to get my protection?”
That’s because the airbags come built-in.
For me at least, that’s the crux of the matter in the converged and hyper-converged market. Do you want third party airbags that you have to install and configure yourself, and hope they work with that integrated solution you’ve got bought, or do you want airbags included and installed as part of the purchase?
You buy a hyperconverged solution because you want integrated virtualisation, integrated storage, integrated configuration, integrated management, integrated compute, integrated networking. Why wouldn’t you also want integrated data protection? Integrated data protection that’s baked into the service catalogue and part of the kit as it lands on your floor. If it’s about time to usefulness it doesn’t stop at the primary data copy – it should also include the protection copies, too.
Airbags shouldn’t be treated as optional, after-market extras, and neither should data protection.