Enterprises face a common mix of storage challenges as they streamline their infrastructure operations.

Tops on the list include storage failures that lead to user downtime and lost data, outages that require extended onsite support, and lack of flexibility with on-premises and collocated infrastructure, which slows down decision-making.

Forrester Research found that organizations have turned to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) to solve many of these issues. HCI is a software-defined, unified system that combines all the elements of a traditional data center: storage, compute, networking, and management.

Naveen Chhabra, a principal analyst at Forrester, identified in this webcast the three main reasons that enterprises opt for HCI as flexibility (37%), ease of scalability (29%) and the ability to innovate (29%). Chhabra said the majority of organizations take a software-based approach (54%), while many companies (35%) are now moving to appliance-based options. 

Chhabra also said that while a few years ago enterprises tended to use HCI for virtual desktop infrastructure, many now run their mission-critical business apps over HCI. For example, 32% run databases, another 32% use HCI for infrastructure management and monitoring, and 26% use HCI for commercially-packaged ISV software.

Recently, Forrester ran a total economic impact (TEI) analysis of a large retailer that invested in a Hitachi Vantara HCI with VMware vSAN.

Alex Parsons, a Forrester consultant, said the retailer improved storage from eight simple compute nodes with a SAN to 16 HCI nodes, which helped to expand operations. Parsons said where IT teams previously spent hours dealing with disaster recovery at storage centers, today they scale storage across locations and avoid costly mistakes. As a result, the average recovery time objective (RTO) shrank from 1 hour to 30 minutes, and the average recovery point objective time (RPO) was cut from 2 hours to 1 hour.

In pairing Hitachi HCI with VMware, here’s a look at the quantifiable, three-year, risk adjusted present value (PV) benefits accrued:

• Avoided $1.4 million in annual legacy infrastructure costs. The retailer has decommissioned 30% of its legacy infrastructure since deploying Hitachi Vantara HCI. It now has greater visibility over its network and performance of component pieces, which helps identify areas where they need to replace hardware, or where to shift resources and become more efficient with operations.
• Increased annual revenue by $35 million from faster time-to-market and user efficiencies. The increased storage with Hitachi Vantara HCI lets workers access and leverage data from across the organization, as well as receive deployments of tools from the cloud without purchasing additional servers. These tools supported data analysis and accelerated decision-making, generating increased revenues.
• Reduced 75% of production downtime and incident support costs. Today, the number of technical incidents leading to a production outage declined from eight-per-month to just one. End-user interruptions have been minimized for any incidents that still occur, with supporting compute and storage infrastructure preserving production uptime. Hitachi Vantara HCI also helped IT team members streamline standardization of security requirements across storage products, protecting the organization from cyberattacks.

Download Forrester’s The Total Economic Impact Of Hitachi Vantara Hyperconverged Infrastructure Powered By VMware vSAN to understand how Hitachi Vantara HCI enables cost savings and other business benefits.

Watch the webinar Driving ROI with Hitachi Hyperconverged Infrastructure: Forrester Economic Study for a real-world case study of the benefits, costs, and risks associated with the Hitachi Vantara HCI solution.

Image Credit: The Total Economic Impact™ Of Hitachi Vantara Hyperconverged Infrastructure Powered By VMware infographic