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Convergence might not be anything new but it has allowed many network engineers to greatly simplify their networks. Now hyper-convergence is gaining fans and taking things a step further. Hyper-convergence is different because it takes the whole stack and virtualises it to a single physical appliance that can be sourced from one vendor. The term has been around for a while and it does have some real benefits, but you could be forgiven for trying to work out the differences between each new technology that claims to be more convergent than the last!

There are many subtle differences between how the industry describes and recommends new technology, especially when words like convergence, hyper and virtualisation cover such a wide range of software and hardware definitions. Ultimately, like any technology, it's all in the application and fully understanding the challenge you face.

Hyper-converged appliances won't be suitable for everyone. But if you are facing challenges such as managing your IT and lowering energy consumption, and you need the flexibility to drop in equipment and expand the physical infrastructure at speed, then hyper-convergence could make a big difference.

From an IT management perspective hyper-convergence centralises the management of all those appliances, making it much simpler to keep a close eye on system performance and roll out changes with greater ease. This same appliance-based approach means that IT teams can quickly scale-up with demand and very quickly replace appliances with matching equipment when a terminal failure occurs.

Perhaps the biggest benefit, depending on your experience of dealing with support channels, is having a single vendor responsible for supporting your appliance, from the metal to the applications. It can be a very complicated task getting to the bottom of problems on a box, especially if vendors cannot agree, or are reluctant to work together to isolate the cause and deliver a solution. Having that single touchpoint can minimise the downtime or reduce the performance window that results.

If space and energy consumption are high on your agenda then you can expect to get a good experience from hyper-convergence. The small appliance footprint means that organisations that are growing fast but have limited real estate can quickly expand the capacity of both IT systems and storage. This negates the need to look at costly construction work within the building, a new data centre, or having to move your IT to a colocation provider, in can be a particularly uncomfortable decision.

Most hyper-convergence platforms are tailored to perform a specific standardised workload with great efficiency in terms of space, performance, energy and cooling. One thing to consider more carefully is whether the workload that you want to commit to the resource will bring any realistic benefits. For example, high performance computing or big data analytics are not served particularly well as workloads at the moment, though this is changing, so expect to see the possibility of big performance gains in the near future.

You also need to consider what your hypervisor support requirements are. Do you need just Hyper-V or another single vendor, or do you have a need to support several hypervisors? The more money you spend, of course, the more you get, and this is true for both flexibility as well as hardware and software performance.

Whether you have one workload that is really challenging your current IT infrastructure or you foresee a need to expand rapidly, hyper-convergence might be the answer. It's not just hype, so speak with your suppliers about what they are doing to support and deliver this emerging trend.