Cisco announces HyperFlex 3.0
Cisco announced updates to its HyperFlex hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), version 3.0, in a push to ease businesses into a hybrid, multi-cloud environment.
While several companies are embracing the cloud as a means of fulfilling business objectives, several are not yet ready to leave their legacy infrastructure and private data centers behind. As a result, many enterprises have been drawn to a hybrid cloud approach, which uses a mix of on-premise, private cloud and public cloud services. As part of the FlexWare 3.0 release, Cisco noted statistics from a survey by research firm IDC, which found 87% of current cloud users have taken steps toward a hybrid cloud strategy, with 94% planning to use multiple clouds.
Hyperflex was originally made for high performance servers and networking technology. Recent updates to the platform include support for Microsoft’s Hyper-V, stretch clusters, container and new multi-cloud services. It also includes persistent storage for Kubernetes managed containers, allowing cloud-native applications to be launched on HyperFlex within data centers.
“HyperFlex’s approach enables high performance of Microsoft SQL and Oracle databases and critical applications with faster delivery of the environment, lower costs, and more effective management,” said Edivaldo Rocha, CEO at CorpFlex.
Additionally, Hyperflex 3.0 combines AppDynamics, which Cisco acquired last March, to provide application performance monitoring and management. Cisco Workload Optimization Manager (CWOM) for HyperFlex also aids customers with automated analysis and workload placement. HyperFlex clusters can be scaled to 64 nodes with added resiliency, while Cisco’s Cloud Center enables workload lifecycle management across multiple cloud environments, according to the company.
“The latest release of HyperFlex builds on this superior architecture and expands the opportunity for customers to simplify more. “Customers tell us they need operational simplicity, effortless scalability, and the ability to serve the unique needs of each of their applications,” said Liz Centoni, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Computing Systems Product Group. “The new HyperFlex platform underscores our commitment to continuously simplify and improve data center operations and help organizations thrive in a multicloud world.”
The news follows Cisco announcing it intends to acquire HCI company Skyport Systems as part of its hybrid cloud strategy. Under the deal, Skyport Systems will join Data Center – Computing Systems Product Group. Terms and purchase price of the acquisition have not been disclosed.
