If you listen to some vendors, there is no need for on-premises infrastructure anymore. Everything that you want to do you, you can do in the cloud. All you need to do is rent the infrastructure--no capital expenditure cost, just ongoing usage-based operational expenditures.
The reality isn’t quite that straightforward. While the cloud is a cheap and effective way of hosting certain types of workloads, there are many workloads that you are better off hosting on premises using hardware technologies such as a converged architecture.
One of the most often-cited benefits of the cloud is that providers can offer customers economies of scale. But converged architecture systems enable companies to host large workloads on premises at a reasonably decent scale. So, the cost-benefit comparison of running workloads in the cloud versus running workloads on premises on converged architecture systems is less clear than cloud providers would have you think.
With that said, you have to know the performance characteristics of your workload in order to get the most out of converged architecture. If you don’t, you will likely purchase hardware that is either under- or overpowered. This will lead either to a poor experience or to overspending. If you deploy to the cloud and find that the parameters are wrong, you can adjust the service level of your workload. Changing service tiers is more of a ratcheted bump than a fine adjustment, but you do have the option of changing once deployed.
If you do know the performance characteristics of your workload, you can tailor the hardware you purchase to those performance characteristics. It is important to realize that a converged architecture system is tailored--like bespoke clothing--to fit a specific workload. Rather than ratcheted bumps, you have a lot more granularity when it comes to fine tuning the hardware for the projected workload. Hardware tailored to the specifics of your needs is likely to be less costly over time than renting infrastructure in the cloud to run the same workload. Again, it’s important to note that the core assumption is that you have a good understanding of your needs, which is something that is reasonably expected of experienced systems administrators.
Underwritten by HPE
Part of HPE’s Power of One strategy, HPE Converged Architecture 700 delivers infrastructure as one integrated stack. HPE Converged Architecture 700 delivers proven, repeatable building blocks of infrastructure maintained by one management platform (HPE OneView), built and delivered exclusively by qualified HPE Channel Partners. This methodology saves considerable time and resources, compared to the do-it-yourself (DIY) approach.