The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3
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Choosing to convert to hyperconvergence is a big decision and it is important to carefully consider the implications. For a small or midsize datacenter, these considerations are even more critical. Here are 4 important things that you lose when switching to Scale Computing HC3 hyperconvergence.
1. Management Consoles
When you implement an HC3 cluster, you no longer have multiple consoles to manage separate server, storage, and virtualization solutions. You are reduced to a single console from which to manage the infrastructure and perform all virtualization tasks, and only one view to see all cluster nodes, VMs, and storage and compute resources. Only one console! Can you even imagine not having to manage storage subsystems in a separate console to make the whole thing work? (Note: You may also begin losing vendor specific knowledge of storage subsystems as all storage is managed as a single storage pool alongside the hypervisor.)
2. Nights and Weekends in the Datacenter
Those many nights and weekends you’ve become accustomed to working, spent performing firmware, software, or even hardware updates to your infrastructure, will be lost. You don’t have to take workloads offline with HC3 to perform infrastructure updates so you will just do these during regular hours. No more endless cups of coffee along with the whir of cooling fans to keep you awake on those late nights in the server rooms. Your relationship with the nightly cleaning staff at the office will undoubtedly suffer unless you can find application layer projects to replace the nights and weekends you used to spend on infrastructure.
3. Hypervisor Licensing
You’ll no doubt feel this loss even during the evaluation and purchasing of a new HC3 cluster. There just isn’t any hypervisor licensing to be found because the entire hypervisor stack is included without any 3rd party licensing required. There are no license keys, nor licensing details, nor licensing prices or options. The hypervisor is just there. Some of the other hyperconvergence vendors provide hypervisor licensing but it just won’t be found at Scale Computing.
4. Support Engineers
You’ve spent many hours developing close relationships with a circle of support engineers from your various server, storage, and hypervisor vendors over months and years but those relationships simply can’t continue. No, you will only be contacting Scale Computing for all of your server, storage, virtualization, and even DR needs. You’ll no doubt miss the many calls and hours of finger pointing spent with your former vendor support engineers to troubleshoot even the simplest issues.
The original article is on our blog, but I copied all of the content here for you guys!
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If I've never heard of your company before and know zero about your products where would I go to edu-ma-cate myself
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@MattSpeller The best place is probably just clicking around through http://www.scalecomputing.com/ as a starting point. If you want to see it in action though, we have a weekly demo that our office of the CTO usually runs:
It is pretty informal and gives a chance for a lot of questions to be answered as we show the UI/features. Let me know if there are any questions I can answer in the meantime!
Craig M. Theriac
Director of Product Management
Scale Computing -
@craig.theriac Thank you, I will dive in
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@MattSpeller said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@craig.theriac Thank you, I will dive in
Any specific questions that I can answer for you?
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@scale said:
Any specific questions that I can answer for you?
Do you have a affordable solution for small businesses that doesn't cost 25K?
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@aaronstuder said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@scale said:
Any specific questions that I can answer for you?
Do you have a affordable solution for small businesses that doesn't cost 25K?
25K isn't affordable? I'm not sure why you would look at Scale in a single host environment. This solution doesn't seem to fit there.
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@coliver said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@aaronstuder said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@scale said:
Any specific questions that I can answer for you?
Do you have a affordable solution for small businesses that doesn't cost 25K?
25K isn't affordable? I'm not sure why you would look at Scale in a single host environment. This solution doesn't seem to fit there.
While this is true... Selling Single nodes could be a viable idea for a small business that could grow into a second server down the road... I always wondered why they don't sell single nodes to start with...
@craig-theriac : Has Scale ever considered selling single nodes for small businesses?
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@dafyre said:
@craig-theriac : Has Scale ever considered selling single nodes for small businesses?
Two is one, and one is none.
It would need to be at least 2 nodes.
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@dafyre i cannot confirm nor deny
@aaronstuder let me know / send me a DM if you want to jump on a call to go through our roadmap. I'd love to learn more about your requirements for a lower end solution. -
@aaronstuder said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@dafyre said:
@craig-theriac : Has Scale ever considered selling single nodes for small businesses?
Two is one, and one is none.
It would need to be at least 2 nodes.
Ideally, you are correct. But if I only need a single server, why plunk down $25k for two Scale nodes when I can buy a Dell of decent quality and similar specs and install $hypervisor myself? ... Granted an SMB isn't likely to think like that, lol.
Don't get me wrong -- I've enjoyed working with the Scale team and their systems! That was just a burning question always in the back of my mind.
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@dafyre said:
Ideally, you are correct. But if I only need a single server, why plunk down $25k for two Scale nodes when I can buy a Dell of decent quality and similar specs and install $hypervisor myself? ... Granted an SMB isn't likely to think like that, lol.
Don't get me wrong -- I've enjoyed working with the Scale team and their systems! That was just a burning question always in the back of my mind.
It's in the back of my mind too. Hoping @craig.theriac could tell us why there better
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@dafyre said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@aaronstuder said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@dafyre said:
@craig-theriac : Has Scale ever considered selling single nodes for small businesses?
Two is one, and one is none.
It would need to be at least 2 nodes.
Ideally, you are correct. But if I only need a single server, why plunk down $25k for two Scale nodes when I can buy a Dell of decent quality and similar specs and install $hypervisor myself? ... Granted an SMB isn't likely to think like that, lol.
Don't get me wrong -- I've enjoyed working with the Scale team and their systems! That was just a burning question always in the back of my mind.
That's our current SMB setup - several 1/2U dell servers w/ hyperv. Not sure where / how Scale would help us but honestly that's probably because I've yet to read their specs etc.
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@MattSpeller Just one server? We do the same, but 2 servers at each site.
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@aaronstuder said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@MattSpeller Just one server? We do the same, but 2 servers at each site.
We're at 5 at primary, 2 at secondary, 1 at a remote
Could probably replace the 5 with two current nicely spec'd ones but $$$$$$$$$$$$
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@MattSpeller You sound like us
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@aaronstuder said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
@MattSpeller You sound like us
Broke SMB sounds similar the world over heheh
#not4profitlife
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1 & 2. Sure.
3 - Well Hyper-v and Xen-server are free.
4 - Is an all your eggs in one basket model. Which can be risky too.
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@Breffni-Potter said in The Four Things That You Lose with Scale Computing HC3:
1 & 2. Sure.
3 - Well Hyper-v and Xen-server are free.
4 - Is an all your eggs in one basket model. Which can be risky too.
4... Backup, backup, backup!
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@dafyre said
4... Backup, backup, backup!
Backups funnily enough don't work for.
- Hardware availability. Can I get a replacement node? If so how quickly.
- If the software part of the hyper-visor all in one magic box breaks and I lose all 3 nodes, what then.
- Scale takes away a lot of the tech from the technician to make it easier which is good but when that tech fails, what can you do.
Now, I like the Scale model but it's still a magic box in the corner.
