Hyper-converged Infrastructure
Technical Competition Analysis
Cheney
[email protected]2018.2 www.sangfor.com
Well, we have to admit this market
is getting hyper-competitive, but…
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We’re Different
Sangfor has the world’s first and only 3rd gen HCI solution in the market！
Integrated and Highly Automated Management UI
Resource Pool
Compute Storage Network NFV
Sangfor HCI is a revolution of IT infrastructure architecture, which improves IT
infrastructure efficiency and significantly reduces overall IT operation complexity.
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A Glimpse of Competitors
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Market Scope
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Nutanix
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Nutanix – The Enterprise Cloud Company
Make datacenter infrastructure invisible, elevating IT
to focus on applications and services
7800+ customers Founded in 2009
Over 70 countries
6 continents 3,000+ employees
Power of Convergence
Scale-out
Servers
Storage
Network
Converged
SAN compute and storage for
virtualized environments
Nutanix Products
Prism Acropolis
Infrastructure
App Mobility Fabric
Management
Operational
Acropolis Hypervisor
Insights
Planning Distributed Storage Fabric
Nutanix Solution Makeup
Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP)
One-click
Infrastructure
App Mobility Fabric
Acropolis
Management
Workload Mobility | Expandability | Lock-in Free | Continuity | API
One-click
Operational Insight
Distributed Storage Fabric
Web-scale Core | Compression | Deduplication| Tiering | Resilience | Data Protection
One-click Planning
Acropolis
Prism ESXi Hyper-V Hypervisor
(based on KVM)
AWS Azure
* Nutanix unilateral announced its ECP is certified to run on HPE Proliant servers, coming in Q4, 2017
Architecture Comparison
Nutanix Sangfor
Storage VM VM VM VM VM VM
VM
Hypervisor
VS. Hypervisor + aSAN
Overhead of virtual appliance ✓ Kernel-embedded for optimized I/O data path
Long data paths ✓ Better CPU/memory utilization
Bolted-on integration ✓ All features work natively
Separate management ✓ Single management
(3rd party hypervisor)
The HCI Tax: Overhead Dedicated to Operations
First gen HCI requires overhead to provide data services
Controller VM
Memory 16-128GB RAM
CPU 4-8 Cores
Direct Path IO required
Data Services
Dedupe - Add memory
Compression - Add memory
Erasure Coding - Add memory
File Services - Add memory
Nutanix Data Locality Pain Point
VM1 VM2 VM3
Storage network
In dynamic environments where VMs move to different hosts on a frequent basis, data locality on
Nutanix in most cases requires a lot of data to be copied between nodes in order to maintain the
physical VM-data relationship, this will cast heavy burden on storage network.
Comparison of Nutanix/Sangfor HCI
Nutanix Sangfor HCI
Virtualization, server and storage Architecture innovation through
Architecture
convergence server/storage/network/NFV
Network
virtualization
None Yes
Sangfor HCI Appliance or 3rd party
Hardware Platform SuperMicro, Dell, Lenovo & UCS, HPE
server
Solution Appliance or software Appliance or Software
NFV No, rely on 3rd party Yes
Cluster
Configuration
3 Nodes at least for data center 2 Nodes at least
Overhead 16G Memory/8 Cores(CVM) for one host 1 Core/8G Memory for one host
CDP No Yes
Instant recovery No Yes
Automated Hot
Add (CPU/Memory)
No (Only manual hot add) Yes
Nutanix Shortcomings
We have to admit that Nutanix has done a great job on SDS(software-defined
storage), but...
✓ No network virtualization while Sangfor has it
✓ No CDP for business-critical application protection
✓ No NFV security functionalities while Sangfor can provide comprehensive security
features on Sangfor HCI platform
✓ Only ultimate version comes with full features, and it’s extremely costly
… And do not compete against them on storage head to head
Financially Unoptimistic Future
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VMware
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VMware Overview
VMware, Inc. is a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, that
provides cloud and virtualization software and services, and claims to be the first
to successfully virtualize the x86 architecture commercially. Founded in 1998,
VMware is based in Palo Alto, California. In 2004, it was acquired by and became
a subsidiary of EMC Corporation.
vSphere 4, May. 21, 2009 Acquire Nicira, June 23, 2012
vSphere 6.5, Oct. 18, 2016 NSX 6.3, 2016 First Launch, 2014
vSAN 6.5, 2016
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VMware SDDC Architecture
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SDDC Manager: vRealize Operations, vRealize Log
Insight, vRealize Automation (Optional)
vCenter Server NSX Manager
Security
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Comparison of Resources Taken by Software
In a 4 nodes Sangfor
vSAN cluster:
HCI cluster: 4CPU & 32GB RAM
Lightest Ever!
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One Software Stack with Unified Mgmt
aSV + aNET + aSAN
Compute Networking Storage
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VMware Shortcomings
VMware is the leader in virtualization, however…
✓ Separate software stacks to compose a full SDDC solution with management silos,
even backup requires additional virtual appliance
✓ Management requires separate software & license
✓ Complex license structure, only the highest version comes with full features
✓ No data locality to save network traffic across nodes
✓ User unfriendly management UI and long learning curve for newbies
✓ No single point of support for hardware/software, hardware requires separate
support
✓ Extremely high cost on license, training and support
…
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Conclusion
You want VMware? You want Nutanix? You’ll love Sangfor HCI, it has the
best of them.
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VS. Simplivity OminiStack
• Not truly software-defined solution, hardware requires purpose-built PCI-e
card
• SimpliVity DVP currently supports 32 nodes maximum within a single
Federation.
• Cannot provide iSCSI block storage that acts as one or more targets for
Windows or Linux operating systems running on a bare metal (physical)
server
• No flash pinning, cannot assign SSDs to high priority VMs in priority
• De-deduplication & compression is always on, waste of resources for de-
deduplication & compression unfriendly applications like database
• Data that is already present before adding a node is not rebalanced across all
nodes within a Federation
• Uncertainty remains in the future after acquisition by HPE
Don’t compete against Simplivity on storage efficiency & data protection head-
on
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VS. Cisco HyperFlex
• 3 nodes minimum for a cluster
• 8 nodes maximum in one cluster
• No data locality & flash pinning
• Heterogeneous nodes deployment is not supported in a cluster
• The HyperFlex capacity tier uses 10K SAS HDDs which are more expensive
and lower capacity than 7.2K SATA/ NL SAS HDDs used in most hyper-
converged systems.
• No native backup, backup frequency for VDP (vSphere data protection) is 24-
hour
• Deduplication & compression is always on even if the dataset cannot take
advantage of these features
• Separate management, UCS manager & vCenter
• Hypervisor from VMware, storage virtualization from SpringPath, hardware
from Cisco UCS, totally fragmented solution
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VS. Dell EMC VxRAIL
• 3 nodes minimum for a cluster
• No data locality
• Management platform requires additional vCenter server
• Can’t support external FC SAN storage
• Multiple service layers, Dell EMC for appliance, VMware for virtualization
• Just package VMware vSphere & vSAN with Dell EMC PowerEdge server
platform, not cheap at all
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Sangfor HCI Highlights
➢ World’s first and only 3rd Gen HCI Platform
✓ Comprehensive E2E & one stop solution which deeply integrates compute, storage,
networking and security in one software stack
✓ A single-pane-of-glass unified web-based management platform with intuitive ''what you
draw is what you get'' feature to easily create data center topology and achieve visualized
management
✓ One step to cloud with smooth evolution, best building block for future-proof IT
➢ Unprecedented Flexibility and Simplicity
✓ Appliance or Software, your choice!
✓ 2 nodes to start a cluster, best choice for SME and ROBO
✓ One single unified platform with single vendor support
✓ One license suite with all features included
✓ Build data center with commodity Layer-2 switch and x86 servers
✓ Pay as you grow
➢ Best cost-effective HCI solution in the market
✓ Significant TCO reduction through hardware& software consolidation
✓ Requires no specialist on O&M
➢ Thorough and professional local support
✓ Dedicated local sales and engineers in SEA region, comprehensive CTI remote support from
Malaysia
✓ Guaranteed support SLA, customer-oriented service
• The world’s first & only 3rd gen HCI
IN • Deeply integrates compute, storage,
GARTNER MAGIC networking & security
• A truly software-defined data center
QUADRANT • 1 platform from 1 single vendor
1
Management
Console
Removing
Silos
• Designed with a-pane-of-glass intuitive
GUI
• Cloud facing and future proof 1-Click
Deployment & • Manage all the resources on HCI at
• Opentack-based cloud platform under 1 Hardware
Modification will
development Consolidating
Legacy
Simplifying • “What you draw is what you get”
• Enabling customers to focus only on O&M and
Appliances topology
core competency Shortening
TTM • Radically simplified, visualized &
elegant.
SANGFOR
HCI
1-Stop
1-Step to
Solution
Enterprise
Cutting TCO
Cloud
Up to 80%
• Flexible and cost-efficient
• DC is viewed as a whole
• Start a cluster with 2 nodes and scale
• See virtual firewall, virtual router,
out when needed
virtual WAN optimization & other NFV
• Choose either pure software & reuse
components as well as compute &
existing servers or HCI appliance for
storage
fast 1-stop delivery
Thank you !
[email protected]
www.sangfor.com
Sangfor Technologies (Headquarters)
Block A1, Nanshan iPark, No.1001
Xueyuan Road, Nanshan District,
Shenzhen, Guangdong Province,
P. R. China (518055)
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