Red Hat has unveiled a new open source hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) product that the company claims is the “the industry’s first production-ready” solution of its kind. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, announced via press release on Thursday, offers HCI efficiency right out of the box.

By blending storage and compute resources, HCI can provide a more simple option for certain data center deployments. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure also integrates virtualization technologies, and is aimed at satellite offices and remote facilities, the release said.

“The integrated systems market continues to grow with hyperconverged platforms becoming a larger and larger portion therein,” Terri McClure, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, said in the release. “Remote and branch office installations can be challenging for enterprises to equip from an IT perspective and are well-suited for hyperconverged offerings.”

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The Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure solution integrates compute and storage on a single server, designed to provide more power to smaller offices, with less technical oversight, the release said.

Being that the product comes from Red Hat, it’s not a surprise that the infrastructure stack is entirely open source. Also, being that every piece in the stack comes from a single company, it could make management and support of the solution easier. According to the release, Red Hat wants to “help customers minimize troubleshooting and support headaches.”

There are four key components that make up the new solution: Red Hat Virtualization, Red Hat Gluster Storage, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Ansible by Red Hat. These tools are integrated to provide a unified experience, the release said.

“With Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure, customers can now provision compute and storage resources for remote sites to run local instances of applications with the same proficiency as in-office operations,” Ranga Rangachari, vice president and general manager of storage at Red Hat, said in the release.

Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is available now.

The 3 big takeaways for TechRepublic readers

  1. Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure is a new open source solution from Red Hat that combines compute and storage on a single server, aimed at branch offices.
  2. The stack powering the new HCI solution is made up entirely of other open source Red Hat products, integrated for a unified experience and supported by Red Hat.
  3. The solution also offers virtualization tools, and could require less technical oversight than other infrastructure options.