Over the last decade, converged infrastructure (CI) solutions have been used to implement virtualized infrastructure over a three-tier configuration that is packaged, sold and supported as a single entity. In place of three separate vendors supplying and supporting the three tiers, with CI, customers gain faster ordering, less problem-prone deployment and less administrator burden.

Intel® Xeon® processor.

With the advent of software-defined storage, vendors began offering HCI, which collapses two of the three tiers in the CI offering above.

Dell EMC has been a clear leader in CI solutions since 2009 when they introduced their Vblock® systems from VCE™, a joint venture undertaken with EMC, Cisco Systems, Intel and EMC subsidiary VMware. VCE added VxRack™ (ScaleIO® based) to the portfolio in 2015. In 2016, EMC announced the VxRail, a VMware vSAN based HCI solution.

This paper discusses the Dell EMC VxRail HCI product family, along with hardware and software that can be purchased as DIY or standalone solutions. This paper then discusses a recent TCO study that compares these two solutions.

Intel Inside®. New Possibilities Outside.