HCI are specific solutions that combine computing and storage (and sometimes also networking) capabilities from more hosts, to have a shared pool of resources. A vSphere cluster already does this for the computing part. Some storage products extend this to the storage part, making more external storage unnecessary, and making the HCI market a relevant trend; it is not only growing fast, with more attention from the big storage vendors, but it is also changing fast.
Some HCI products compatible with vSphere 6.5:
- Nutanix: This is the pioneer of HCI, actually it is the only solution that can work with all the hypervisor technologies (VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM with the custom AHV, Citrix Xen Server).
- HPE SimpliVity: In January 2017, HPE acquired Simplivity to bring HCI into its portfolio. Available since April, the HPE SimpliVity 380 (based...