Cisco HyperFlex

HyperFlex is Cisco’s hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) platform. HyperFlex systems combine software-defined storage and data services software with Cisco UCS (unified computing system), a converged infrastructure system that integrates computing, networking and storage resources to increase efficiency and enable centralized management.

HyperFlex systems are based on Intel Xeon E5 2600 v3 processors and run VMware 5.5 or later hypervisors and Cisco Data Platform software. Data Platform software, which was developed by startup Springpath, is a log-structured distributed object store software designed for hyper-convergence. (Springpath named the software HALO.)

There are three types of HyperFlex nodes. The HX220c is for compute-intensive workloads and the HX240c is for capacity-intensive workloads. The HX240c can also be coupled with UCS B200 blade servers, to provide extra compute resources to a cluster. The minimum HyperFlex configuration is three nodes, scalable to eight. Clusters can combine different types of nodes.

Initial HyperFlex use cases include implementations of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote offices/branch offices (ROBO) and test beds for software development and testing.