converged data center

A converged data center, also called a homogeneous data center, is one in which the hardware and software components were purchased from a single vendor. A converged data center can be compared to a heterogeneous data center,  in which individual servers, storage, networking, virtualization, operating systems, management tools and applications have been purchased from multiple, sometimes specialized vendors.

The aim of a converged data center is to reduce the manual labor and technical skills that are required to own and operate an on-premises or colocated data center. A converged data center is sometimes a deployment prerequisite for a private cloud and can be an alternative to hosting workloads with a cloud provider.

It is rare for an entire data center to be converged. Most often, a user will purchase converged components for a specific application or user group within an otherwise heterogeneous data center. In such a scenario, converged data center products may integrate with the existing heterogeneous deployment, or remain isolated.

The term converged data center may also refer to a data center in which multiple communication modes, such as local area network and storage traffic, share a network. More often, however, such a scenario will be referred to as network convergence.