With the announcement today of Cisco HyperFlex 4.0 and the Veeam announcement last week of Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 update 4, there is a lot to digest on all the benefits these provide to our joint customers from the core to the edge to the cloud and back again.
There’s magic in the air
It seems it wasn’t that long ago when HyperFlex version 1.0 was released. In just 2.5 years, HyperFlex has gone from inception to a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructures (HCI). This is a testament to their innovation and not being just another hyperconverged infrastructure solution but a true next-generation solution with features and benefits that customers require in today’s frenetic IT world. Veeam is also a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for backup solutions which gives customers added confidence when pairing Cisco and Veeam solutions.
HyperFlex anywhere
HyperFlex’s core values have always been around simplicity, agility and multi-cloud services. HyperFlex 4.0 builds on this with their recognition that customers live in a distributed, multi-site world. To meet customer requirements in this environment, HyperFlex added several key features. HyperFlex can now utilize Cisco Intersight, their cloud-based management platform, to streamline, orchestrate and automate the management and deployment of HyperFlex HCI. HyperFlex and Intersight extend the simplicity and efficiency of HCI from core data centers to the edge with consistent policy enforcement and cloud-powered systems management. Veeam has worked with HyperFlex since its initial release, integrating with HyperFlex native snapshots to backup and replicate data on HyperFlex systems. Veeam can replicate from one HyperFlex cluster to another, backup to a main data center and move backup copy jobs to other sites or the cloud delivering the application and data Availability customers require. Building on the automation and orchestration, Veeam has added orchestration for virtual environments with the addition of intelligent automation in Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 update 4. Veeam delivers proactive monitoring and alerting backed by intelligent automation to alert customers and resolve potential problems before they have operational impact. Together, Veeam and Cisco HyperFlex have greatly simplified the deployment, management and Availability of multi-site distributed environments.
SAP HANA
HyperFlex 4.0 also delivers many new performance and security enhancements specifically for mission-critical business applications like SAP. SAP is critical to customers’ business and it requires an infrastructure that is fast, offers consistent performance and is highly available and protected. Cisco HyperFlex is SAP HANA certified and provides the performance needed for SAP application workloads and databases with simple management, reduced TCO, and cloud-like flexibility. With the latest Veeam release, Veeam is now SAP HANA certified. This is big news for our joint SAP HANA customers. They can utilize Veeam to protect their SAP HANA deployments using native SAP database backup methods, something all SAP administrators prefer, and they will get enhanced backup capabilities like Instant VM Recovery and optimized backups with Veeam’s native HyperFlex snapshot integration. SAP users will be able to leverage Veeam DataLabs to easily deploy SAP test environments and clone SAP databases from Veeam repositories.
Putting it all together, customers can run SAP HANA databases and SAP applications on Cisco HyperFlex, modernizing their production environments with SAP HANA and HyperFlex and protecting it using Veeam’s native HyperFlex snapshots and an SAP-certified plug-in for database backup and restores. Veeam and Cisco have worked together for years with Veeam running on Cisco UCS storage servers, and, at the end of last year, Cisco and Veeam introduced a new joint solution, Veeam Availability on Cisco HyperFlex, an enterprise-grade data protection solution running Veeam services and repository on HyperFlex. Together, we deliver an end-to-end solution; customers can now run their production SAP environments on HyperFlex while keeping it highly available with a modern data protection solution, Veeam running on another Cisco HyperFlex System.
From the edge to the center to the cloud
What Veeam and Cisco are really delivering is simplicity, flexibility and lower costs. HyperFlex 4.0 is introducing smaller 2-node edge clusters for ROBO environments, combined with cloud-based management, making it easier to deploy and manage these systems. Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 Update 4 adds Cloud Data Management, Veeam Cloud Mobility and Veeam Cloud Tier, all designed to make it easier for customers to move workloads on premises, to the cloud and back again.
The result is that customers and IT departments today, whether they are large or small, are being challenged to do more with less, while innovating the business and driving measurable impact. Cisco and Veeam continue to work together to deliver solutions that offer simplicity, flexibility and lower TCO that provide the business outcomes our customers require.
All from two industry-leading vendors! Don’t take our word for it, go ask Gartner!
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