How to build VMware HCI within budget

VMware vSAN enables companies to set up an HCI-like environment in their data centers. In order to set up a vSAN hyper-converged infrastructure environment, companies need to balance hardware costs and lifespan when making budgets, and consider DIY options when possible.

HCI may cause expensive investment problems for many companies. If your company needs HCI capabilities, please consider whether to buy mature HCI products from a supplier, or your company's best to build a hyper-converged environment by itself. If you choose to build your own environment similar to HCI-using vSAN and the hardware of your choice, please remember that you may miss the tight integration of hardware through specific software and cannot achieve true HCI.

VMware's HCI function
VMware vSAN enables companies to use general-purpose storage to create an HCI-like environment. Enterprises can purchase vSAN independently and use it for any hardware as long as the hardware is compatible with VMware.

The extensive VMware software stack (including products such as vSphere, NSX, and vRealize suite) has virtualized computing and network processes, but adding vSAN can consolidate these different products into a single management plane and increase automation.

VMware HCI hardware requirements
Many HCI suppliers have established support partnerships with specific hardware suppliers, and most companies also prefer specific brands of hardware. If you decide to build your own HCI-like environment through vSAN, you can use almost any hardware your company likes. VMware supports a variety of hardware, but not all hardware, so you still have to check the compatibility list before installing vSAN. Important hardware for setting up HCI through vSAN includes CPU, network interface card (NIC) and RAM stick.

The latest generation of CPU has the longest service life. Balance CPU speed and cores according to your workload requirements. Too many CPU cores can have a real impact on your budget, because both Microsoft and VMware charge additional license fees for a specific number of cores per CPU.



VSAN requires at least 10 Gb network. Consider using vSAN in combination with SmartNIC—SmartNIC can increase speed by eliminating the shared storage vMotion task inherent in VMware's core software.

In addition to the CPU, RAM is the biggest overhead within the server. Most servers have a large number of internal slots, so you can use a smaller memory stick to achieve the amount of memory required without exceeding your HCI budget. However, if you fill up all the slots and must expand, you may need to remove the existing memory to add a larger memory module.

HCI with a limited budget
VSAN HCI has a limited budget, which requires you to follow VMware's hardware compatibility list.

To reduce costs, many companies consider replacing solid-state drives (SSD) or non-volatile memory Express with spinning disk drives. However, in the long run, it may cost more to replace SSDs with spinning disks, because the increased support and extended downtime will affect the basic operations of your business.

If you must reduce storage—or other hardware costs, consider postponing the purchase of new hardware instead of completely filling your storage or memory. This gives you the option to add additional storage or memory capacity without replacing existing hardware.


Build HCI yourself
Most HCI vendors build their products from a common server platform, which means that companies with relatively tight HCI budgets can save costs by creating an HCI-like environment on their own, avoiding the costs of over-configuration and fine-scale expansion. However, when building HCI-rather than buying mature HCI products, you may not see all the typical features provided by the supplier's HCI.

If you build HCI yourself, you may have difficulty upgrading in the future. Vendors sell traditional HCI as a complete product, which makes it difficult to add one component at a time. Even if you have the right hardware, it takes more time and effort to achieve integration and compatibility between different components than buying the overall product from one supplier. Depending on the different parts of the HCI, the piecemeal approach may also pose challenges to support when building HCI.

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