Business transformation is driving enterprise data centers towards hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) for its simplicity and scalability. Unlike traditional hardware-defined infrastructure (siloed compute, storage, and networking), HCI is a virtualized, software-defined environment—a single, streamlined system that offers numerous benefits.
Hyperconverged data centers are easier typically to maintain, can expand capacity quickly, and help to reduce operational costs. HCI solutions with better computing power can help you capture the full benefits of hyperconvergence.
Why your CPU Matters
The move to HCI brings a new opportunity to upgrade processing power. That can lead to greater gains in data center performance, flexibility and security—if you select the right processor. The best HCI solutions will:
- Improve application performance
- Strengthen defenses against cyber attacks
- Offer more freedom to scale as needed
- Help save on power, cooling, space, and licensing
Putting the right CPU at the heart of your HCI can result in more business benefits, such as quicker access to data for more informed decision-making, improved defenses against security breaches, and faster customer transactions.
Why AMD EPYC™ Processors Make Sense for HCI
As a performance leader for virtualized workloads, AMD EPYC processors can help you maximize your HCI investment. In addition to world-record-breaking benchmark performance, AMD EPYC is architected with advanced security features. It is the only x86 server processor with full Secure Encrypted Virtualization to help protect your data. AMD EPYC is simply the highest performing CPU1 available for your hyperconverged data center.
Let’s take a brief look at why you should select AMD EPYC CPUs for your HCI hardware:
- Speed up your virtualized applications. AMD EPYC delivers the speed and efficiency you need to accelerate your workloads. Its groundbreaking architecture makes it #1 across many industry-standard benchmarks1. Optimized for deployments on VMware, Nutanix, Azure Stack HCI and SimpliVity, AMD EPYC processors provide up to 47% faster performance in VMmark® 3.1 vSAN™2.
- Help protect critical data with innovative security features. The AMD Infinity Guard security suite offers exclusive hardware-based protection. Secure Encrypted Virtualization helps guard virtual machines (VMs) with unique encryption keys known only to the processor, while Secure Memory Encryption helps thwart cold boot and physical attacks with full system memory encryption.
- Scale physical servers and software licenses to your needs. With up to 64 cores per socket, AMD EPYC offers better scalability and flexibility to meet your VM and workload requirements, helping to maximize your HCI investment.
- Ensure broad ecosystem support. AMD works with major ISVs and OEMs to deliver certified, out-of-the-box platforms. So, you can simplify data center management, running applications at any scale—now and into the future.
Selecting the Right Processor for Your HCI
Choosing the ideal CPU can be critical to optimizing hyperconverged infrastructure. That’s why AMD EPYC enables solutions that offer more options when it comes to processing power, from cost-efficient single-socket to high-performance two-socket servers. Try the AMD EPYC CPU selector tool today to see what might work best for your hyperconverged data center.
Footnotes
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For a complete list of world records see http://amd.com/worldrecords. ROM-169
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47% higher score and 56% more tiles (VMs) based on VMmark® 3.1 vSAN™ comparing 2x EPYC 7F72 scoring 13.27 @ 14 tiles (266 VMs), https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2020-04-14-DellEMC-PowerEdg…compared to the next highest competitive result on 2x Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8276L scoring 9.00 @ 9 tiles (171 VMs), https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/vmmark/2019-08-12-Hitachi-UCPHC-V1…). 47% higher score = 13.27/9 = 1.474x the score and 56% more tiles (VMs) = 14/9=1.555x the tiles (VMs) as of 4/14/20. VMmark is a product of VMware, Inc. ROM-639
