Simplified IT (HyperFlex)

**Week 9**

Call Guide Download full call guide

Q: I buy compute and storage separately— why should I look at hyperconverged infrastructure?
A: Hyperconverged infrastructure enables greater agility and provides operational and capital benefits, such as: • No network storage complexity, with simple and complete management of all operations • Ease of deployment and adaptive, nondisruptive scaling of compute, caching, and capacity • Lower TCO and improved resource utilization—no more separate islands of compute and storage. Cisco HyperFlex Systems deliver new levels of operational efficiency and adaptability to more workloads and applications by bringing agility, scalability, and pay-as-you-grow economics of cloud to on-premises infrastructure.Q: Isn’t this like VMware’s vSAN product?
A: Our platform was built from the ground up to deliver enterprise features. We provide inline deduplication, inline compression, and space-efficient snapshots and clones without a performance impact. vSAN doesn’t provide dedupe and compression, which significantly reduces usable capacity and increases effective solution price by up to three times. Furthermore, the Cisco HyperFlex Systems solution is agnostic to workload type. On top of vSphere, we are in tech preview for emerging workloads such as containers and OpenStack.Q: Isn’t this like Nutanix?
A: Nutanix lacks the server and networking experience and does not have the core market-leading capabilities offered by the Cisco UCS platform. Cisco HyperFlex Systems are built on the Cisco UCS platform and offer a built-from-the-ground-up operating system that is designed for hyperconverged infrastructure. Cisco HyperFlex Systems offer integrating compute, storage, and networking into a single solution. This results in deployment times that go from weeks to hours with Cisco HyperFlex Systems as compared to deployment times for Nutanix.Q: It sounds too complicated for my IT department to manage.
A: Cisco HyperFlex Systems are about simplicity and removing layers of management complexity. There is no new environment to learn, as you can manage the solution with tools you already know. Cisco also offers a QuickStart Service and an Accelerated Deployment Service to help your team set up a successful pilot and deploy efficiently in your production environment. Your team will get a customized operations run book with best practices for expansion.Q: We don’t have months to get up and running on a new solution.
A: With a fully integrated stack, Cisco HyperFlex Systems can be installed in a matter of minutes and start servicing your application needs right away. Cisco offers a QuickStart Service and an Accelerated Deployment Service to help your team set up a successful pilot and deploy efficiently in your production environment. Your team will get a customized operations run book with best practices for expansion. Manage from anywhere any time with Cisco Intersight or HX Connect.Q: I can’t afford to upgrade my infrastructure.
A: You can’t afford not to, as Cisco HyperFlex Systems change the economics of running your IT infrastructure, making it a pay-as-you-grow, on-demand infrastructure.General Qualification Questions

What are the biggest obstacles you need to overcome to meet your IT objectives in the next 12 months?

What are the primary business objectives for IT?

What is the priority of each?

What happens if you don’t meet the objectives?

Who is leading these initiatives?

Do you develop any software in house?

If yes: • What is your software development methodology?

How often do you release new versions?

How realistic are the time-to-market expectations of the business? We can help.

What sort of impact could reducing the time to market of new releases have?

Do you need to rapidly deploy new systems (servers or virtual desktops)?

If you could control costs, simplify data management, and improve app performance, would you reconsider your current approach?

Are you using or planning a multicloud environment?

Small Business-Specific Positioning:Small Business Realities

Most businesses when looking at storage are just guessing at their needs. So they often buy too much or too little.

There is a desire to reduce the cost of purchasing, installing and maintaining infrastructure. Many have tight budgets.

They don’t have level of specialization of resources – they’re IT generalists

Disadvantages of Cloud

If a business has peak usage periods but also valleys when systems sit idle, they might prefer cloud, thinking they pay only for what they need when they need it. However, many businesses that go to the cloud are ultimately burned in long-term deals because they need to scale so big that they’re paying too much monthly.

Answer: Hyperflex

Eases the burden on the IT staff and is nearly transparent to users.

Hyperconvergence tightly integrates compute, storage, networking and virtualization into a single box managed through a common interface.

These flexible building blocks replace the legacy infrastructure stacks of servers, storage arrays and storage networks.

HCI Advantages

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) can deliver reduced complexity and cost, improved operational efficiency, increased agility, faster deployment, greater scalability and streamlined disaster recovery.

It’s the simplicity of the cloud but on-prem

Time savings – gives staff quicker ability to spin up new workloads

Manage without specialized knowledge - it’s software-defined on a hardware platform with an integrated console

Can start small and scale as needed. No more guessing or wasted spend. Buy what you need today and grow as you need tomorrow.

Plug-and-play simplicity – plug in a new node into your cluster, the software automatically recognizes it and integrates it into the shared pool. No complex configuration.

Superior performance, which matters when everything is on one cluster.

Reducing vendors eases procurement management and oversight.

Streamlining equipment reduces total cost of ownership and conserves power, cooling and physical space

Complete control of all necessary data at a moment’s notice, which might not be the case (or could be pricier) with a cloud provider.

In an industry where a business deals with heavy compliance requirements, Hyperflex gives it complete control of all necessary data at a moment’s notice, which might not be the case (or could be pricier) with a cloud provider.

HCI at Work

Say a business has 50 - 100 people. They probably only have 1 cluster. They need to run email, IP phones, UC, data base, HR software, payroll software, maybe CRM.

They can run everything off of HCI.

Easy management with resiliency for data protection.

One person can manage from anywhere.

Easy scale. Add node and it automatically spreads across without doing anything.

Affordability

HCI is now a viable reality for smaller businesses.

Businesses that don’t think they can afford to make the capital investment in the technology might want to ask about leasing and financing options. Cisco Capital can help.

How to Sell

It’s the first VOD in Learning Map #1 (“Hyperconverged Market Opportunity and How to Win with HyperFlex”)Sales Playbook Under development

Social Posts

Facebook:
Cisco HyperFlex continues to transform HCI by increasing efficiency, reducing risk, and streamlining management capabilities.Twitter:
Cisco's #HyperFlex ensures critical apps have 91% less unplanned downtime. Discover how here.

LinkedIn:
Cisco HyperFlex gives your company the edge by seamlessly integrating storage, virtualization, and networking at a high level while mitigating downtime. Take the next steps now!

Email Copy

Subject: Improve your performance with Cisco HyperFlex
Subject Alternative: Choosing the right hyperconverged infrastructure

Your growing business faces many challenging decisions every day. Selecting the best hyperconverged infrastructure is easy. Cisco HyperFlex solutions offer an agile and reliable performance that you and your clients can count on to save valuable time and resources. Discover why HyperFlex is the right fit for your business.CTA Button: Read HyperFlex Overview
Contact Us: [Phone Number]

Audience/Target List

Customers with any of the 3 products purchased (HX, N7K, UCS) with LDOS during FY19 or during FY20, AND that have service contracts for any of those products.

HX Battlecards

INTERNAL HX Competitive and War Room
INTERNAL ”Art of the Deal” (Sutter Health) for how to displace Nutanix
Battlecard
INTERNAL competitive positioning for Intersight (FAQ)

HX Top of Funnel Content/Assets

HyperFlex 4.0 Anywhere Solution Overview

HyperFlex Services AAG and Intersight: Management as a Service

Cisco Solution Support eBook

IDC Infographic

HCI Innovators Handbook

Managing the Anywhere Data Center (eBook) (nice intro spanning modernizing, converged infrastructure and security; speaks to capabilities without naming our specific products)

Small business data center website

Small business data center checklist

Incentives

Analyst Report

Gartner Magic Quadrant on Data Center Networking (July 2018)

Enterprise Strategy Group’s Technical Validation of HyperFlex (Feb. 2019)

451 Research Report (April 2019, cloud/storage)

IDC Business Value (March 2019)

HX Presentations

HyperFlex BDM Deck (FIELD ONLY; partner one is different)

HX Services slide and BDM on Intersight

HX Case Studies

HX customer examples – See also IDC as a customer (discusses ROI)

Port of Shangahi Video

DemosThe HX dCloud demo registration page allows customers to request a demo; then our GVE team uses most current demo version to deliver the demos.Webinars

TechWiseTV Workshop: Improving Performance and Agility with Cisco HyperFlex

TechWise TV HyperFlex 4.0 (May 7 recording)

Video

What Cisco HyperFlex Can Do For You

HX Anywhere

Comparison Guide

ESG Report - UCS, HX 2019