FINAL WORD
Organisations seeking to optimise Edge infrastructure performance and uptime are increasingly finding hyperconverged infrastructure to be a compelling solution. Hyperconverged infrastructure is an IT framework that combines compute, storage and networking into a single system, virtualising these functions and integrating them into a single platform, managed centrally through software.
Hyperconverged infrastructure can simplify deployment and management, eliminate siloed infrastructures and add the ability to manage computing, storage and network resources with a single interface.
Remedying the costly issues surrounding cloud, the reduction in hardware requirements lowers capital expenditure. Additionally with modular hyperconverged infrastructure systems organisations can scale incrementally by adding nodes as needed, which will avoid an excessive upfront cost.
Hyperconverged infrastructure offers superior resilience as built-in redundancy capabilities ensure business continuity even in case of hardware failures. Hyperconverged infrastructure can be deployed independently at the Edge while maintaining seamless connectivity with central datacentres or cloud platforms.
With enterprises reassessing their IT strategies, there’ s a demand for flexible, cost-effective alternatives, and channel partners are missing out by failing to offer hyperconverged infrastructure.
With the benefits of hyperconverged infrastructure, delivering on resilience, latency and cost, channel partners need to have this solution on hand to stay competitive. Resellers, MSPs and system integrators must deepen their hyperconverged infrastructure expertise, provide managed services, and support seamless migrations to help customers adopt tailored infrastructure to meet modern requirements.
How to beat the challenge of IPv4 exhaustion
The Internet has reached the point of IPv4 exhaustion long ago. Businesses and organisations must wait months or sometimes years until an IPv4 address can be allocated to them. With no IPs to ensure Internet connectivity, newly launched businesses or companies seeking expansion are faced with significantly delayed go-to-market timelines.
Acquiring IP addresses is a complicated and competitive process; the limited supply fuels the problem further. This scarcity has transformed IP addresses into a valuable commodity, with prices reaching around $ 50 per address in 2024. Data also shows that large corporations have hundreds of millions of IPv4s but do not use them, exacerbating the problem further. For example, last year, Amazon, MS, Google, and Oracle combined for 70 % of all IPv4 transfers.
IPs have become too expensive and unaffordable for most companies, especially small ones. The conventional approach to IP acquisition has become increasingly problematic as businesses wait months or years for addresses. Data shows that in Latin America, the waiting time can be up to ten years, and two years in Europe.
Any digital action, such as launching new services, deploying additional servers, or accommodating more users, requires additional IP addresses. Thus, the lack of available IPv4 addresses halts any digital growth. This scarcity means small businesses face operational complexities they cannot afford.
To mitigate the IPv4 shortage, many businesses implement Network Address Translation, NAT solutions. While NAT allows multiple devices to share a single public IP address, it introduces complexities in network management, potential security vulnerabilities, and challenges in scalability. These issues can be particularly taxing for small businesses with limited IT resources.
IP leasing is one of the alternatives of skipping the line and could potentially shave off months of waiting time. The process is significantly faster as you get immediate access to IPs. Businesses can obtain IPs in days rather than months or years, bypassing the delays of RIR queues or transfer processing. Crucially for small businesses or startups, you can avoid large upfront investment costs.
While widespread adoption of IPv6 remains the industry’ s primary goal, IP leasing can serve as an interim solution to fill operational gaps and support business continuity. IPXO is an Internet Protocol management platform that enables companies to monetise unused IP resources and alleviate the IPv4 shortage problem. IPXO offers IP reputation management and continuously collaborates with RIRs to develop innovative solutions that enhance industry transparency.
Enterprise IT is pivoting and for good reasons. As cloud becomes increasingly unsuitable and VMware’ s new model continues to drive customers towards alternative solutions, hyperconverged infrastructure is better positioned to fulfil the needs of Edge IT.
Ramutė Varnelytė, CEO IPXO
Amid evolving enterprise infrastructure needs, partners are left with growth opportunities that can be fulfilled with this technology. Offering hyperconverged infrastructure solutions ensures customer needs are fully supported while keeping businesses ahead of the curve. •
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