converged infrastructure (CI)

Converged Infrastructure(CI) is an approach to data center optimization. The CI approach aims at the compatibility of servers, storage systems and network components and reduces the costs for cabling, cooling, energy consumption and space requirements. A converged infrastructure is based on the implementation of a CI reference architecture.

With an appropriate approach to a CI reference architecture, the vendor supports the customer with hardware that best meets the specified requirements. The vendor can configure the hardware so that all of the processing, storage, and virtualization hardware is housed in just one rack. The design should be built in such a way that as demand increases, the additional equipment needed can be integrated.

In the hyper-converged approach, or hyper-converged infrastructure( HCI), the vendor abstracts processing, networking and storage resources from the physical hardware and bundles the virtualization software with the CI offerings. Backup systems use the HCI approach because other applications can be run on these platforms in addition to data backup.