The popularity of hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) systems is fueled not only by better, faster, and cheaper cpu and flash storage, but also by better orchestration of compute and storage resources, horizontal scaling, and elasticity to adjust to changing workloads.

Hyper-converged infrastructures are scale-out systems with nodes that are added and aggregated into a single platform. Each node performs compute, storage and networking functions, and they run virtualization software. HCI enables the software-defined data center.

But what are the considerations in buying the right solution for your use case? Here are some guidelines:

1. Closely inspect how the system implements reliability and resiliency. How does it protect system configuration and data? Implementations include replication, erasure coding, distribution of state information across multiple nodes to enable automatic failover, etc.

2. Does it have self-healing capabilities?

3. Can it perform non-disruptive upgrades?

4. Does it support VMware vSphere, as well as Microsoft Hyper-V and open source hypervisors like KVM?

5. Does the storage supports auto-tiering?

6. Since migrations affect virtual machine performance, how does the system maintains data locality as virtual machines move from one host to another?

7. What are the network configuration options? How is the network managed? Is there a self-optimizing network capabilities?

8. How is the performance affected when backups and restore are performed?

9. What is the performance impact if they are deployed in multiple geographical regions?

10. What are the data protection and recovery capabilities, such as snapshots and replication of workloads locally, to remote data centers and in the cloud?

11. Does it deduplicate the data, which minimizes the amount of data stored?

12. Does it have the option to extend to public clouds?

13. What are its management capabilities? Does it provide a single intuitive console for managing the HCI, or does it include a plug-in to hypervisor management tool such as vCenter to perform the management tasks?

14. Does it have APIs that enable third-party tools and custom scripts to interface with to enable automation?

15. Does it have monitoring, alerting, and reporting system which analyzes its performance, errors and capacity planning?

Finally, you should look at the vendor itself and look at their future in the HCI space, their product roadmap, support polices and cost model (lease, outright purchase, pay as you go, etc).