Converged infrastructure platforms are fully pre-integrated server, traditional storage arrays, and networking hardware “stacks.” Hyperconverged infrastructure platforms are solutions that deliver compute, software-defined storage, and networking infrastructure services in a cluster of industry-standard servers.

Hyperconverged infrastructure extends the converged infrastructure model by incorporating the virtualization capabilities of software-defined storage (SDS). Hyperconverged infrastructure collapses the core components of traditional data center – compute and storage – into a server, effectively eliminating expensive and complex SAN environments.

Because HCI is software-defined—which means the infrastructure operations are logically separated from the physical hardware—the integration between components is much tighter than with CI. HCI manages everything as a single system through a common toolset.