Emerging Business Trend: Converged and Hyper-converged Infrastructure

How much do you know about “converged infrastructure” (CI) and “hyper-converged infrastructure” (HCI)?  Educators may want to check with their local business group to find out what how much students need to know about these two kinds of architecture.  The CTC recently came across a couple of columns from IT Business Edge that discusses the growing trend of CI and HCI.  While HCI is described as symmetrical where performance scales up and down together, HCI is asymmetrical and allows for different levels of storage or computing power as needed.  Specifically, the “market for CI is growing at more than 22% per year and is expected to top $76 billion by 2025.”  These solutions are flexible and cost-effective, which are obviously a necessity in a world of rapid change.  This is just the sort of business enterprise trend your students may need to know about as they prepare for the workforce.  Regular readers of this blog know National CTC believes strongly in the value of an engaged Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) that help co-lead a program’s curriculum.  The BILT helps educators know what job skills will get students hired. (For example, one of the member enterprises of the National Convergence Technology Center’s BILT offers an HCI solution that works essentially like a hybrid cloud that provides services as though everything is on-premise.  Students looking for work at that company may need to be aware of the basics of CI and HCI environments.)