How Hyperconverged Infrastructure Can Address Cloud and Edge Problems

COMMENTARY: As more businesses modernize IT infrastructure to support remote operations and edge computing, they’re discovering that cloud-first strategies don’t always deliver on their promise – particularly for distributed environments. Rising costs, performance limitations and complex management requirements are creating operational headaches for retailers, manufacturers, healthcare providers and other industries with geographically dispersed sites.

That’s why many organizations and their channel partners are turning to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) to simplify, secure and future-proof IT at the edge.

The Hidden Costs of Cloud at the Edge

Despite continued advancements in cloud technology, organizations and large enterprises with many remote sites still face major hurdles in managing and securing data at the edge. Some have gone all-in on cloud strategies, abandoning local IT systems entirely. But that’s often led to new challenges: unreliable services, performance issues and expensive contracts, particularly for real-time applications at smaller locations.

For distributed operations, maintaining uptime, securing data and integrating cloud services with onsite systems can be both complex and costly. Many edge sites are constrained by limited space, power and cooling – and often lack skilled IT staff – further adding to the burden.

Most edge sites still need connectivity to cloud or corporate datacenters to access essential applications and storage. This forces IT leaders to make tough decisions about which workloads should stay local, move to the cloud, or be retired. All while ensuring performance and compliance in hybrid environments.

Why Edge Growth is Accelerating

Driven by AI analytics, IoT expansion and digital transformation, edge computing is one of the fastest-growing segments of enterprise IT.  IDC research projects that global spending on edge computing will reach $261 billion in 2025 and increase at a 13.8% annual rate to $380 billion by 2028.

This rapid growth is creating both opportunity and pressure. Industries like manufacturing, retail, healthcare and energy depend on time-sensitive data for real-time decision-making and operational efficiency. But inconsistent cloud performance and high latency at edge sites can disrupt business-critical functions.

Meanwhile, an explosion of data is also being produced in massive quantities by IoT devices such as digital twins in manufacturing facilities, smart shelves and self-checkout systems in retail establishments and patient health monitoring devices in hospitals.  But this explosion in data is completely overwhelming existing infrastructure. The need for local processing and storage capacity is becoming more urgent – and cloud-only approaches often fall short.

Why HCI Is Emerging as the Edge Standard

Integrating a full-stack HCI at the edge helps businesses and their IT partners overcome these challenges by consolidating compute, storage and networking into a single, easy-to-manage system. Unlike traditional architectures that require specialized hardware and software for each function, HCI is virtualized, modular and designed for simplicity.

Modern HCI solutions are purpose-built for edge environments, delivering high availability, performance and scalability without requiring large server footprints or complex hardware. Many HCI offerings now provide high availability with just two servers, minimizing physical space, power, cooling and onsite maintenance requirements.

Failover can occur in under 30 seconds, ensuring uptime for mission-critical apps. These systems are also designed for easy deployment and remote management (often in under an hour, enabling IT generalists or partner technicians to set up and manage them without specialized expertise.

For channel partners, this translates to faster deployment cycles, reduced support overhead and greater profitability. HCI also makes it simple to scale edge environments as data demands grow, with centralized monitoring and dynamic resource optimization that prevents costly overprovisioning.

The Channel Opportunity

As customers seek alternatives to cloud-only or legacy systems, channel partners are well-positioned to guide them through this infrastructure evolution. Lightweight HCI solutions enable partners to help businesses modernize their edge environments without costly hardware overhauls or risky cloud migrations.

We’ve seen partners successfully deploy two-node HCI systems at retail chains, healthcare facilities and manufacturing plants, improving uptime while cutting infrastructure costs. By offering HCI alongside cloud and on-premises options, partners can deliver flexible, future-ready solutions tailored to each customer’s operational needs.

With the edge IT market poised for continued expansion, partners that embrace HCI as a key part of their portfolio will gain a valuable competitive advantage. 

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