Monitoring in Hyperconverged Infrastructures: Challenges and Solutions

I have a not-so-secret suspicion that the dream of everyone working with technology is the Enterprise computer from Star Trek. Controlling shields, communications, engines, and everything else from a single place—and with voice commands, no less. “One button to rule them all,” as Sauron might whisper. But until that utopia becomes a reality, at least we can implement a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) in our organization’s technology stack.
This hyperconverged infrastructure allows unified management of:

• Computing.
• Networking.
• Storage.

It may not be as exciting as warp drives or interstellar navigation, but the real question is: how do we manage such different aspects in a homogeneous way?
With a common solution in technology: creating an abstraction layer. By introducing an intermediary—a software layer that consolidates all these disparate components through virtualization. The hypervisor, as part of this virtualization, acts as the enabler that allows all these resources to be managed from a single location. A sort of universal translator, another Star Trek dream.
Thus, multiple technologies (hyper)converge into a unified control and management system.
This isn’t just a technological evolution—it’s a paradigm shift: switching from managing individual components to orchestrating a cohesive system, where the infrastructure responds as a whole.

Advantages of a Hyperconverged Infrastructure Over a Traditional One

For those dealing with the heterogeneous chaos of a traditional IT infrastructure, the previous explanation may have sparked a few lightbulbs, highlighting the benefits of such a solution, including:

Simplicity. In both infrastructure and management, meaning there is no need to have in-depth knowledge of each individual component, integrate heterogeneous hardware, or track countless firmware updates. Instead, you only need to understand the software that manages everything.
Let us look at a simple comparison to illustrate this advantage:

Traditional Infrastructure	HCI
Fragmented Silos: Physical servers, storage (SAN/NAS), and networks managed by separate teams and tools.	Unification: Computing, storage, and networking integrated into standardized nodes managed by software.
Example: A VMware cluster with NetApp storage and standalone Cisco switches.	Example: Nutanix or VMware vSAN, where storage is distributed across local disks within nodes.

Scalability. Being able to resize modularly or add and remove features as needed, in a faster and more cost-effective manner. For instance:

Traditional Infrastructure	HCI
Adding storage requires expanding the SAN, while scaling computing power involves adding new servers. And that comes with the risk of overprovisioning, as capacity is purchased “just in case.”	Adding standardized nodes increases all resources (CPU, storage, and network) simultaneously. In this case, we scale on demand, without wasted resources (or their associated extra costs, of course).

Efficiency. It enables centralized and simplified management, automation, and reduced hardware usage.

Traditional Infrastructure	HCI
Multiple consoles: vSphere for VMs, NetApp OnCommand for storage, Cisco Prime for networking…	Unified management: A single interface for provisioning, managing, and monitoring the whole infrastructure.
Slow response times: Coordinating teams to solve incidents.	Native automation: Predefined policies (e.g., auto-repair of nodes).

When it comes to choosing an HCI solution, each organization must consider its needs and how the different available options align with them. Some of these options include:

• VMware vSAN. Particularly suited for those already familiar with VMware solutions.
• Nutanix. Ideal for organizations heavily relying on cloud and multi-cloud infrastructures.
• Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. Integrated within Azure Local, catering to the widespread Redmond ecosystem in many organizations.
• HPE SimpliVity. Focused on AI-driven management, a growing trend in these solutions.

However, regardless of the chosen solution, they all share a common challenge…

The Challenge of Monitoring Hyperconverged Infrastructures

The biggest advantage of HCI is that everything is in one place. Its biggest challenge is also that everything is in one place.
No, that was not a typo.
The fact that all critical components are centralized presents a major challenge in monitoring them effectively due to the sheer number of different factors to control.
Everything falls under a single umbrella, but that “everything” is vast, and the sheer volume of information and data can be overwhelming. This is where the concept of metric overload comes into play—when faced with an ocean of indicators, identifying the crucial data points becomes essential, but also incredibly complex.
This is where the critical value of a specialized monitoring system comes in. Much like how HCI simplifies infrastructure management, a tool like Pandora FMS makes it easier to monitor multiple key variables efficiently, ensuring visibility and control over the entire system.

Challenges in HCI Monitoring and Observability

Those working with Hyperconverged Infrastructures (HCI) often encounter common issues due to the nature of the solution, as some critical layers become somewhat more opaque due to integration.
This creates monitoring challenges, such as:

• Lack of visibility into HCI performance. It’s great that everything works in a unified manner, but is it actually performing well? Do we have key performance indicators (KPIs) readily available? Are there automated alerts to notify us immediately when something goes wrong?
• Difficulties in predicting performance degradations. For example, two virtual machines (VMs) competing for storage on the same HCI node can easily degrade the overall infrastructure. But how do we know if this will happen? And more importantly, how can we confirm if this is the actual cause of the performance drop we are experiencing?
• The need to correlate metrics across storage, networking, and virtualization.
• Lack of granular visibility. If we are experiencing latency issues, for instance, how do we determine whether there is a bottleneck in the underlying physical network or a software-related problem?
• The issue of component interdependence. Since a failure in an HCI node simultaneously impacts compute, storage, and networking, it can trigger a domino effect across the entire infrastructure.
• Metric overload. Monitoring not only VMs/containers but also hypervisors, distributed storage pools, East-West internal traffic, or Quality of Service (QoS) policies can quickly overwhelm monitoring systems.

How Does Pandora FMS Help with HCI Monitoring?

Pandora FMS serves as the key to overcoming these challenges because we have experienced them firsthand—and that frustration led us to develop an expert solution. While HCI solutions include built-in monitoring, they often come with common limitations:

• Basic capabilities. Most HCI platforms offer simple monitoring, preconfigured alerts, and limited integrations. These are useful within their own ecosystem, but when external technologies come into play, collaboration becomes impossible.
• Fragmented visibility. Many HCI monitoring tools lack data correlation from other infrastructures. What happens if we cannot avoid that legacy server in the basement—the one nobody knows how it got there, but is still critical and marked with the terrifying sign: “Do not unplug”? Additionally, dashboards remain fragmented in a multi-vendor environment (e.g., Nutanix + Proxmox).
• Limited customization. Many tools fail to provide custom alerts tailored to an organization’s specific operations.

This is where a tool like Pandora FMS, designed for expert monitoring of hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI), provides the ideal solution by enabling:

• Real-time observability. Unified multi-environment metrics, since HCIs rarely exist in isolation. Pandora FMS ensures seamless monitoring across hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Virtualization monitoring. Thanks to its native integration with VMware, Proxmox, Nutanix and KVM.
• Storage and network supervision. Tracking latency, availability, and resource usage.
• Anomaly and incident detection. Featuring event correlation and advanced alerts that identify root causes, not just detect symptoms.
• SIEM and log integration. Providing security and event auditability, key for critical industries operating under NIS2 regulations, which require strict compliance and controls. Without proper log unification good luck explaining missing data to an auditor who, for some reason, never blinks.
• Trend analysis and capacity planning. With the implementation of machine learning for optimizing that capability more simple and adequate.

When it comes to something as critical as monitoring hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI), it’s not just about “calling in the specialist”—like Pandora FMS. Its implementation goes even further, as it allows you to centralize all critical information, not only from HCI but also from other key technological elements such as laptops, additional servers or even mobile devices.
This naturally completes the HCI philosophy, because in a way, Pandora FMS enables the hyperconvergence of monitoring itself in a single, unified place.
The long-awaited “One Ring” to monitor them all.
(Pandora FMS does not include a magic ring. Our legal team insists we clarify this.)

Benefits of Using Pandora FMS in HCI Environments

The quality of decisions depends on the quality of the information available to make them. This is one of the key strategic advantages that Pandora FMS provides.
When monitoring Hyperconverged Infrastructures (HCI), this translates into direct benefits such as:

• Faster incident response times.
• Optimized performance and failure prediction.
• Enhanced security through event correlation and suspicious activity monitoring.
• Compatibility with multiple technologies without requiring additional tools.
• Reduced operational costs, through automation and better resource allocation.
• Scalability without impacting operations

And above all, a sense of control, sanity, and peace of mind—because you always know exactly what’s happening.
In an increasingly complex and diverse environment, hyperconverged infrastructures help optimize and simplify. And just like in Inception, the film by Christopher Nolan, we can take one level deeper in this journey toward hyperconvergence—by optimizing and simplifying the monitoring of these infrastructures with Pandora FMS.
Without this, operating efficiently and staying at the forefront of our industry would be impossible.
If you want to learn more about Pandora FMS in Hyperconverged Infrastructures, do not hesitate to contact us, we will prove these words with actions.