Hyper-converged infrastructure, or HCI, is an information technology infrastructure that is defined by software that virtualizes networking and storage, systems which are conventionally defined as hardware. Hyper-converged infrastructure includes virtualized computing through a hypervisor, a storage area network defined by software, and networking also defined by software.

Unlike converged infrastructure or CI, hyper-converged infrastructure is implemented virtually in software rather than physically in hardware. Hyper-converged infrastructure brings flexibility, federates, simplifies, and automates management, increases the utilization of resources where possible, reduces inefficiency, reduces total cost of ownership, automates provisioning, consolidates operations, and provides high performance and availability, ensuring that companies do not need to deal with the limitations of traditional infrastructure.