The Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Appliance Explosion - the battle for market share is on

A few weeks back I authored a post entitled - Hyperconverged Infrastructure - Hype or the future of the Data Center.

 In that post I discussed the basics of what a Hyper-converged Infrastructure Appliance (HCIA) is - how it works and why these new devices are going to impact data center purchasing decisions going forward.

 When I authored the post - there were a few players in the space.  Nutanix, Simplivity, Gridstore and Pivot3 to mentioned a few along with software plays from DataCore and ScaleIO.  Most of these HCIA vendors originally started with their own ODM appliances built by SuperMicro or Quanta but then created partnerships with server vendors like Dell, Lenovo and Cisco to expand their offerings and appeal. 

 VMware had also entered the space back in 2014 with their Evo:RAIL concept that was eventually sold by Dell, EMC, Fujitsu and a few others - but it has not been a huge seller.

 In just the last 3 weeks - several major vendors have announced new HCIA offerings and now the rush is on for market share in this soon to be dominate technology in the datacenter.

 First is EMC/VCE with their VxRail offering.  Based on their relationship with VMware - VxRail is in effect Evo:Rail version 2.  Built on top of Vsphere/vSAN - with an additional focus on NSX, these appliances - ODM'd by Quanta are available now.

 Next was Cisco with their new HyperFlex solution.  Cisco took a unique approach in that they not only built HCIA on traditional 1U/2U UCS rack servers but also came up with a bundle to support UCS Blade chassis.  The software is provided by Springpath via an OEM agreement.

 HPE is also in the space with multiple offerings based on their StoreVirtual VSA storage software and 4 in 2U Rack Server format.  

 The goal of this post is not to dive into each of these offerings in detail and try and pick winner- but more to raise awareness that all of sudden this market has exploded.  But the one thing I will say is that HCIA will be a $2B market in 2016 and maybe as high as $4B or more in 2017.  

 The folks that are going to see pressure are the HBA, and SAN Switch vendors like Emulex and Brocade.  While there may still be the need for SAN based storage for specific apps - a large portion of the virtualized server footprint out there today will begin to move to HCIA as server refreshes occur.  The other folks I see under pressure is NetApp.  

 Add to the the explosion in SSD capacity and price drops and I expect that All Flash HCIA will become the norm.  

 I also suspect that some acquisitions are coming - where the big guys buy up the intellectual property of start-ups.  

 Bottom line - Be prepared to be approached by every major vendor you have to discuss HCIA.  It's going to be like the wild-west out there over the next few years.  






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