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Exploring the Demand for Hyperconverged Infrastructure

More enterprises are opting for the convenience and lower-costs of next-generation computing platforms that enable them to scale their IT capabilities rapidly. Frequently referred to as web-scale of hyper-scale solutions, these integrated systems deliver cloud-like economics within enterprise data centers.

Hyper-convergence is a type of IT infrastructure with a software-centric architecture that tightly integrates compute, object storage, networking and virtualization resources -- typically in a commodity x86-based hardware platform -- which are supported by a single vendor.

Upcoming data center refresh projects are driving 2016 enterprise investments in servers and converged infrastructure, according to the latest comprehensive market study by 451 Research.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure Market Development

Among enterprises in the study, 60 percent plan to increase spending on servers, and 79 percent plan to spend more on converged infrastructure in 2016.

Spending on hyperconverged infrastructure will be particularly strong in 2016 with 86 percent of respondents planning to increase spend and over 32 percent planning a major server and storage refresh project.

According to their latest "Voice of the Enterprise: Servers and Converged Infrastructure" market study, which surveyed over 780 enterprises in North America and Europe, vendors will not benefit equally from
spending allocations in 2016.

Cisco is expected to gain the most with 70 percent of its customers planning to increase spending allocations on its server portfolio. HP, IBM and Oracle had customers that were likely to cut spending, than those planning to spend more.

Budgets are strong for the majority of converged infrastructure vendors. The newly formed EMC Converged Platforms Division, formerly VCE, leads in budget increases -- 78 percent of its customers plan to increase budgets in 2016 with 32 percent in the above $2 million spending bracket.

“We see a sea change in the industry with Dell’s acquisition of EMC/VCE, and Nutanix filing for IPO,” said Nikolay Yamakawa, senior analyst at 451 Research.

Key Drivers for Increased Market Adoption

The 451 Research analysts believe that these shifts in emerging hybrid cloud computing environments are placing a spotlight on converged infrastructure solutions and providing IT buyers with more options.

Converged infrastructure vendors most commonly get into enterprise environments through a technology refresh project, especially a server refresh. Decision-making authority on converged infrastructure is most often shared by general infrastructure staff and server staff.

But the ultimate procurement decision to adopt this technology rests with the chief technology officer (CTO) or the chief information officer (CIO), while management is most often delegated to cross-functional groups.

“To ensure success, vendors need to communicate with all converged infrastructure stakeholders in a target organization and provide training early in the process to help with customer on-boarding,” added Yamakawa.

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