Gartner Inc. recently released the first ever Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructure and the corresponding Critical Capabilities Report
As with all Magic Quadrant reports, the tech community was eagerly anticipating its release. Vendors, customers, and those interested in following hyperconvergence wanted to see Gartner’s assessment of each vendor’s offerings according to their ability to execute and vision.
Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) is a growing trend for today’s data centers because it reduces costs, increases scalability, and protects data. HCI is reported to be the fastest-growing segment at a CAGR of 48%, slated to exceed $10 billion by 2021. And according to Gartner, in less than two years, 20% of business-critical applications currently deployed on three-tier IT infrastructure will transition to hyperconverged infrastructure.
As the first of its kind, this new report focuses exclusively on HCI, which is a sub-segment of Gartner’s previous Integrated Systems category. This segmentation allows the Gartner Magic Quadrant for HCI to be more focused on the software within its environment, as opposed to physical infrastructure highlighted in the previous Integrated Systems Magic Quadrant reports.
HCI and the software-defined datacenter
The data center is moving to a software-defined state, which makes this Magic Quadrant important reading if you are considering investing in HCI or just keeping up with new software-defined trends.
Three to four years ago, HCI was viewed with some level of skepticism and was only being used in non-critical areas. But in today’s IT environments, HCI is creeping into many mission critical areas of the data center, such as the consolidated data center, business-critical projects, cloud, ROBO, and VDI.
HPE, a leader in HCI
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) was once again recognized as a leader by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant. And in the corresponding Critical Capabilities report, Gartner praised HPE SimpliVity’s data services, and the related ability to avoid separate backup solutions. Gartner also recognized the reach, support, and reputation of HPE.
HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solutions allow you to streamline and enable IT operations at a fraction of the cost of traditional and public cloud solutions by combining your IT infrastructure and advanced data services into a single, integrated all-flash solution. HPE SimpliVity is a powerful, simple, and efficient hyperconverged platform that joins best-in-class data services with the world’s best-selling server and offers the industry’s most complete guarantee.
What’s new in HCI since the report?
As interesting as this first Magic Quadrant for HCI is, a word of caution is in order. Gartner only considered product functionality from participating vendors up through April 2017 — almost 10 months ago. Since that time, much has happened at HPE in its HCI offering. For example:
- HPE SimpliVity 380 released an Gen10 all-flash version
- HPE SimpliVity 380 released multiple versions of RapidDR for, improving performance and disaster recovery automation for virtualized environments
- Extended the industry leading GreenLake Flex Capacity consumption offering to include hyperconverged solutions
I am sure many other vendors have released similar updates, and because HCI represents the fastest growing segment in the data center, these types of new and innovative solutions are being introduced all the time. Because the market opportunity in this area is massive, expect a lot of changes — both from new vendors and new solutions that will be reviewed during the next release of the HCI Magic Quadrant.
Download the complete 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructure report here.
Download the complete Gartner Critical Capabilities Report here.
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructure, John McArthur, George J. Weiss, Kiyomi Yamada, Hiroko Aoyama, Philip Dawson, Arun Chandrasekaran, Julia Palmer, 6 February 2018. Gartner Critical Capabilities for Hyperconverged Infrastructure, Philip Dawson, George J. Weiss, Kiyomi Yamada, Hiroko Aoyama, Arun Chandrasekaran, Julia Palmer, John McArthur, 7 February 2018. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
About Jesse St. Laurent
Jesse St. Laurent is the Chief Technologist for HPE Hyperconverged and SimpliVity. He uses his 20 years of experience to engage channel partners, evaluate emerging technologies, and shape innovative technology solutions involving data center modernization. For more information on how hyperconverged infrastructure can elevate your hybrid IT environment, download the free HPE SimpliVity edition of Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Dummies ebook.
To read more articles from Jesse St. Laurent, check out the HPE Converged Data Center Infrastructure blog.
