Once again, VMware vSAN powered HCI Systems lead the overall market for the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the IDC Worldwide Converged Systems Tracker.
The tracker reports that systems running VMware HCI accounted for 41.1% share of the market, near a record high market share. Additionally, systems running VMware HCI grew at 26.3% year over year, greater than the overall market growth rate of 17.2%. VMware believes IT organizations of all sizes are turning to hyperconverged infrastructure as their default compute and storage infrastructure. Notably The traditional storage market contracted -.1% at the same time as HCI’s continued growth, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker for Q4 2019.
IDC Data Shows VMware HCI Powered Systems are #1
In the latest quarter, Q4 2019, systems running VMware vSAN led the HCI market, with $938 million in revenue, up from $742 million the year prior. During the quarter, the HCI market grew at 17.2% year over year, but systems running vSAN grew at 26.3%, which is 53% faster than the market overall. vSAN has over 20,000 customers with the majority of the Global 2000 using VMware HCI.
Why Customers Continue to Choose VMware vSAN
While there are many reasons why customers choose vSAN as their HCI software, VMware wanted to highlight three reasons why we believe systems running vSAN continue to make it the most popular choice: operational simplicity, support for cloud-native applications and a path to the hybrid cloud.
Operational Simplicity
VMware vSAN uses automation, policy-based management and workflows to simplify storage operations, reducing time to complete common storage tasks while eliminating others completely, such as LUN provisioning. With vSAN 7, the latest release, VMware HCI sets the foundation for a new, unified mechanism to update software and firmware that is native to vSphere called vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM). vLCM is built off a desired-state model that provides lifecycle management for the hypervisor and the full stack of drivers and firmware for the servers powering your data center. vLCM can be used to apply an image, monitor the compliance, and remediate the cluster if there is a drift. This reduces the effort to monitor compliance for individual components and helps maintain a consistent state for the entire cluster in adherence to the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG). vLCM is a powerful new approach to creating simplified consistent server lifecycle management at scale.
Cloud-Native Application Support
VMware has long supported container-based workloads, but with vSAN 6.7 Update 3, VMware took a major step forward, introducing a native control plane for container persistent storage. IT admins can use existing tools to support cloud-native applications, and the infrastructure makes it easy for developers to seamlessly consume storage. In vSAN 7, vSAN now supports file service protocols NFS v4.1 and v3 for cloud-native applications orchestrated by Kubernetes, expanding the use cases for cloud-native applications on vSAN. Web server applications such as NginX and Tomcat will run much more efficiently, as they will share a file repository instead of duplicating data for each instance. In addition to file services, vSAN supports vSphere Add-on for Kubernetes (formerly known as Project Pacific), which enables stateful containerized workloads to be deployed on vSAN datastores.
Seamless Path to Hybrid Cloud
vSAN is a critical component VMware’s infrastructure control plane from edge to core to cloud. vSAN enables consistent processes in a true hybrid cloud architecture; no application replatforming required. Admins can use the same tools and processes used on-prem, eliminating training requirements and siloed teams and expediting time-to-value. vSAN’s leading cloud provider network, including the six largest public cloud providers, gives users the option to build a hybrid cloud with hundreds of public cloud providers, allowing users to select a vendor that meets their specific needs.
Next Steps
Read about vSAN 7, the latest release or watch the vSAN 7 Overview video
See how VMware HCI supports modern applications in VMware Cloud Foundation 4
VMware HCI customers value the breath of deployment options. Learn more about the HCI ecosystem.
