As we all know, as an important architectural method for software-defined data centers, hyper-convergence has quickly won market recognition in recent years.
In this process, the hyper-converged solutions represented by VMware vSAN, through continuous innovation and iteration, have laid a solid foundation for users to recognize, accept and widely apply hyper-converged solutions and realize the deployment of private clouds.
At the same time, with the rise of enterprise digital transformation and the advent of the era of full cloudification, cross-cloud or multi-cloud management has also become a new development trend. This change has also brought new opportunities and challenges to the hyper-converged market.
In this context, VMware recently announced the completion of VMware vSAN 6.7 update, the new version will help enterprise customers safely run business-critical applications and modern applications in data center, edge computing, public cloud or hybrid cloud environment.
In my opinion, with the continuous upgrade and transition from private cloud to hybrid cloud to public cloud, VMware vSAN has truly fulfilled the old saying with its own strength and actions: we have been leading and never been surpassed.
Hyperconvergence is accelerating
There is no doubt that hyperconvergence is undoubtedly the fastest growing market in the data center field in the past few years. We can observe from three dimensions:
First, from the perspective of market growth, according to the latest statistics from IDC, in the fourth quarter of 2017, the global sales revenue of hyper-converged systems increased by 69.4% year-on-year to US$1.25 billion, accounting for 34.3% of the entire converged system market; the whole year of 2017 , sales of hyperconverged systems exceeded $3.7 billion, an increase of 64.3% compared to 2016.
Not only that, but globally, IDC predicts that the hyper-converged market will have an average compound annual growth rate of 28.9% from 2016 to 2021, and the overall market revenue will reach tens of billions of dollars; Maintaining an average annual compound growth rate of 24.7%, the market size will reach US$600 million in 2021.
Second, from the perspective of market applications, in the past few years, hyper-convergence has verified its stability and reliability in edge and sensitive application scenarios, but the application scope of hyper-convergence is by no means limited to this, and its application is being further expanded It has gradually entered the core key applications of enterprises, and has good support for mainstream databases, ERP, and other key enterprise applications.
Earlier, Li Yanbing, senior vice president of VMware and general manager of the Storage and Availability Business Unit, also said: "Today, hyperconvergence has entered the core applications of enterprises from edge applications. Among VMware's customers, 65% use hyperconvergence in their critical production environments, with database applications the most. "
Third, the hyperconverged pure software delivery model is becoming mainstream. IDC's data for the fourth quarter of 2017 also showed that VMware's hyperconverged software revenue was $405 million, followed by Nutanix's revenue of $368 million, Dell's revenue of $96 million, and HPE's revenue of $62 million. Become a revenue champion in this field.
The key reason behind this is that hyper-converged software delivery is more flexible and efficient than the all-in-one opportunity. The willingness to deliver will also grow stronger.
It is worth mentioning that VMware, which was the first to propose and define a hyper-converged solution, also reaped the "bonus" of the market explosion in the process. Now VMware vSAN has become one of VMware's fastest-growing businesses, with more than There are more than 10,000 customers, and the number of new users per week remains at around 100, ranking the top in terms of revenue and market share.
Opportunities and Challenges of Comprehensive Cloudization
Of course, with the rapid growth of hyper-convergence, the entire data center market is also undergoing tremendous changes, which is the arrival of the era of full cloudification.
It can be seen that more and more large and medium-sized enterprises have a new understanding of the attitude of cloud computing, and the "permafrost" of cloud computing is thawing faster. The so-called "permafrost" means that more large and medium-sized enterprises are actively embracing cloudification, which obviously has more demonstration and traction effects on the cloud computing market.
In addition, the support system of cloud computing is also showing a trend of evolution from cloud resource management system to cloud operating system. In the future, the cloud computing platform will not only continue to undertake downward infrastructure integration, but will also manage various operations on the cloud, various application containers and middleware to support various cloud-native application services. .
More importantly, in the future, large-scale private clouds will gradually evolve into industry clouds, and industry clouds will become a new bright spot. Data shows that by 2020, more than 80% of the top 500 enterprises will provide government affairs clouds to customers through industry clouds. , financial cloud, power cloud, medical cloud and transportation cloud and other sub-industry cloud services.
Obviously, this also means that the scope of enterprise-level customer application deployment from private cloud to public cloud and hybrid cloud models is rapidly increasing, and the complexity and diversity of its application services are rapidly increasing, which also brings a series of huge changes to the hyper-converged market. challenge.
To this end, VMware officially released a new version of vSAN 6.7, which greatly improves the experience of using hyperconverged solutions on-premises and in the cloud. Specifically:
First, VMware vSAN 6.7 can shorten the time for operation and maintenance personnel to master professional technologies with the help of a new intuitive interface, and use the HTML5-based vSphere Client to provide vSAN administrators with a unified and intuitive management experience, introducing new functions and optimized workflows for vSAN operations .
Second, VMware vSAN 6.7 provides advanced monitoring and analysis capabilities. Through the new integrated vRealize Operations Healthchecks, VMware will provide a single monitoring panel to monitor and control multiple HCI environments, helping customers monitor capacity, performance, KPIs and alerts, etc. .
Third, VMware vSAN 6.7 also adds new host locking and iSCSI failover capabilities that extend the applicability of HCI to applications such as Cassandra, Hadoop and MongoDB, as well as clustered Windows Server environments. In addition, vSAN 6.7 adds new intelligent self-healing capabilities to mitigate the impact of disruptive events such as hardware failures for intelligent resource allocation and enhanced encryption capabilities of vSAN.
Fourth, VMware also announced vSAN ReadyCare to improve the support experience for hyperconverged environments. VMware will combine the proactive telemetry capabilities of vSAN Support Insight's advanced analytics and extensive training of VMware Technical Support personnel to help customers maintain high performance, avoid problems or resolve them quickly, and minimize downtime.
It can be seen that in the face of the arrival of the era of full cloudification, VMware is fully prepared. In this process, VMware vSAN has continuously met the needs of customers with its own technological innovation and differentiation capabilities, truly realizing the comprehensive coverage from private cloud to hybrid cloud and then to public cloud, providing a powerful tool for the digital transformation of enterprises. support.
VMware has never been outdone
Objectively speaking, VMware vSAN has always maintained strong competitiveness in the field of hyper-convergence, and continues to redefine and lead the hyper-convergence market. There are three important reasons behind it:
First of all, the essence of hyperconvergence is a new type of deployment architecture in a virtualized environment, and VMware provides a complete set of well-integrated software products in vSphere, vSAN and vCenter, making user management and support simple and easy. The benefits of this are that the migration and learning costs of users are greatly reduced, the digital transformation of customers is more calm, and the space for hyper-converged applications is greatly expanded.
Second, VMware offers the broadest range of hyperconverged solutions in the industry, including one-stop hyperconverged integrated systems such as Dell EMC VxRail and VxRack SDDC solutions, certified vSAN ReadyNode hardware reference architectures, and more through AWS and IBM's vSAN-based hyperconverged cloud service. In other words, VMware vSAN has a "full stack" delivery capability in the hyperconverged market.
Finally, the key to VMware's dominance in the hyper-converged market is to always "advance with the times", which is reflected in its active evolution and iteration of products and solutions, and has always provided advanced services and enhanced functions. Continuously meet the new changes and needs of customers.
The full text concludes that from reconstructing data center infrastructure to transforming enterprise cloud data centers, VMware vSAN provides a complete set of hyperconverged solutions for enterprises to achieve a smooth transition from private cloud to hybrid cloud and even public cloud. Therefore, while VMware continues to subvert itself, it will inevitably bring more infinite possibilities in the future.
Shen Yao's Science and Technology Observation was founded by Shen Yao (WeChat: shenyao) , a cross-border technology media person . He has 15 years of media work experience and has experience in self-driving on 100,000 kilometers of highways in China and the United States. Column, dedicated to the observation and thinking of the technology industry, here to understand the technology industry, know the trend, and win the future!