Pure Storage Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape for All-Flash Arrays

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --  @Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG), the market's leading independent #allflash data platform vendor, announced today that it was named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape Worldwide All-Flash Array 2017 Vendor Assessment.1 The IDC MarketScape report states that "Pure Storage's strategies in #NVMe, cloud-based predictive analytics, customer experience, and technology refresh (with the Evergreen Storage program) made the difference for the company."
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pure-storage-named-a-leader-in-idc-marketscape-for-all-flash-arrays-300579588.html

New Pure Storage CEO On Potential Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Plans, Competing With NetApp, And Choosing A Snappy Nickname

Focus On #AllFlash #Storage Paying Off For @PureStorage While @CharlieGiancarlo has been CEO of #Pure Storage for about three months, since Chairman and former CEO @Scott "Dietz" Dietzen gave up that role, he has yet to get the one-syllable nickname that nearly every Pure Storage employee receives. But that may be the only thing that has not worked for him in his new role. Pure Storage, which went public two years ago but which has yet to show a profit, late last month said it was cash-flow-positive for the first time and will soon be profitable. The company is in the top five list of flash storage vendors and is one of the fastest-growing storage vendors overall. And it is exploring new avenues of growth for its flash storage business including possibly doing more in hyper-converged infrastructure and compute environments. Giancarlo recently spoke with CRN to talk about the future direction of the company. Here’s what he had to say.

CRN: Have you come up with your one-syllable nickname yet?

Giancarlo: Apparently, 'Charlie.' We challenged the entire company, and as creative as the team is, they couldn't beat the 60 years of 'Charlie' being my nickname. I'm open to it. And, by the way, the contest is still open if you want to put in a suggestion. 

CRN: I'm surprised you don't use 'Chuck,' unless somebody else is using it ...

Giancarlo: In one sports team I was in in college they used that. But it never stuck.

CRN: What is Dietz's (pictured) role now?

Giancarlo: Dietz is chairman. You might also call him 'ambassador.' He's been on the road, meeting with customers and partners, and also been working with us to some extent in terms of strategy. He's been a great confidant for me as I'm making my way in the early days of a new environment. He's been quite busy, actually.

Pure Storage is pretty much focused on all-flash storage. Isn't that a risky strategy for a company looking to really grow and become a major part of the data center infrastructure?

Giancarlo: I'd phrase it in a different way. First of all, if you believe that not just first-tier but tier-two storage is also going to go to flash, it's not really very narrowing. But if what you're really asking is, is storage too narrow a category, I do believe that we will expand beyond what is just standard storage as environments [become] much more integrated. Whether it's converged infrastructure, or hyper-converged infrastructure, or super-converged infrastructure, or whatever version of converged infrastructure you want to identify, we need to become, and we will become, a bigger and bigger part of that.

But I don't think flash by itself narrows our opportunity. Indeed, I believe that flash is going to continue to come down in price and start to take on more and more workloads that were previously just magnetic [disk-based].

Pure Storage is already in converged infrastructure in partnership with Cisco with FlashStack.

I just believe that customers want more and more simplicity in terms of the way they deploy their compute environments. And so, I'm not announcing anything, but the fact of the matter is that Pure today is, as I've said before, we require five to 10 times fewer bodies to manage our product. Well, extending that simplicity into the networking and compute and integrating more is an obvious future direction for us.

One of your competitors, NetApp, just released its hyper-converged infrastructure appliancebased on its SolidFire all-flash storage technology. Do you think that was the right move for NetApp, a storage vendor, to get into hyper-converged infrastructure?

I think that that move is emblematic of what's happening in the storage and compute industry, which is that it's become a much more dynamic environment than it was just a few years ago. And I believe that it has opened up opportunities for vendors that were uniquely supplying just one component in an overall compute stack [to now] operate in other environments as well. Only time will tell whether that was the right thing for them to do, and whether or not they will be able to fully execute on that model. But I do think that what it identifies is that the marketplace is open now to new solutions from new vendors. And that's good for us. And it's good for companies that can be aggressive and innovative in their R&D, and aggressive in terms of the new architectures that they put in place.

How much of a risk to Pure Storage's business is the cloud? IDC says the top storage vendors are losing market share to hyper-scalers.

I actually see cloud as an opportunity. About 25 percent of our business is in cloud today. As you'll note, we haven't made announcements yet with hyper-scalers, but certainly those discussions are taking place. And we believe we just have a superior offering. And our superior offering is not specifically our hardware. It's the software that we use to manage the environment and increase the feature sets that we create. And we think that allows us to be a better supplier, both into SaaS companies as well as the social hyper-scalers.

[The cloud] may shift the overall amount of data that's kept on-prem versus the amount of data that's kept in the cloud. But I don't see it as a threat. I see it as an opportunity.

READ MORE AT:

http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/300096531/crn-exclusive-new-pure-storage-ceo-on-potential-hyper-converged-infrastructure-plans-competing-with-netapp-and-choosing-a-snappy-nickname.htm

Pure Storage Honored with CRN 2017 Tech Innovator Award

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Nov. 13, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- @Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG), the market's leading independent #allflash data platform vendor for the cloud era, announced today that @CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has recognized the company with a 2017 CRN Tech Innovator Award. These annual awards honor standout hardware, software or services that have helped to move the IT industry forward. This year, CRN editors evaluated 216 products across 32 technology categories using several criteria including technological advancements, uniqueness of features and potential to help solution providers solve end users' IT challenges. Pure Storage's FlashArray//X took top honors in the Storage category.  Data has emerged as the most valuable asset of any organization, and the leaders of the digital and cloud era will be organizations that most effectively use data to drive innovation. In April 2017, Pure Storage introduced FlashArray//X, the first enterprise-class, direct-to-flash, all-NVMe array. FlashArray//X is ideal for supporting enterprise database acceleration, tier 1 consolidation and performance, as well as new use cases such as top of rack DAS replacement. Engineered with new Purity DirectFlash Software and NVMe DirectFlash Modules that significantly surpass the protocol enhancements of NVMe, FlashArray//X eliminates bottlenecks and delivers next-generation system performance that is unique in the industry. Customers require ways to unlock the value of their data, and Pure Storage partners can help with this solution that provides dramatic improvements in density, performance and scale. FlashArray//X demonstrates continued innovation from Pure and creates additional opportunities for partners to offer complete tier one solutions that address needs throughout the infrastructure stack, as well as multi-cloud architectures. "Pure partners deliver a technology and business advantage as customers invest in consolidated infrastructure and applications for greater efficiency and productivity; these organizations will increasingly rely on high performance and highly reliable storage to address their fast-growing data needs," said Michael Sotnick, VP of Global Field and Channel Operations, Pure Storage. "FlashArray//X helps organizations turn data into opportunity and deliver better business outcomes. We are thrilled that Pure's FlashArray//X innovation is being recognized by CRN with this award." "The vendors and products on CRN's Tech Innovator list represent some of the most creative and forward-thinking achievements yet seen in the IT channel," said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company. "We are honored to celebrate their ingenuity and the growth they are driving across the industry, from increased organizational productivity and sales to expanded solutions for complex problems and trailblazing innovation." The Tech Innovator Awards will be featured in the December issue of CRN and can be viewed online at crn.com/techinnovators. Tweet This: .@TheChannelCo recognizes @PureStorage in 2017 @CRN #CRNInnovators crn.com/techinnovators About Pure Storage Pure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) helps companies push the boundaries of what's possible. Pure's end-to-end data platform - including FlashArray, FlashBlade and our converged offering with Cisco, FlashStack – is powered by innovative software that's cloud-connected for management from anywhere on a mobile device and supported by the Evergreen business model. The company's all-flash based technology, combined with its customer-friendly business model, drives business and IT transformation with solutions that are effortless, efficient and evergreen. With Pure's industry leading Satmetrix-certified NPS score of 83.7, Pure customers are some of the happiest in the world, and include organizations of all sizes, across an ever-expanding range of industries. About the Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelco.com Connect with Pure Storage: Read the blog Converse on Twitter Follow on LinkedIn FlashStack Solutions Analyst Recognition: Gartner July 2017 Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays IDC MarketScape for All-Flash Arrays Pure Storage, the "P" Logo, FlashBlade and FlashStack are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pure Storage, Inc. All other trademarks or names referenced in this document are the property of their respective owners.

http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/Pure-Storage-Honored-with-CRN-2017-Tech-Innovator-Award-1007912384

Memory chip makers rake in record revenue, hurting their buyers’ profits

Big chip makers such as #Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and #MicronTechnology Inc.­ are raking in record revenue thanks to a global shortage of flash memory. According to a new report on the market from #DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage division of #TrendForceCorp., the long-running shortage of #memorychips is set to continue in a trend whose flip side is a hit to profits of many companies making products as wide-ranging as #smartphones, #computers, #networking gear and #flashstorage arrays. DRAMeXchange said in its latest analysis of the market that NAND flash memory component sales totaled $16.5 billion in the second quarter of this year. That represents a 73 percent year-over-year jump. The previous record for quarterly revenues was set in the first quarter of this year, when NAND Flash memory makers raked in around $14.1 billion in revenues. The profit growth is being driven by an acute global shortage of NAND flash memory, which has come about as memory makers prioritize the production of higher-density 3D NAND chips, CRN.com reported. The shortage has led to flash prices skyrocketing, and has had a major impact on the bottom lines of a number of big technology companies that use NAND Flash as the primary storage medium for hardware such as servers and smartphones, among other things. In the latest quarter, NAND flash component prices for PC and server components rose by about 10 percent, while component prices for mobile devices increased by 5 percent. One of the companies most affected by these rising costs is Super Micro Computer Inc., which recently reported earnings that came up short of analysts’ expectations, resulting in a 10 percent drop in its share price. Super Micro said the blame for its disappointing results could be placed on the rapidly rising cost of flash memory chips. Another company that’s suffering due to the high costs of flash is Cisco Systems Inc. On Wednesday the networking giant reported a 4 percent decline in revenues, which was also partly blamed on the rising cost of Flash. Unfortunately for these companies, things are unlikely to improve in the near term, as DRAMeXchange predicts that NAND Flash component prices will continue rising throughout the year. It said that this was thanks to tight supply resulting from the lack of major fab expansion plans and yield issues with leading-edge processes. “The DRAM market benefited from the upswing in ASPs and continuing progress in suppliers’ technology migrations,” said Avril Wu, research manager of DRAMeXchange. “At the same time, suppliers do not appear to have plans to expand their production capacities in a significant scale between now and the end of the year.” That is, of course, good news for the suppliers themselves, whose operating margins are likely to continue rising. The analyst firm said Samsung was the leading supplier with $7.6 billion in revenues and a 46 percent share of the market, followed by fellow South Korean firm SK Hynix Inc. at $4.5 billion, or 27 percent, and U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc. at $3.6 billion, or 22 percent.

https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/08/18/flash-memory-makers-rake-record-breaking-profits-back-global-shortage/

Dell, NetApp, Hewlett Packard lead $1.3B All Flash Array market

The #AllFlash Array market was $1.3B in Q1, according to the Dell’Oro Group, which represented a 48% growth over the prior year’s quarter. Leaders of this external storage market include #DellEMC (NYSE:DVMT), NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP), and #HewlettPackardEnterprise (NYSE: #HPE ). All Flash Array is the only type of external storage achieving sales growths while Disk and Hybrid Storage systems drop. Market leaders with revenue share: #DellEMC: 29%; #NetApp: 21%; #HewlettPackardEnterprise: 17%; #Pure Storage: 12%; #IBM: 7%. The Dell’Oro Group expects the All Flash Array market to achieve nearly $7B in FY17 sales.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3272074-dell-netapp-hewlett-packard-lead-1_3b-flash-array-market

Cisco MDS and Dell EMC set new standards for enterprise storage performance

An undeniable trend in the storage industry is what one might refer to as the democratization of all-flash storage as the technology becomes more economical and, therefore, more relevant for most use cases. Indeed, flash storage remains critical for Tier 0/Tier 1 applications such as enterprise databases, and its growing popularity to support broader sets of workloads has industry experts estimating that virtually the entire market will be based on flash-based technologies over the next 10 years. #DellEMC has been ahead of the trend curve with strategic storage introductions to meet customer requirements of all scope and size. This includes the introduction of the #VMAX 250F last fall, a smaller, powerhouse of a system that can still scale impressively to more than 1 million IOPS and 1PB of capacity fully loaded. Today, Dell EMC is addressing the higher end of the solution spectrum with the introduction of the VMAX 950F all-flash storage array as the newest member of its premier enterprise offering. The VMAX 950F scales significantly in both capacity and performance, and has set a new industry benchmark for enterprise storage array performance. #DellEMC ‘s #AllFlash Portfolio delivers mission-critical availability while offering a wealth of data services that help customers to scale without compromising performance or availability. Why #VMAX #950F and the #CiscoMDS To enable the optimal storage network for this system, #Cisco has worked closely with Dell EMC to integrate #Cisco MDS 9000 platform with all #DellEMC flash storage offerings to provide customers a choice of industry-leading architectures that simplify, automate, and transform IT – while helping customers accelerate the journey to the cloud. To better serve the new application requirements, Cisco recently introduced a New high-performance Analytics ready 32G Fibre Channel Module and NVMe over Fibre Channel support enabling customers to scale flash deployments efficiently. The VMAX 950F is ideal for mission-critical applications that demand the performance of flash and 24×7 (continuous) availability – such as core banking, credit card processing, electronic billing, or electronic hospital record systems. The VMAX 950F, with its advanced data services, is ideal for consolidating multiple, diverse workloads and delivers an unparalleled architecture able to scale up performance and scale out capacity. It is also versatile with support for mixed data formats (open systems, mainframe, IBM i, block/file), which are commonly found in any enterprise today. The VMAX 950F also launches with the benefit of DELL EMC’s trusted reputation and vast experience in consolidating mission-critical operations on single platforms.
https://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/dell-emc-setting-new-standards-for-enterprise-storage-performance

Tegile Systems sees opportunities in NVMe, HPE-Nimble buy

The #Tegile CEO talks about how the #allflash market is shaping up with the advent of NVM express, and how his company is battling against the major data storage vendors.

Like most flash array vendors, Tegile Systems Inc. is waiting for advances such as nonvolatile memory express, or #NVMe, and #3DXPoint to become market reality. The vendor is banking on its flash design to maximize those technologies, compared to legacy systems originally built for HDDs. #HPE #Nimble

Unlike established vendors who come from the hard-disk world and newcomers who built all-flash arrays from the start, Tegile started in hybrids. It had flash in all of its arrays from the start in 2012, but added all-flash a few years later. Now, it has two flash platforms: The Tegile IntelliFlash T Series is based on the vendor's own technology, and the Tegile IntelliFlash HD(high density) incorporates chassis from partner SanDisk -- now Western Digital -- for higher-capacity loads.

SearchSolidStateStorage talked to Tegile Systems' CEO, Rohit Kshetrapal, about the latest developments in the flash storage market. We discussed Tegile Systems' NVMe plans, how customers are using flash and the cloud, the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) acquisition of Nimble Storage and why an initial public offering (IPO) is not in the near-term future.

What is the mix among your customers between all-flash and hybrid arrays?

Kshetrapal: I would say in excess of 60% of our business has become all-flash. As we see the economics changing and larger-sized flash drives coming in, we hear less discussion around hybrids. The exception is when people may want a disaster recovery box.

http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/450415202/Tegile-Systems-sees-opportunities-in-NVMe-HPE-Nimble-buy

5 Eye-Popping Facts About Dell EMC's Assault On The All-Flash Market

#DellEMC Bullish On #AllFlash Seizing upon some recent stats from research firm IDC, as well as internal data, Dell EMC storage chief Jeff Boudreau lays out some big numbers from Dell EMC's past year in all-flash storage technology. In a recent blog, Boudreau recounts Dell EMC's all-flash successes from the past year and looks ahead to the near future, when he says Dell EMC will continue to put distance between itself and other all-flash market players and introduce its first storage system with NVMe. Boudreau, senior vice president and general manager of midrange storage, admits that perhaps Dell EMC was a little late to the all-flash game, but notes that the company shipped more than an Exabyte of all-flash array capacity in 2016. Here are five key points from Boudreau's Dell EMC all-flash redux.
http://m.crn.com/slide-shows/storage/300084197/5-eye-popping-facts-about-dell-emcs-assault-on-the-all-flash-market.htm

All-Flash Arrays Buck the Enterprise Storage Doldrums

Disk-based storage systems are losing their appeal as businesses increasingly shift their critical storage workloads to #allflash arrays. IDC reports that the worldwide market for enterprise storage systems dropped 6.7 percent on year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016 before settling at $11.1 billion. While sales may have dropped, the market's appetite for more capacity remains unsated. Vendors shipped 52.4 exabytes worth of storage capacity in Q4, an annual increase of 18.3 percent. "2016 represented a year of considerable change for the enterprise storage systems market," observed Liz Conner, research manager of IDC's Storage Systems unit. "While the broader #enterprisestorage systems market has been impacted by headwinds, companies continue to increase their investments in several key areas, such as #softwaredefinedstorage, #cloudbasedstorage, #allflash storage systems, and #convergedsystems ."

http://mobile.enterprisestorageforum.com/storage-hardware/all-flash-arrays-buck-the-enterprise-storage-doldrums.html

TechTarget Research Reports All Flash Array and HyperConverged Infrastructure Transaction Volume Grew By 25% and 30% in Q4, 2016

NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Purchase intent-driven marketing and sales services company TechTarget, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTGT) today announced the availability of its Q4 Post Purchase Data Reports for 20 Information Technology (IT) market segments. Of note, the #AllFlash Array ( #AFA ) and #HyperConverged Infrastructure ( #HCI ) markets have experienced strong growth in volume of transactions over the past several quarters (25 percent and 30 percent in Q4 respectively), demonstrating a growing demand for these technologies amongst Global 2000 and mid-size enterprises. Total cost of ownership (TCO), performance, reliability, and ease of management surfaced as key drivers for these organizations.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170228006600/en/TechTarget-Research-Reports-Flash-Array-HyperConverged-Infrastructure

Fresh and fast little flashers from NetApp

#NetApp has launched two new all-flash FAS arrays, won a top 3 SPC-1 storage benchmark result, and announced a new flash capacity guarantee programme. The all-flash FAS (AFF) A200 and A700s join the existing A300 and A700, which came into view in September. Place the A200 under the A300 on your mental NetApp AFF positioning map, with the A700s as a smaller version of the A700, fitting between it and the A300 to make a four-product range. All four systems run the Clustered ONTAP operating system and its associated suite of data management products. NetApp says the AFF products "can connect to public clouds from #AWS, #Azure, #IBM Cloud and more, while retaining maximum visibility and seamless data control across cloud and on-premises environments". The entry-level A200 comes in a 2U rack enclosure with 24 front-mounted drives and a pair of controllers at the rear. It scales from two to eight nodes (four high-availability pairs) in both SAN and filer mode (NAS Scale-out) with a maximum of 576 SSDs and 8.8PB of raw capacity, claimed to be 34.7PB effective capacity. Here's a table showing the main system parameters for the four AFF products:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/01/fresh_fast_little_flashers_from_netapp/

#1 Scale-Out NAS System Dell EMC Isilon Goes All-Flash for Unstructured Data

#DellEMC today announced a new member of the Dell EMC #Isilon product family, combining the high performance of flash technology with the industry’s #1 scale-out NAS platform. Isilon #AllFlash is designed to help IT organizations modernize their infrastructure and deliver on the capabilities of a digital business.

http://satprnews.com/2017/01/12/1-scale-out-nas-system-dell-emc-isilon-goes-all-flash-for-unstructured-data-2/

IBM Delivers New All-flash Storage for Cognitive Workloads

ARMONK, N.Y., Jan 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- #IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new, #allflash storage solutions designed for midrange and large enterprises, where high availability, continuous up-time, and performance are critical. These are built to provide the speed and reliability needed for workloads ranging from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial transactions to cognitive applications like #machinelearning and natural language processing. The solutions announced today are designed to support cognitive workloads which clients can use to uncover trends and patterns that help improve decision-making, customer service and ROI. IBM continues to push the boundaries in the design of flash solutions developed with the performance to manage the most demanding workloads such as "six nines availability", ensuring continuous operations 99.9999 percent of the time. Through deep integration between IBM Storage and IBM z Systems, co-developed software that provides data protection, remote replication and optimization for midrange and large enterprises, is embedded in these new solutions. This advanced microcode is ideal for cognitive workloads on z Systems and Power System requiring the highest availability and system reliability possible. "The DS8880 All-Flash family is targeted at users that have experienced poor storage performance due to latency, low server utilization, high energy consumption, low system availability and high operating costs. These same users have been listening, learning and understand the data value proposition of being a cognitive business," said Ed Walsh, general manager, IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure. "In the coming year we expect an awakening by companies to the opportunity that cognitive applications, and hybrid cloud enablement, bring them in a data driven marketplace." Today's IBM is announcing a new family of DS8880 all-flash systems designed to meet a wide variety of business applications, workloads, and use cases where microsecond response times and uncompromised availability are sought. The family includes: Business Class Storage – the IBM DS8884F has been designed for traditional applications such as ERP, order processing, database transactions, customer relationship management and human resources information systems. It offers the lowest entry cost for midrange enterprises with 256 GB Cache (DRAM) and between 6.4-154 TB of Flash Capacity. Enterprise Class Storage - the IBM DS8886F has been engineered for high speed transactional operations like high-performance online transaction processing, high-speed commercial data processing, high-performance data warehouse and data mining and critical financial transaction systems. It provides users 2 TB Cache (DRAM) and between 6.4-614.4 TB of Flash Capacity. Analytic Class Storage – the IBM DS8888F is ideal for cognitive and real-time analytics and decision making including predictive analytics, real time optimization, machine learning and cognitive systems, natural language speech and video processing. To support this it delivers 2 TB Cache (DRAM) and between 6.4 TB-1.22 PB of Flash Capacity providing superior performance and capacity able to address the most demanding business workload requirements. Working through a network of offices, supported by a team of over 850, the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia (Zavod za zdravstveno zavarovanje Slovenije), provides health insurance to approximately two million customers. In order to successfully manage its new customer-facing applications (e.g. electronic ordering processing and electronic receipts) its storage system required additional capacity and performance. After completing research of solutions capable of managing these applications - which included both #Hitachi and #EMC - the organization deployed the IBM DS8886 along with IBM DB2 for z System/OS data server software to provide an integrated data backup and restore system. "As long-time users of IBM storage infrastructure and mainframes, our upgrade to the IBM DS8000 with IBM business partner Comparex was an easy choice. Since then, its high performance and reliability have led us to continually deploy newer DS8000 models as new features and functions have provided us new opportunities," said Bojan Fele, CIO of Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia. "Our DS8000 implementation has improved our reporting capabilities by reducing time to actionable insights. Furthermore, it has increased employee productivity, ensuring we can better serve our clients." According to Scott Sinclair, a senior analyst at ESG, the announcement by IBM on its family of new all-flash DS8880 solutions is very impressive in regards to performance gains and the move to offer flash across the portfolio a great step. By moving data to another path IBM is at the next level of innovation in order to take advantage of next generation technologies. Further to this, the classification of the new family of DS8880 into business, enterprise, and analytic solutions makes a lot of sense. Availability The new family of DS8880 all-flash data systems will be available worldwide on January 20, 2017 from IBM and through IBM Business Partners. Visit the IBM DS8880 landing page for more information about the solutions announced today. For more information about IBM Storage, visit ibm.com/flash. Follow IBM Storage on Twitter at @IBMStorage or @IBMSystemsISVs

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-delivers-new-all-flash-storage-for-cognitive-workloads-300389746.html

2017 Predictions: Five Things to Come for Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Over the course of 2016, we’ve seen the rapid adoption of hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI)—powered by the latest release of VMware #vSAN6.5 and #VMware #vSphere6.5—shape #VMware’s vision of the #CrossCloudArchitecture™ and serve as a building block to the #softwaredefineddatacenter ( #SDDC ). In 2017, we predict #HCI will take center stage, particularly as the expansion of data into the cloud influences our day-to-day management, expectations of, and patience with, the data center. Below, we’ve outlined five things we expect for HCI in the New Year. The Rise of the IT Generalist in the Storage World The arrival of HCI and unified management tools means storage can now be procured and managed by IT generalists rather than specialists. HCI lets these generalists manage the entire infrastructure with a single, familiar set of tools. As overall data center responsibilities shift to a generalist or a converged team of generalists, traditional enterprise storage and storage professionals will increasingly expand their expertise beyond storage, or focus on strategic projects where storage performance is critical. More importantly, because HCI allows staff and resources to be allocated more efficiently, we expect the conversation around IT in 2017 to begin to shift away from the day-to-day maintenance of infrastructure, and toward how IT can become an actual driver of business value. Ethernet’s In, Fibre Channel’s Out Industry analysts have long predicted the slow death of Fibre Channel–based storage. In 2017, we expect it to wane faster than ever, with the steadily increasing speed of standard Ethernet all but eliminating the need for proprietary SAN connections and the expensive Fibre Channel infrastructure that comes along with it. We expect this shift to finally happen broadly—even among the enterprise customers who are Fibre Channel’s traditional stronghold. The acquisition of the last pure-play Fibre Channel player, Brocade, by Broadcom is only the latest indicator that storage specialization is becoming a smaller part of the market. In fact, all three of the classic Fibre Channel players—Brocade, Emulex, and Q-Logic—are no longer independent companies. As hyper-converged, scale-out storage becomes the norm, servers and storage devices will increasingly reside on the same Ethernet network, while Fibre Channel will look more and more like a legacy technology. Expensive, Purpose-Built Storage Appliances Will Cede the Market to Server-Based Solutions In the past, procuring enterprise storage often meant dropping hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars on proprietary storage appliances that were hard to configure and support. HCI is changing all that. The truly hyperscale data center operators—the AWSes, Baiduses, and Alibabas of the world—showed us the way. Each of them built massive compute and storage infrastructure using a scale-out model based on x86 servers. Just as we will see proprietary Fibre Channel giving way to Ethernet, we expect a growing number of organizations, including large enterprises, to see the wisdom of a low-cost, high-performance x86-server model—and follow suit. We also think 2017 will be the year the traditional enterprise storage industry really starts to feel the heat, as a growing number of organizations begin taking advantage of the agility, easy scalability, and cost savings afforded by HCI. Server Refresh Becomes the Primary Storage Refresh Server hardware vendors have been struggling lately, with sales slumping in 2016. But we expect that trend to reverse in the New Year. In fact, the mid-2017 arrival of Intel’s much-ballyhooed, next-generation Skylake Server chips is likely to trigger a data center refresh cycle the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long while. Many organizations around the world will likely see this as an opportunity to modernize their data center and make the leap to HCI. Even organizations in emerging markets that previously never really invested in traditional enterprise storage will begin looking at their infrastructure and applications choices in a whole new light. And because HCI leverages the existing IT skills of VMware’s 500,000 customers who already know servers, Ethernet, and applications, we believe 2017 will see the start of a radical evolution of data center operations in organizations of all sizes. All-Flash Storage Becomes the New Normal The economics of flash media are now such that the performance, flexibility, and management savings of solid-state storage cannot be ignored, even by organizations with tighter purse strings. With prices plummeting, we predict that flash sales will reach a tipping point in 2017—and probably sooner rather than later in 2017. Even customers with limited IT budgets will need to justify their decision to buy classic hard disk storage instead of all-flash solutions, rather than the other way around. Particularly as the purpose-built appliances of yesteryear give way to hyper-converged solutions based on industry-standard server platforms, standardizing on all-flash storage just makes good economic sense, from both a scalability and management

https://www.vmware.com/radius/five-things-come-hyper-converged-infrastructure/#sthash.83ScpnV6.dpuf

All-flash market smashes $1bn mark in Q3 – IDC

"The enterprise storage market closed out the third quarter on a slight downturn, while continuing to adhere to familiar trends," said Liz Conner, research manager for storage systems at IDC. "Spending on traditional external arrays resumed its decline and spending on all-flash deployments continued to see good growth and helped to drive the overall market."

The boom in #allflash array revenue came against a very different backdrop in the overall storage market.

Total global enterprise storage systems revenue was down 3.2 per cent year on year to $8.8bn in Q3, with the top four vendors by revenue – #DellTechnologies , #HPE, #NetApp and #IBM – enduring falling market share and revenue in the market.

Market leader Dell Technologies still retained control of more than a quarter of the overall market, but its share was down from 28.2 per cent a year ago to 25.5 per cent in Q3. Its revenue in the space fell 12.6 per cent annually to $2.3bn.

Second-place HPE also lost share, with its Q3 market share figure coming in at 15.5 per cent, from 16.3 per cent a year ago, thanks to an 8.1 per cent fall in storage revenue to $1.4bn. NetApp, IBM and Hitachi were all tied in third place, IDC said, and only the latter saw its market share and revenue climb year on year.

http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2479062/all-flash-market-smashes-usd1bn-mark-in-q3-idc

Dell Storage SC9000 review

#Dell is on a mission to bring #allflash storage to the masses as its flagship #SC9000 array delivers the lowest costs around. Its latest SC Operating System 7 (SCOS 7) also introduces plenty of new features including intelligent data reduction, storage QoS and unification with Dell’s PS arrays. The SC9000 controller comprises two #PowerEdge R730 servers equipped with dual 3.2GHz E5-2667 v3 Xeons and 256GB of system memory. Each uses a cache card linked over fibre GBICs where all cache mirroring is carried out automatically using their 4GB of battery protected NVRAM. #DellStorage

The SCOS software runs on an internal SSD and storage shelves are attached using dual-port 12Gbps SAS expansion cards. Storage potential is massive as the SC9000 currently supports up to 960 SSDs and HDDs with a future firmware upgrade expected to push this to 1,024 drives and beyond.

Expansion shelves include the 12-bay and 24-bay SC400 and SC420 12Gbps SAS units plus the 84-bay SC280 which supports low-cost NL-SAS drives. Data port options are plentiful with Dell offering 10GbE copper or SFP+, FCoE or 8/16Gbps FC HBAs with 25GbE coming soon.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/server/27500/dell-storage-sc9000-review

Enterprise Storage: Still A Land Of Opportunity For Those With The Right Vision

As someone well-placed at a major storage vendor pointed out to me recently, big box storage arrays are going the way of the dinosaur because a single all flash array can replace multiple disk arrays. And for that reason, the all flash revenue potential isn’t anywhere near that of disk even though solid state storage is a hot market. Add to that the fact that storage software can’t make up the shortfall in revenue from exiting disk arrays either and you have a glum near-term outlook for the well-known big box storage vendors. Nevertheless, #enterprisestorage is still a land of opportunity for those with the right vision. Remember that those who have traditionally predicted meteoric data growth haven’t backed off. #IoT is only the latest data volume generator and more will come when we get to some others now appearing on the horizon like blockchain. So there are now some interesting startups looking to capitalize on some hot storage trends. Cases in point include:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwebster/2016/09/29/enterprise-storage-still-a-land-of-opportunity-for-those-with-the-right-vision/#24354d093d0e

Falling flash prices are a boon to enterprise storage buyers

As flash gets cheaper, enterprises are spending the same amount of money on storage systems but getting more capacity. That was the big trend in the second quarter of this year, according to IDC. Enterprise storage systems factory revenue was US$8.8 billion, flat compared with last year's second quarter, but the total capacity that vendors shipped increased 12.9 percent.

Much of the credit goes to the falling price of a gigabit of flash storage, IDC analyst Liz Conner said. It's amplified by the growing popularity of flash, which enterprises are adopting for both speed and space-saving. Technology advancements help: Where enterprises last year were ordering #SSD s (solid-state drives) with up to 3TB, now they can buy in bulk with units as big as 15TB.

"We’re definitely seeing bigger bang for your buck," Conner said.

All-flash arrays, which in some ways are the cutting edge of solid-state storage, commanded nearly double the spending they did a year a year earlier, Conner said.

Flash also plays a role in another development, the growth of server-based storage, where revenue was up nearly 10 percent to almost $2.4 billion. This trend is being driven partly by smaller organizations that are steering away from external storage for simplicity and easier management. The high speed and small footprint of flash help to make that possible.

#EMC and ( #HPE )Hewlett Packard Enterprise tied for first place in worldwide revenue with approximately US$1.6 billion each for the quarter. #Dell came in third with revenue that rose almost 14 percent to surpass $1 billion.

Dell acquired EMC last week, becoming #DellTechnologies and setting itself up to become the biggest seller of enterprise storage gear. It’s likely to have around 30 percent of the market.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3121331/falling-flash-prices-are-a-boon-to-enterprise-storage-buyers.html

Nimble Storage Intros New Entry All-Flash Array, Refreshes Hybrid Array Line

Flash storage solution developer #Nimble Storage this week unveiled a new entry-level, full-featured, #allflash storage array with a starting street price of under $40,000. Nimble Storage also said it has completely refreshed its hybrid flash array line to include significantly higher performance and lower cost, said Gavin Cohen, head of product marketing for the San Jose, Calif.-based company.  The release of the company's new entry-level, all-flash array comes just six months after Nimble Storage, best known for its hybrid flash array solutions, unveiled its first all-flash arrays.
http://m.crn.com/news/storage/300081707/nimble-storage-intros-new-entry-all-flash-array-refreshes-hybrid-array-line.htm

What Do Analysts Expect from NetApp in Fiscal 1Q17?

#NetApp ’s all-flash array revenue rises by 238.2% According to IDC’s (International Data Corporation) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker, NetApp is growing faster than the overall all-flash array market. NetApp gained significant market share in 1Q16. IDC’s research report states that NetApp’s all-flash array revenue rose by 238.2% YoY (year-over-year) in 1Q16. This was 2.7 times faster than overall market growth of 87.2% YoY. NetApp moved to second place in the tracker compared to fourth place in 4Q15. #EMC (EMC) continued to dominate the #allflash market, with revenue of $245.6 million and a share of 30.9%. NetApp’s all-flash array segment’s revenue was $181.1 million, with a share of 22.8% in 1Q16. Other major players in this segment include technology (QQQ) giants Hewlett-Packard Enterprise ( #HPE ) and #IBM (IBM), which have shares of 12.4% and 8.5%, respectively.

http://marketrealist.com/2016/08/netapps-share-increases-significantly-flash-storage-market/