According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, the worldwide converged systems market increased revenue 8,5% year over year to $3,1-billion during the fourth quarter of 2015 (4Q15).
The market generated 1 547 petabytes of new storage capacity shipments during the quarter, which was up 26,9% compared to the same period a year ago. For the full year 2015, worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 8,3% to $10,6-billion when compared to 2014.
“We are seeing some of the market demand move into deals with lower average selling prices (ASPs), which is driving a shift from traditional converged systems to hyperconverged systems,” says Kevin Permenter, senior research analyst: enterprise servers at IDC. “Right now, most of the growth is coming from the mid-market, which is heavily skewed toward hyperconverged systems. We are expecting to see this trend continue into the near term.”
IDC distinguishes between three market segments: Integrated Systems, Certified Reference Systems, and Hyperconverged Systems.
Integrated Systems are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software.
Like integrated systems, Certified Reference Systems are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Certified reference systems, however, are designed with systems from multiple technology vendors.
Hyperconverged Systems collapse core storage and compute functionality into a single, highly virtualised solution. A key characteristic of hyperconverged systems that differentiate these solutions from other integrated systems is their ability to provide all compute and storage functions through the same server-based resources.
During the fourth quarter of 2015, the Integrated Systems market generated revenues of more than $2-billion, which represented a year-over-year increase of 6,7% and 65,6% of the total market value. VCE was the largest supplier of Integrated Systems with $743-million in sales, or 36,3% share of the market segment.
