The integrated systems market in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) showed significant growth in 3Q18, reporting $873-million in user value, with year-on-year growth of 20,1%, according to the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker.
Traditional converged systems, made up of certified reference systems and integrated infrastructure and integrated platforms, had a flat performance in this quarter, but still accounted for over 60% of total sales in EMEA. Meanwhile, hyperconverged systems have continued to show strong growth, reporting $348-million in 3Q18, with 70,9% YoY growth.
“Hyperconverged continues to see increased adoption in the EMEA market as companies make use of these systems’ simplicity, allowing IT managers to shift their focus higher up the stack,” says Eckhardt Fischer, senior research analyst: European infrastructure at IDC.
“Similar to last quarter, the growth in integrated systems has mainly been driven by a strong hyperconverged segment, while the more traditional certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure and integrated platforms segments saw a flat trend in US dollar value terms, with little differentiation between segments,” says Silvia Cosso, research manager: European infrastructure at IDC.
“Overall demand generated by the advantage of having pre-integrated, fine-tuned systems able to simplify the management and deployment of datacentre infrastructure, but their higher acquisition cost limits their deployment to specific use cases.”
In the EMEA region, Western Europe’s revenues account for about 78% of sales, of which the UK, France, Germany, and the Nordic region still represent the lion’s share, around 75%. The Western European hyperconverged market is still being driven strongly by a handful of vendors that have found greater success by focusing on the larger 500 companies.
Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMA) accounted for 22% share of EMEA market revenue in 3Q18, with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) recording the strongest growth in EMEA. Sales of hyperconverged systems in CEMA exceeded both converged systems and integrated platforms sales for the first time and grew by 81% year-over-year.
“The majority of hyperconverged systems sales were driven by organizations from developing countries, mostly in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region where the deployment of hyperconverged systems helps to address the lack of skilled IT resources as well as organizations’ growing need for scalability and agility,” says Jiri Helebrand, research manager at IDC CEMA.