1. EXCERPT
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Scale -Out File-Based Storage
2012 Vendor Analysis
Amita Potnis Ashish Nadkarni
IN THIS EXCERPT
The content for this paper is excerpted from the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Scale-
Out File-Based Storage 2012 Vendor Analysis, by Amita Potnis and Ashish Nadkarni
(Doc # 238923). All or parts of the following sections are included in this Excerpt: IDC
Opinion, In This Study, Situation Overview, Future Outlook, Essential Guidance, and
www.idc.com
Synopsis. Figure 1 is also included.
IDC OPINION
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A social and mobile world is impacting businesses of all shapes and sizes. It has led
to a surge in the amount of data that needs to be managed and the number of
devices that is needed to access this data. One of the chief requirements of data
access in this new paradigm is that this access is continuous and consistent,
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regardless of the physical location of the user or the devices used to access it. In the
past, "scale up" or "monolithic" storage technologies worked well for a relatively
immobile user base with limited and fragmented data sets. However, in this new
world, the benefits of deploying a monolithic storage system are fast diminishing. Any
performance or capacity upgrade typically requires forklifting existing storage
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solutions and painful migration processes along with increased expenses. As
companies started looking for alternative solutions, vendors brought to market scale-
out storage architectures that would allow businesses to grow their infrastructure on
an as-needed basis. Scale-out architectures give businesses the ability to linearly
scale capacity and/or performance independent of each other while keeping
management simple and costs low. This IDC study is based on an IDC vendor
assessment model called the MarketScape. It is a quantitative and qualitative
assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor's success in the marketplace
and help anticipate the vendor's ascendancy to be a leader in the market segment in
question. This study assesses the capabilities and business strategies of many scale-
out file-based storage (FBS) vendors. It is based on a comprehensive framework and
a set of parameters expected to be most conducive to success in providing scale-out
file-based solutions, during both the short term and the long term. As the scale-out
file-based market is a highly competitive one, all vendors performed relatively well in
the study. Key findings include:
ïč All vendors in this study provide a scale-out solution (in certain cases, a scalable
solution) that meets IDC's stated definition. However, leading firms generally
have a broader portfolio that appeals to a wider audience. This leads to a bigger
market share.
ïč Smaller vendors however have more innovative solutions that rival solutions from
bigger vendors. Many such vendors are focused on specific verticals such as
high-performance computing (HPC), media, and entertainment. However, many