Gartner Research

Critical Capabilities for General-Purpose, High-End Storage Arrays

Published: 31 October 2017

Summary

This research assesses the capabilities of high-end storage arrays and evaluates products against key use cases of interest to infrastructure and operations. When choosing storage arrays, I&O leaders should weigh these ratings in the context of their vendor ecosystem.

Included in Full Research

  • Introduction
  • Critical Capabilities Use-Case Graphics
  • Vendors
    • DataDirect Networks
    • Dell EMC
    • Fujitsu
    • Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3PAR StoreServ 20800
    • Hewlett Packard Enterprise XP7
    • Hitachi Vantara VSP G1500
    • Huawei
    • IBM DS8886
    • IBM XIV
    • Infinidat
    • NetApp
  • Context
  • Product/Service Class Definition
    • Architectural Definitions
  • Critical Capabilities Definition
    • Manageability
    • RAS
    • Performance
    • Snapshot and Replication
    • Scalability
    • Ecosystem
    • Multitenancy and Security
    • Storage Efficiency
  • Use Cases
    • Consolidation
    • OLTP
    • Server Virtualization and VDI
    • Analytics
    • Cloud
  • Vendors Added and Dropped
    • Added
    • Dropped
  • Critical Capabilities Rating

Overview

Key Findings
  • The scale-out design of many high-end storage arrays, which allows processing and storage nodes to be upgraded and scale independently, is validated by many new midrange and solid-state arrays adopting the same architecture.

  • Very few high-end arrays have both compression and deduplication due to the complex changes required to enable these features. However, raw storage capacities have increased, with arrays now reaching over 100 petabytes (PB) in size.

  • Purchase prices of high-end arrays continue to decrease by approximately 20% per annum. This, combined with the performance and effective capacity guarantees, increases the value proposition of these arrays.

  • The clean-sheet designs of

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Critical Capabilities: A deeper look into provider offerings

How does a Critical Capabilities report work?

As a companion to the Magic Quadrant™, a Critical Capabilities report scores competing products and services against a set of meaningful differentiators. It reveals which options are the best fit in various use cases to help you focus on the vendors best suited to your needs.

A Critical Capabilities report is more than just a diagram. You also get:

Sharper focus

Narrow down the product and service criteria most important to you.

Individualized use cases

Use interactive features to customize usage scenarios based on your organization’s unique needs.

Faster decision making

Use data to speed up provider selection and accelerate the procurement process.

A Gartner Critical Capabilities report is just one of our many offerings.

We provide actionable, objective insight to help organizations make smarter, faster technology decisions to stay ahead of disruption and accelerate growth.

Pick the right provider with confidence

We use a Critical Capabilities report, the Magic Quadrant and more to ensure you select the best-fit provider to avoid the costly repercussions of a poor decision.

Align deal structures and optimize spend

We benchmark pricing against the market so you avoid unnecessary charges.

Reduce complexity and risk

We analyze contract terms and conditions to protect you against future price increases and unanticipated costs.

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