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Market Analysis and Statistics
                                                                                                                G00230718


  13 April 2012

  Competitive Landscape: Primary Storage
  Systems for VMware
  Pushan Rinnen, Roger W. Cox, Dave Russell


             This report presents the current state of the major storage system
             platforms in terms of their support for VMware and discusses relevant
             future trends.

             Key Findings
             ■    The majority of the top seven storage vendors have done a decent job in implementing VMware
                  vCenter plug-ins and vSphere Storage API support, although some are doing a better job than
                  others.

             ■    Aside from vCenter plug-ins, the most popular storage-array-based features in the VMware
                  environment include remote replication, space-efficient cloning, automated tiering within an
                  array, solid-state drive (SSD) implementation, and multipathing support for vSphere.

             ■    Vendors' unique value propositions for their storage platforms' support of VMware are often the
                  same as their innate design strengths for all primary applications.

             ■    VMware's native storage enhancements may commoditize storage for small VMware
                  deployments.

             ■    Although VMware will continue to add and enhance native storage functions for small and
                  midsize businesses (SMBs), it will likely offload many storage functions to external storage arrays
                  to increase virtual machine (VM) density and boost performance in large environments, while
                  seeking to retain the management and control of many of these functions.


             Recommendations
             Companies selling external storage arrays into the VMware environment should:

             ■    Continue offering timely integration with vSphere storage APIs to stay competitive and maintain
                  customer loyalty

             ■    Continue to innovate to boost their storage performance, efficiency, and ease of management for
                  both storage administrators and vCenter administrators

             ■    Evaluate the benefits of adding enhanced backup/recovery functions to their basic snapshot and
                  replication features, such as adding automated snapshot management, application integration
                  and centralized reporting

1-1ADQNZN
Analysis

    Competitive Situation and Trends
    Gartner conducted a short vendor survey among major storage vendors to evaluate different aspects of VMware
    support from their main storage platforms. We asked about their most popular storage features being used for
    VMware virtual servers and hosted virtual desktops. We also asked about their storage integration with VMware
    vStorage APIs, such as vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) and vSphere Storage APIs for Storage
    Awareness (VASA).


    Popular Storage Array Features for VMware
    All vendors cited the foundation and architectural strengths and distinctions of their storage platforms as the
    popular array features for VMware. In aggregate, however, we see the following features showing up most
    frequently in our survey responses:

    ■   vCenter plug-ins for storage — These plug-ins for VMware, offered by many storage platforms, allow vCenter
        administrators to gain more insight into the storage deployment associated with the VMs, such as an end-to-
        end view of mappings from VMs to data stores to LUNs. They empower vCenter administrators to provision
        storage to VMs, set up remote replication for VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM), and perform
        additional trouble-shooting capabilities.

    ■   Remote replication supporting VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) — As VMware didn't support native
        replication prior to the vSphere 5.0 launch in 2011, its SRM relies on array-based replication engines to move
        data across systems or sites for high availability and disaster recovery purposes.

    ■   Space-efficient cloning — This feature is instrumental in saving storage capacities and increasing speed of
        provisioning VMs from days to minutes, especially for test/development and hosted virtual desktop
        environments, such as VMware View.

    ■   Automated tiering within an array — All vendors offering automated tiering with their arrays mentioned this
        feature as one of the popular features in VMware environments. This feature allows data to be stored on the
        appropriate storage tiers based on their workload requirements and the cost and performance
        characteristics of the tier.

    ■   SSD implementations — This feature is often cited to boost storage input/output (I/O) performance and solve
        virtual desktop boot storm issues while reducing disk spindle counts. It's also an essential element for
        automated tiering.

    ■   Multipathing support for vSphere — This feature automates the configuration of multiple redundant network
        connections to storage arrays to enable fault-tolerant network load balancing and helps improve storage
        performance and scalability.

    Many vendors talked about their integration with vStorage API for Multipathing and vStorage API for SRM.
    Moreover, vendors often highlight their storage systems' innate or unique value propositions as popular features
    for VMware. For example:




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■   Dell highlighted EqualLogic's Automated Data Tiering and Compellent's Data Progression as among the
    most popular features for VMware users.

■   EMC included FAST VP for VMAX and VNX and VNX's single-instance store and compression.

■   HP highlighted 3PAR's wide striping and Mesh Active Clustering and LeftHand's Network RAID and Peer
    Motion.

■   Hitachi Data Systems talked about its Dynamic Provisioning and Dynamic Tiering technologies in parallel
    with its Storage Virtualization capabilities.

■   IBM highlighted XIV's automatic load balancing and aggregated cache and Storwize V7000's Easy Tier.

■   NetApp mentioned primary storage deduplication, MultiStore and Data Motion.

■   Oracle discussed Axiom's QoS and ZFS Appliance's D-Trace.


VAAI Support
To create tighter integration with storage arrays and optimize performance for ESX hosts, VMware has been
working with the industry-leading storage system vendors to develop a set of vSphere Storage APIs called VAAI,
introduced in vSphere 4.1 and 5.0. VAAI offloads several storage-related functions from ESX hosts to storage
arrays; it boosts host performance and increases the possibility of adding more VMs on the same host.

While vSphere 4.1 VAAI is mostly applicable to storage area network (SAN) arrays, vSphere 5.0 extended to
network-attached storage (NAS) systems some of those I/O offloads that apply to Network File System (NFS)
data stores. vSphere 5.0 also introduced a couple of new primitives. The major VAAI primitives from vSphere 4.1
and 5.0 are as follows:

■   Full copy — The task of copying a VM can now be done by VAAI-compliant arrays with drastically reduced
    host I/Os, increasing performance (such as with Storage vMotion and template deployment).

■   Hardware-assisted locking — This task, when done by the SAN array, can offer more-granular block-level
    (vs. volume-level) locking and provides the possibility to increase the size of the data store and the number
    of VMs within a data store without worrying about performance issues. This doesn't apply to NFS data
    stores as they already have the granularity.

■   Block zeroing — With this feature, the vSphere host can avoid sending repetitive commands to the SAN
    array about writing zeros for faster VM creation and formatting and improved storage capacity utilization. HP
    claims that its 3PAR is the only product in the industry that has zero detection built in its application-specific
    integrated circuit (ASIC).

■   Out-of-space alerts and space reclamation for thin-provisioned storage — Available from vSphere 5.0, when
    used together with VAAI-compliant SAN arrays, this primitive adds a new advanced warning about the out-
    of-space condition and also informs the array about the freed-up space so that the array can reclaim it. This
    primitive doesn't apply to NFS data stores, as NFS correctly reports free space.

■   Linked clones — vSphere 5.0 added a VAAI primitive to replace vSphere's linked clone function with NAS-
    based cloning for VMware View and vCloud Director.




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Most of the major storage vendors and platforms have done a good job with timely support of the VAAI
    primitives, with some (such as IBM and Dell Compellent) still working on the out-of-space alert primitive. For the
    linked clone offload to NAS, it's only supported by NetApp and EMC's VNX. EMC VNX/VNXe and NetApp's FAS
    series stand out with both SAN and NAS protocol support. Oracle is the only vendor that doesn't offer VAAI
    support with its Pillar Axiom and ZFS Storage Appliance.


    VASA Support
    To help vCenter administrators to better coordinate server-storage decisions, vSphere 5.0 introduced a new set
    of APIs called VASA to gain more information on storage arrays. VASA-compliant storage arrays allow vCenter
    administrators to be more productive in deploying VMs and make more storage-intelligent decisions about VM
    placements.

    VASA allows array vendors to expose to vCenter their storage configurations, functions and characteristics. This
    information will allow vCenter to make automated, policy-driven storage management or profile-driven
    recommendations (such as for Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler). Array vendors must create a provider
    plug-in to enable VASA reporting, and it's up to the array vendors to decide which features or characteristics to
    expose to vCenter.

    The aggregate survey results show that the following storage features are most commonly exposed to the
    vCenter via VASA:

    ■   Drive type — What type of hard-disk drives the storage array contains, such as high-performance drives or
        large-capacity drives.

    ■   Redundant array of independent disks (RAID) protection — Whether the array has RAID protection or not;
        few specify RAID levels.

    ■   Logical unit number (LUN)/volume replication — Whether a LUN or volume is replicated or not; a few show
        replication configuration and state.

    With HP's 3PAR, LeftHand and EVA storage arrays, they also expose to vCenter whether storage is thin-
    provisioned or not. EMC's VMAX/VMAXe tells vCenter administrators whether multitiered storage is used or not.

    Gartner believes that portfolio vendors that sell both servers and storage will be more open to expose their
    storage functions to vCenter, whereas storage-centric vendors (with the exception of EMC, which owns the
    majority of VMware) will be less open in order to protect their storage control.


    Market Players
    While almost all storage vendors claim that their storage arrays support VMware well, we chose to focus on the
    most widely deployed storage platforms from major storage vendors around the globe, namely:

    ■   Dell — EqualLogic and Compellent

    ■   EMC — Symmetrix, VNX and Isilon




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■   HP — 3PAR, LeftHand and EVA

■   Hitachi Data Systems — USPV/VSP, AMS and HNAS

■   IBM — DS8000, XIV, Storwize 7000 and DS5000

■   NetApp — FAS Series

■   Oracle — Pillar Axiom and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance

The vast majority of the storage platforms on the list report that over 50% of their respective customers use that
platform to support VMware virtual server environments, with the exception of EMC Isilon, Hitachi Data Systems
HNAS, IBM DS8000 and Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance. The results are not surprising, because Isilon, HNAS
and ZFS Storage Appliance were developed mainly as NAS systems for file services. Isilon's and HNAS's
VMware support initiatives were fairly recent — just before their acquisitions by EMC and Hitachi Data Systems,
respectively. Oracle has been focusing on integrating the ZFS Storage appliance with Oracle Database
applications, most of which are not run in the VMware environment. IBM's DS8000 is commonly used in the
mainframe and high-end Unix server environments, which has very low penetration by VMware.

As hosted-virtual-desktop deployments are still not a mainstream in the market today, all storage vendors
surveyed estimated low storage usage for VMware View, ranging from 3% to 15% of their storage customers. We
believe 3% to 5% is a more realistic range and that 15% is likely higher than reality and maybe the result of
misinterpretation of the survey question.


The Future of Competition
Looking at the future competition in terms of storage capabilities for VMware virtual environments, Gartner
believes that such competition will not only continue among external storage array vendors, but will also arise
between what VMware offers natively from the host side and what the arrays offer from the storage side. Another
competitive factor is the integrated VMware solutions, such as EMC's Virtual Computing Environment (VCE)
Vblock, HP's VirtualSystem and NetApp's FlexPod.


VMware Storage Initiatives
In the past two years, VMware has started adding more storage capabilities natively on its platform, such as Site
Recovery Manager, Storage vMotion, Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere Replication,
vSphere Profile-Driven Storage, VMware Data Recovery, and vSphere Storage Appliance. For the new storage
features offered by vSphere 5.0, see Gartner report "New Storage Initiatives From VMware's vSphere 5.0 and
Why They Matter."

While many of these storage feature functions are complementary with storage arrays, they do require storage
arrays to support VMware storage APIs for seamless integration. In the end, it's all about control. The more
storage features exposed to the vCenter, the more they will empower vCenter administrators to manage storage
together with servers. Storage vendors that want to appeal to broader user profiles should not be conservative
about exposing their storage features to the vCenter. This applies especially to vendors and products targeting
SMBs, which tend not to have a dedicated storage team.




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Other VMware storage features, such as vSphere Replication and vSphere Storage Appliance, are in direct
    competition with storage arrays, although the competition is still new and weak. However, one Gartner user
    survey on virtualization in 2011 showed an increasing interest in adopting native features from server
    virtualization vendors, indicating that users are more open-minded when deploying a new virtualized
    environment.


    Integrated VMware Solutions
    Converged technology infrastructures where vendors are tightly integrating servers, networking and storage
    technologies with management software and VMware represent an alternative to buying what users may consider
    to be discrete best-of-breed technology. Optimized for utilization and cost efficiencies, converged technology
    infrastructure solutions hold the promise of resolving management complexity and lowering the risk
    interoperability issues, as well as simplifying service and support problem resolution. Notable examples of this
    approach include Dell's vStart, HP's VirtualSystem, NetApp's FlexPod and VCE's Vblock.

    Dell's vStart Virtual Infrastructure is a preconfigured, tested and validated solution that is optimized to support
    VMware environments. There are three vStart models — vStart 50, vStart 100 and vStart 200 — that scale out as
    customer VM needs grow. The external controller-based (ECB) disk storage system that is part of these vStart
    models is the EqualLogic SAN storage system, which supports the VAAI and VASA. As part of the vStart solution,
    Dell has integrated the EqualLogic Host Integration storage tools and Dell Server Management Plug-in into
    vCenter.

    The HP VirtualSystem portfolio includes three offerings that are individually sized to support a specific number of
    VMware VMs, ranging from 750 VMs to 6,000 VMs. Fully integrated with vSphere 5.0, the converged
    configurations include from 28 to 128 vSphere licenses and Insight Control Storage Module for vCenter 6.3. The
    ECB disk storage systems that are part of the HP VirtualSystem include the P4000 LeftHand SAN arrays and the
    3PAR F and V series, both of which support VAAI and VASA.

    Based on a partnership between NetApp, Cisco and VMware, the VMware vSphere built on FlexPod includes
    Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco's Nexus switches, NetApp's FAS3200/6200 unified storage
    systems, and VMware vSphere 5.0 virtualization software in a single integrated package. Various VMware
    vSphere built on FlexPod configurations are available, which can scale performance and capacity up and out to
    meet needs that range from the midrange to the enterprise. Featuring core functionality features such as
    deduplication, FlexClone, SnapShot and SnapManager, all NetApp FAS series platforms support VAAI and VASA.
    Management tools include Cisco's UCS Manager and NetApp's OnCommand Management Suite, both of which
    are tightly integrated with VMware's vCenter 5.0. While support is coordinated, users are required to execute a
    validated support contract with each vendor.

    VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with minority investments by VMware and Intel, was an early entrant as a
    provider of converged technology infrastructures to support VMware environments. Its Vblock integrated
    infrastructure platform portfolio, composed of Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), and Nexus and MDS
    switches, EMC VNX and VMAX disk storage systems, and VMware vSphere 5.0 virtualization software, can scale
    to handle the requirements of midsize to very large VMware deployments. Emphasizing their core functionality,
    such as FAST VP and hardware accelerated Fast Clones, the EMC VNX and VMAX ECB disk storage systems




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support VAAI and VASA. Management tools include EMC's Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI), Unisphere, ProSphere
and Ionix Data Center Insight, and Cisco's UCS Manager, all tightly integrated with VMware vCenter 5.0.


Future Competitive Focuses
No matter what kind of storage infrastructure for VMware is developed, users are most likely to choose their
VMware storage infrastructure based on the following areas:

■   Performance

■   Storage efficiency

■   Ease of management

■   Backup/recovery

Performance
Storage performance will be a hotly contended area among various vendors. As storage benchmark results are
typically based on heavily tuned, specially configured hardware and software features, it's difficult to find apples-
to-apples comparisons. However, it's generally true that when storage arrays take over storage-related functions
from the host, the host can increase the VM density by dedicating more resources to applications. Storage array
vendors should develop user case studies to demonstrate real-world deployments in terms of VM density. Aside
from helping increase host performance by offloading storage functions, storage vendors are expected to
continue investing in storage designs involving solid state drives and scalable file systems for the more
demanding environment. They should also provide clear best-practice papers for users to understand the
performance impact of various features and configurations.

Storage Efficiency
Storage efficiency is an area where external storage arrays are likely to continue to shine. Storage array vendors
have developed for years various storage efficiency algorithms running on their controllers, such as thin
provisioning, deduplication, compression, and space-efficient snapshots and cloning. Such knowledge and
techniques are not easily transferrable to the host operating environment or may consume too many host
resources. Therefore, besides performance, storage efficiency is another key area of investment for array vendors
in order to continue their unique value propositions.

Ease of Management
Ease of management goes beyond an intuitive graphical user interface. It's more about integration with the
VMware framework to make the job easier for different administrators who manage storage. And it's about
automating repetitive or inefficient operational processes, such as enabling vSphere Profile-Driven Storage.

One major problem of managing storage in the VMware environment is the misalignment of the granularity level
between the vSphere side and the storage side, which makes it impossible to assign different policies at the VM
or application level. VMware revealed at the VMworld in October 2011 that it is working with key storage array




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partners such as Dell, EMC, HP, IBM and NetApp to develop a new storage model. This new model promises to
    support VM-level granularity policy setup and simplify management.

    Backup/Recovery
    While VM density continues to rise on hypervisors, backup/recovery remains a major challenge for many
    organizations, as the physical server has limited physical resources (CPU cycles, memory and I/O bandwidth) to
    be shared by all of the VMs. As a result, Gartner is seeing an increased adoption of snapshots and replication to
    augment, or even replace traditional backup processes.

    For large VMware environments, it's most common to see users using array-based snapshots and replication, as
    storage arrays can handle a large volume of data and offload the data collection process from the vSphere
    server, which can then dedicate more resources to servicing production applications. However, array-based
    snapshots that are not used in conjunction with additional management modules often lack some of the basic
    features that are taken for granted in a backup application, such as application integration, centralized reporting
    and an integrated catalog for easy search of the individual items and for data versioning. Therefore, Gartner
    believes that storage array vendors should continue to enhance their snapshot and replication solutions in the
    following areas:

    ■   Application consistency for VM backups

    ■   Automated discovery of new VMs via continued vSphere API support

    ■   An updated understanding of the current VM locations via continued vSphere API support, as VMs are
        mobile and can move from server to server

    ■   A catalog-based backup solution that's integrated with its array's snapshot and replication technologies and
        can support VM configurations

    Array vendors should also pay close attention to what VMware is doing with backup/recovery and disaster
    recovery, as many users prefer using VMware native tools because of tighter integration, lower cost and
    heterogeneous hardware support. VMware in 2011 introduced its native software-based replication tool with
    vSphere 5.0 Site Recovery Manager, which will likely cannibalize some array-based solutions, especially for
    SMBs.

    If VMware or OS vendors such as Microsoft start offering improved and more scalable backup/recovery
    solutions, it could change the market dynamics. They could become disruptive, in that the buying center is
    changed from the storage team to the server organization — something already happening for VM protection,
    and in fact, through bundling, could essentially make backup appear to be free of charge.


    Competitive Profiles
    Competitive profiles provide a way to compare the major storage platform providers. This report focuses on the
    top seven storage system vendors because they represent the mainstream market trends; small storage system
    vendors can learn from their "big brothers" and benefit from the overall trends.




8
Dell

Company/Product Overview
Investing in R&D and M&A to accelerate growth and span of reach, Dell is on a journey to transition from a pure
product sale organization that largely resold other vendors' products to becoming a company that provides
integrated solutions based on its intellectual property (IP). Recognizing the importance of storage as part of its
emerging IT solution portfolio, Dell has expanded its ECB disk storage IP portfolio through acquisition.
Complementing the market-leading iSCSI entry-level EqualLogic external disk storage system, the February 2011
acquisition of Compellent provides a competitive midrange-to-high-end modular ECB disk storage system with
advanced data management service software replacing the Dell:EMC co-branded systems previously sourced
from EMC.

Dell is the sixth-largest ECB disk storage system vendor in the world. The Dell EqualLogic and Dell Compellent
are the main primary storage platforms for VMware. In 2011, Gartner estimates that Compellent revenue grew
144% year over year, accounting for 27% of the combined EqualLogic and Compellent revenue. Both the
EqualLogic and Compellent platforms support VAAI primitives; however, only the Dell EqualLogic supports VASA.
Dell reports that VASA support for Dell Compellent is scheduled for availability in mid-2012.

Product Marketing Strategy
Stressing ease of use, performance, and technological features, Dell positions its ECB disk storage platforms as
best-in-class offerings. For example, Dell markets EqualLogic storage as a "versatile and uncomplicated"
platform with all-inclusive software pricing and more-advanced VMware integration; it markets Compellent
storage as "self-optimized and powerful" platform with more-advanced storage tiering. While EqualLogic targets
IT generalists, Compellent targets organizations with dedicated storage administrators.

As Dell has broadened its IT portfolio through an aggressive acquisition program beyond clients and servers, it is
increasingly adopting an "end-to-end" marketing strategy that emphasizes superior value via a converged
infrastructure composed of Dell server, networking, storage and management technology in partnership with
leading independent software vendors (ISVs), such as VMware.

How Dell Competes
Generally, Dell prefers to sell an integrated IT solution in which the ECB disk storage products are packaged with
server and networking sales. But, considering that a rather large base of Dell server customers has the Dell:EMC
co-branded CLARiiON CX and AX series (previously sourced from EMC) installed, Dell is actively pursuing a
competitive replacement program offering either the Dell Compellent or Dell EqualLogic storage systems as
appropriate.

As a volume reseller of VMware software, Dell emphasizes the overall interoperability integration with its ECB disk
storage solutions and VMware vSphere software. Dell, with its EqualLogic product line, is one of the few storage
vendors that have been working closely from the beginning with VMware to define vSphere storage APIs and are
therefore an early adopter of the APIs.




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EMC

     Company/Product Overview
     The largest external storage array vendor in the world, EMC offers three primary storage platforms that can
     support VMware virtual environments. They are Symmetrix VMAX/VMAXe, VNX/VNXe and Isilon. The VMAX/
     VMAXe product line continues to be EMC's flagship product for the high-end enterprise and consolidated data
     centers; its revenue constitutes over 50% of the three platforms' combined revenue in 2011 and grew 11.5%
     year over year, based on Gartner's estimates. EMC's midrange modular storage is represented by its unified
     VNX/VNXe product family, introduced in the first quarter of 2011. It has been replacing the two separate
     CLARiiON and Celerra product lines. The combined hardware revenue for VNX/VNXe, CLARiiON and Celerra
     grew 20.6% in 2011 year over year, according to Gartner's market share statistics. EMC's Isilon platform grew
     revenue in triple digits in 2011, but this platform has limited adoption for VMware support, as its key strength lies
     with managing a large amount of unstructured data. Both Symmetrix and VNX platforms fully support VAAI and
     VASA.

     Product Marketing Strategy
     Although EMC owns the majority of VMware, it has allowed VMware to function independently in terms of
     support for heterogeneous storage systems. Nevertheless, the majority ownership can project a biased image of
     tighter integration between VMware and EMC's storage offerings in users' minds. Aware of that potential bias,
     EMC's marketing tends to stay away from the ownership fact and focus on its storage platforms' value
     propositions, such as FAST VP. VMAX is targeting data centers with the most comprehensive consolidation in
     mind, such as consolidating both physical and virtual server storage and consolidating both open-system and
     mainframe storage. It's also positioned for the environment with the most demanding storage performance
     requirements. VMAXe is a light version of VMAX and doesn't support mainframe. VNX/VNXe offers customers the
     additional choice of NFS data stores for fast, efficient VM-level cloning, whereas Isilon offers a highly scalable
     NFS data store with easy management.

     How EMC Competes
     EMC has the largest direct storage sales force among all storage vendors. With VNXe, it also grew its channel
     partners tremendously. For VMware environments, EMC highlights the fact that it has a single vCenter plug-in,
     called Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI), for both its VMAX and VNX families. VSI can automatically discover VMAX
     or VNX arrays and populate the basic information vCenter needs and allow vCenter administrators to provision
     and manage SAN/NAS storage, such as replicating a writable snapshot of a data store or a VM. VSI also simplify
     the manual process of VMware SRM fail-back.

     Other EMC and VMware integration for EMC's primary storage includes its ProSphere and Ionix Data Center
     Insight, which offer mapping information from VMs down to disk drives, service dependencies among different
     elements, and compliance reporting.




10
HP

Company/Product Overview
HP is a leading global IT and infrastructure supplier for consumers, SMBs and large enterprises. It is the fourth-
largest external storage array vendor in the world. Although it offers four primary storage platform families for the
VMware environment (P4000 LeftHand, P6000/EVA, 3PAR and P9000), its marketing and sales focus is on 3PAR
and LeftHand. Gartner estimates 3PAR's hardware revenue growth in 4Q11 was 157.2% over 4Q10 while
LeftHand's year-over-year hardware revenue growth in 2011 is estimated at 22%. Both platforms support
VMware VAAI primitives, VASA, application-consistent VMware-aware snapshots, SRM, vCenter management
plug-ins and Pluggable Storage Architecture.

Product Marketing Strategy
HP focuses most of its product marketing for VMware on 3PAR and LeftHand platforms. HP targets different
VMware user markets with these two storage families. The LeftHand P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance and the
LeftHand P4300 target the SMBs and branch offices that don't have a SAN infrastructure or are planning to have
a starter SAN. The company targets midmarket VMware users mainly with the 3PAR F-Class and LeftHand
P4500. For heavy VMware users in the high-end enterprise arena, HP promotes 3PAR's T-Class and V-Class
series as "next-generation, federated Tier 1 storage" for agility and efficiency. For VMware VDI deployments, HP
promotes the LeftHand and 3PAR, with the P4800 SAN for BladeSystem being the storage in the HP Client
Virtualization integrated system due to its tight integration within the BladeSystem architecture.

How HP Competes
HP touts P4000 LeftHand's and 3PAR's key design differentiators when competing in the VMware environment.
For LeftHand, HP focuses on storage clustering for linear performance, capacity scalability, network RAID and
multisite SAN, in conjunction with VMware High Availability or VMware Fault Tolerance. For 3PAR, HP competes
on its controller scalability and wide striping for consistent performance in a mixed workload environment —
typical for VMware — and a suite of thin technologies, including the built-in zero-detection capability of the 3PAR
ASIC for creating thin Eager Zeroed Thick VMDKs and Thin Persistence capabilities for reclaiming storage
capacity when deleting or moving VMs.

On both platforms, HP also promotes unified management functionality with the Insight Control for vCenter
Management Plugs-ins across storage, servers and networking and VMware-aware, application-consistent,
snapshot-based online data protection.


Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems

Company/Product Overview
Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems is the fifth-largest storage system vendor in the world. Although Hitachi Ltd. has a
broad technology portfolio, Hitachi Data Systems is Hitachi's subsidiary selling storage solutions in the Americas,
EMEA and Asia/Pacific excluding Japan. In recent years, Hitachi Data Systems has been successful in going
beyond its traditional image of a "big iron" storage hardware supplier and achieved significant software and




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service revenue (nearly 50% in 2011). It recently announced its vision for a journey from building an infrastructure
     cloud to building a content cloud and then an information cloud.

     Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems has two main product families to serve VMware primary storage: high-end
     monolithic USPV/VSP and midrange modular AMS. Gartner estimates that its USPV/VSP hardware revenue grew
     28% in 2011, accounting for 66% of the combined revenue of the two families. The AMS product revenue, on the
     other hand, remained flat in 2011. Both the USPV/VSP and the AMS platforms support key VAAI primitives. Their
     VASA support is expected in 2012. The September 2011 acquisition of BlueArc signaled that Hitachi Data
     Systems is getting more serious with its NAS strategy, which is likely to include VMware support with NFS data
     stores.

     Product Marketing Strategy
     VMware support is part of Hitachi Data Systems' broader product marketing strategies, which focus on the
     storage virtualization technologies based on its ISPV/VSP platform to consolidate separate islands of storage
     infrastructure for various applications. Unlike some of its peers, which created VMware integrated solutions,
     Hitachi Data Systems chose to focus on Microsoft with its Microsoft HyperV Fast Track and Hitachi Exchange
     Converged Solution. Although the Hitachi NAS (HNAS) product line based on BlueArc has a low attach rate to
     VMware today, we expect Hitachi Data Systems to start marketing HNAS as a viable NAS solution for VMware in
     2012 with its scalable file system and space-efficient cloning technologies.

     How Hitachi Data Systems Competes
     Hitachi Data Systems has been focusing more on software and service capabilities, channel partner programs
     and emerging global markets with successful results in the past few years. Hitachi Data Systems claims that its
     storage virtualization is able to offer up to 65% of capacity reclamation on existing storage assets, which include
     many heterogeneous arrays from different vendors. For VMware environments, Hitachi Data Systems stresses
     the benefits of its core storage functions, namely Hitachi Dynamic Tiering and Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning for
     increased VM density and automated performance load balancing, as well as 99.999% guaranteed uptime and
     no single point of failure.


     IBM

     Company/Product Overview
     With 14.2% market share in 2011, IBM is the second-largest ECB disk storage system vendor in the world. Its
     general-purpose ECB disk storage system portfolio consists of five disparate platforms — DS8000, XIV Storage
     System, Storwize V7000, DS5000 and N series. Representing approximately 30% of IBM's 2011 ECB disk
     storage market, the DS8000 is mainly deployed with IBM System z and IBM Power Systems, with limited
     installations supporting VMware. Presently, the DS8000 does not support VAAI or VASA. As a group, the IBM
     XIV, Storwize V7000, DS5000 and N series focus on the midrange and high-end modular disk storage market.
     This group increased year-over-year revenue by only 5% in 2011, based on Gartner's estimates. While the
     Storwize V7000, XIV and DS5000 target the block-access ECB disk storage market, the N series addresses the
     file-access market.




12
Product Marketing Strategy
The XIV Storage System, Storwize V7000 and the N series are the most popular products in the IBM ECB disk
storage system portfolio that natively support a VMware environment. Each brings a different set of attributes
that make them an attractive alternative for VMware infrastructures. IBM stresses the advantages of the XIV grid
architecture because of its ability to provide predictable and consistent performance with low resource overhead.
Moreover, the XIV supports VAAI and VASA, as well as vCenter and SRM plug-ins. The advanced data service
software, such as thin provisioning, Easy Tier and virtualized storage, as well as unified storage, are the points of
emphasis made by IBM for the Storwize V7000. However, while the Storwize V7000 supports VAAI and has
vCenter management SRM plug-ins, it does not presently support VASA. Even though the N series is a unified
ECB disk storage system supporting both file- and block- access infrastructures, IBM markets the N series as its
primary general-purpose file-access ECB disk storage platform. The N series provides comprehensive support
for VMware environments and fully supports VAAI or VASA.

How IBM Competes
There is considerable overlap in IBM's ECB disk storage product portfolio. Accordingly, IBM has to be extremely
crisp in its product positioning and messaging. For VMware infrastructures, IBM provides the following guidance
to its worldwide field organizations:

■   Emphasizing its price/performance attributes, the XIV is targeted at the high-end enterprise, nonmainframe
    segment.

■   The Storwize V7000 is the block-access platform of choice for midrange VMware environments and is
    increasingly promoted as IBM's unified ECB disk storage system of choice.

■   While the N series is a unified ECB disk storage platform, IBM positions it as the file-access platform of
    choice for midrange to enterprise VMware environments.

■   The DS5000 is an ECB disk storage system that offers good price/performance with basic data management
    services.


NetApp

Company/Product Overview
Propelled solely by organic growth, NetApp is the third-largest provider of external controller-based disk storage
systems in the world. It offers an integrated unified storage architecture that simultaneously supports file- and
block-access protocols with common management and data service software. The NetApp Data ONTAP platform
scales seamlessly from its entry-level FAS2200, through the midrange FAS3200, and up to the high-end
FAS6200. This platform is supported by a rich library of software that addresses utilization efficiency, data
protection, multitenancy, high availability, and data retention and archiving for organizations ranging from large
enterprises to SMBs. In 2011, Gartner estimates that NetApp's FAS systems grew revenue by 18.9%. NetApp
has done a noteworthy job of integrating its value-added software with VMware core functionality, as well as
being an early implementer of applicable VAAI and VASA. The company believes that the number of its
customers using NFS to support the VMware environment has gone up substantially to about 50% to leverage
the ease of management for NFS data stores.




                                                                                                                        13
Product Marketing Strategy
     Emphasizing utilization efficiency, ease of use, common data service software for file- and block-access
     applications, and optimum time to value messaging, NetApp presents its FAS storage systems as best-of-breed
     offerings. This fundamental position is augmented by tight integration with leading ISVs, including Microsoft,
     Oracle, SAP and VMware, to create unified solutions for targeted industries.

     How NetApp Competes
     NetApp employs a diversified go-to-market strategy embracing value-added resellers (VARs), system integrators
     (SIs), distributors and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that generate over 70% of its annual revenue.
     Beyond relationships with leading global distributors, NetApp also benefits from its reseller and OEM
     relationships with Fujitsu Technology Solutions (FTS), Fujitsu and IBM. These indirect sales channels are
     augmented by NetApp's direct sales force, which concentrates on a small number of multinational accounts that
     require global support.

     Aside from early integration with VMware vStorage APIs and popular array-VMware integrations, such as remote
     replication and a vCenter plug-in, NetApp likes to highlight its other core value propositions. It claims that its
     deduplication function for primary storage can save VMware virtual server customers over 60% of storage
     capacity on average, and its FlexClone function, which supports the VMware linked clone offload, can save
     significant time by provisioning a large amount of VMs in minutes. NetApp's Snapshot and SnapManager
     technologies are VMware-aware and support different levels of granularity for easier management. Other
     integrations with VMware include MetroCluster with VMware HA and Fault Tolerance, as well as MultiStore with
     VMware vShield.


     Oracle

     Company/Product Overview
     Oracle's entry into the ECB disk storage market stems from its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2009 and
     Pillar Data Systems in June 2011. Oracle offers two primary ECB disk storage platforms for VM infrastructures:
     ZFS Storage Appliance and the Pillar Axiom. Both systems offer a broad set of controller-based data
     management service software to address the storage infrastructure needs of midsize to enterprise markets.
     Market traction for the ZFS Storage Appliance is improving, with 2H11 growing 8.2% over 2H10. Gartner's
     revenue estimates for Pillar Data Axiom are almost $20 million for the second half of 2011.

     Product Marketing Strategy
     While both the ZFS Storage Appliance and Pillar Data ECB disk storage systems are able to support both block-
     and file-access protocols simultaneously, the ZFS Storage Appliance is targeted at the NAS market while the
     Pillar Axiom is Oracle's lead offering for the SAN market. When selling the ZFS Storage Appliance into a VMware
     environment, Oracle emphasizes its advanced set of data service functions coupled with the Hybrid Storage
     Pools to enhance performance and comprehensive storage analytics. Presently, the ZFS Storage Appliance does
     not support VAAI or VASA. For VMware infrastructures, Oracle highlights the Pillar Axiom Quality of Service (QoS)
     feature, which is used to assign storage resources to match the VM physical server resource allocation, as well




14
as its support for multitier hard-disk drives and solid-state drives. The Pillar Axiom does not support VAAI or
VASA.

How Oracle Competes
The Pillar Axiom is recommended when customers want to discreetly provision and manage quality of service
among VMs. The ZFS Storage Appliance is recommended when automated performance management with deep
storage analytics is required.


References and Methodology
Gartner established the preliminary inclusion criteria for this report and conducted a vendor survey among all the
players that potentially were to be profiled in this report. Other sources of information include vendor briefings
with Gartner in the past years and relevant Magic Quadrant survey responses in the past, as well as vendors'
public websites.


© 2012 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication
may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has
been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such
information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of
Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change
without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services
and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds
that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms
or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their
managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and
Objectivity” on its website, http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp.




                                                                                                                                                          15

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Competitive Landscape: Primary Storage Systems for VMware

  • 1. Market Analysis and Statistics G00230718 13 April 2012 Competitive Landscape: Primary Storage Systems for VMware Pushan Rinnen, Roger W. Cox, Dave Russell This report presents the current state of the major storage system platforms in terms of their support for VMware and discusses relevant future trends. Key Findings ■ The majority of the top seven storage vendors have done a decent job in implementing VMware vCenter plug-ins and vSphere Storage API support, although some are doing a better job than others. ■ Aside from vCenter plug-ins, the most popular storage-array-based features in the VMware environment include remote replication, space-efficient cloning, automated tiering within an array, solid-state drive (SSD) implementation, and multipathing support for vSphere. ■ Vendors' unique value propositions for their storage platforms' support of VMware are often the same as their innate design strengths for all primary applications. ■ VMware's native storage enhancements may commoditize storage for small VMware deployments. ■ Although VMware will continue to add and enhance native storage functions for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), it will likely offload many storage functions to external storage arrays to increase virtual machine (VM) density and boost performance in large environments, while seeking to retain the management and control of many of these functions. Recommendations Companies selling external storage arrays into the VMware environment should: ■ Continue offering timely integration with vSphere storage APIs to stay competitive and maintain customer loyalty ■ Continue to innovate to boost their storage performance, efficiency, and ease of management for both storage administrators and vCenter administrators ■ Evaluate the benefits of adding enhanced backup/recovery functions to their basic snapshot and replication features, such as adding automated snapshot management, application integration and centralized reporting 1-1ADQNZN
  • 2. Analysis Competitive Situation and Trends Gartner conducted a short vendor survey among major storage vendors to evaluate different aspects of VMware support from their main storage platforms. We asked about their most popular storage features being used for VMware virtual servers and hosted virtual desktops. We also asked about their storage integration with VMware vStorage APIs, such as vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) and vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA). Popular Storage Array Features for VMware All vendors cited the foundation and architectural strengths and distinctions of their storage platforms as the popular array features for VMware. In aggregate, however, we see the following features showing up most frequently in our survey responses: ■ vCenter plug-ins for storage — These plug-ins for VMware, offered by many storage platforms, allow vCenter administrators to gain more insight into the storage deployment associated with the VMs, such as an end-to- end view of mappings from VMs to data stores to LUNs. They empower vCenter administrators to provision storage to VMs, set up remote replication for VMware's Site Recovery Manager (SRM), and perform additional trouble-shooting capabilities. ■ Remote replication supporting VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) — As VMware didn't support native replication prior to the vSphere 5.0 launch in 2011, its SRM relies on array-based replication engines to move data across systems or sites for high availability and disaster recovery purposes. ■ Space-efficient cloning — This feature is instrumental in saving storage capacities and increasing speed of provisioning VMs from days to minutes, especially for test/development and hosted virtual desktop environments, such as VMware View. ■ Automated tiering within an array — All vendors offering automated tiering with their arrays mentioned this feature as one of the popular features in VMware environments. This feature allows data to be stored on the appropriate storage tiers based on their workload requirements and the cost and performance characteristics of the tier. ■ SSD implementations — This feature is often cited to boost storage input/output (I/O) performance and solve virtual desktop boot storm issues while reducing disk spindle counts. It's also an essential element for automated tiering. ■ Multipathing support for vSphere — This feature automates the configuration of multiple redundant network connections to storage arrays to enable fault-tolerant network load balancing and helps improve storage performance and scalability. Many vendors talked about their integration with vStorage API for Multipathing and vStorage API for SRM. Moreover, vendors often highlight their storage systems' innate or unique value propositions as popular features for VMware. For example: 2
  • 3. Dell highlighted EqualLogic's Automated Data Tiering and Compellent's Data Progression as among the most popular features for VMware users. ■ EMC included FAST VP for VMAX and VNX and VNX's single-instance store and compression. ■ HP highlighted 3PAR's wide striping and Mesh Active Clustering and LeftHand's Network RAID and Peer Motion. ■ Hitachi Data Systems talked about its Dynamic Provisioning and Dynamic Tiering technologies in parallel with its Storage Virtualization capabilities. ■ IBM highlighted XIV's automatic load balancing and aggregated cache and Storwize V7000's Easy Tier. ■ NetApp mentioned primary storage deduplication, MultiStore and Data Motion. ■ Oracle discussed Axiom's QoS and ZFS Appliance's D-Trace. VAAI Support To create tighter integration with storage arrays and optimize performance for ESX hosts, VMware has been working with the industry-leading storage system vendors to develop a set of vSphere Storage APIs called VAAI, introduced in vSphere 4.1 and 5.0. VAAI offloads several storage-related functions from ESX hosts to storage arrays; it boosts host performance and increases the possibility of adding more VMs on the same host. While vSphere 4.1 VAAI is mostly applicable to storage area network (SAN) arrays, vSphere 5.0 extended to network-attached storage (NAS) systems some of those I/O offloads that apply to Network File System (NFS) data stores. vSphere 5.0 also introduced a couple of new primitives. The major VAAI primitives from vSphere 4.1 and 5.0 are as follows: ■ Full copy — The task of copying a VM can now be done by VAAI-compliant arrays with drastically reduced host I/Os, increasing performance (such as with Storage vMotion and template deployment). ■ Hardware-assisted locking — This task, when done by the SAN array, can offer more-granular block-level (vs. volume-level) locking and provides the possibility to increase the size of the data store and the number of VMs within a data store without worrying about performance issues. This doesn't apply to NFS data stores as they already have the granularity. ■ Block zeroing — With this feature, the vSphere host can avoid sending repetitive commands to the SAN array about writing zeros for faster VM creation and formatting and improved storage capacity utilization. HP claims that its 3PAR is the only product in the industry that has zero detection built in its application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). ■ Out-of-space alerts and space reclamation for thin-provisioned storage — Available from vSphere 5.0, when used together with VAAI-compliant SAN arrays, this primitive adds a new advanced warning about the out- of-space condition and also informs the array about the freed-up space so that the array can reclaim it. This primitive doesn't apply to NFS data stores, as NFS correctly reports free space. ■ Linked clones — vSphere 5.0 added a VAAI primitive to replace vSphere's linked clone function with NAS- based cloning for VMware View and vCloud Director. 3
  • 4. Most of the major storage vendors and platforms have done a good job with timely support of the VAAI primitives, with some (such as IBM and Dell Compellent) still working on the out-of-space alert primitive. For the linked clone offload to NAS, it's only supported by NetApp and EMC's VNX. EMC VNX/VNXe and NetApp's FAS series stand out with both SAN and NAS protocol support. Oracle is the only vendor that doesn't offer VAAI support with its Pillar Axiom and ZFS Storage Appliance. VASA Support To help vCenter administrators to better coordinate server-storage decisions, vSphere 5.0 introduced a new set of APIs called VASA to gain more information on storage arrays. VASA-compliant storage arrays allow vCenter administrators to be more productive in deploying VMs and make more storage-intelligent decisions about VM placements. VASA allows array vendors to expose to vCenter their storage configurations, functions and characteristics. This information will allow vCenter to make automated, policy-driven storage management or profile-driven recommendations (such as for Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler). Array vendors must create a provider plug-in to enable VASA reporting, and it's up to the array vendors to decide which features or characteristics to expose to vCenter. The aggregate survey results show that the following storage features are most commonly exposed to the vCenter via VASA: ■ Drive type — What type of hard-disk drives the storage array contains, such as high-performance drives or large-capacity drives. ■ Redundant array of independent disks (RAID) protection — Whether the array has RAID protection or not; few specify RAID levels. ■ Logical unit number (LUN)/volume replication — Whether a LUN or volume is replicated or not; a few show replication configuration and state. With HP's 3PAR, LeftHand and EVA storage arrays, they also expose to vCenter whether storage is thin- provisioned or not. EMC's VMAX/VMAXe tells vCenter administrators whether multitiered storage is used or not. Gartner believes that portfolio vendors that sell both servers and storage will be more open to expose their storage functions to vCenter, whereas storage-centric vendors (with the exception of EMC, which owns the majority of VMware) will be less open in order to protect their storage control. Market Players While almost all storage vendors claim that their storage arrays support VMware well, we chose to focus on the most widely deployed storage platforms from major storage vendors around the globe, namely: ■ Dell — EqualLogic and Compellent ■ EMC — Symmetrix, VNX and Isilon 4
  • 5. HP — 3PAR, LeftHand and EVA ■ Hitachi Data Systems — USPV/VSP, AMS and HNAS ■ IBM — DS8000, XIV, Storwize 7000 and DS5000 ■ NetApp — FAS Series ■ Oracle — Pillar Axiom and Sun ZFS Storage Appliance The vast majority of the storage platforms on the list report that over 50% of their respective customers use that platform to support VMware virtual server environments, with the exception of EMC Isilon, Hitachi Data Systems HNAS, IBM DS8000 and Oracle Sun ZFS Storage Appliance. The results are not surprising, because Isilon, HNAS and ZFS Storage Appliance were developed mainly as NAS systems for file services. Isilon's and HNAS's VMware support initiatives were fairly recent — just before their acquisitions by EMC and Hitachi Data Systems, respectively. Oracle has been focusing on integrating the ZFS Storage appliance with Oracle Database applications, most of which are not run in the VMware environment. IBM's DS8000 is commonly used in the mainframe and high-end Unix server environments, which has very low penetration by VMware. As hosted-virtual-desktop deployments are still not a mainstream in the market today, all storage vendors surveyed estimated low storage usage for VMware View, ranging from 3% to 15% of their storage customers. We believe 3% to 5% is a more realistic range and that 15% is likely higher than reality and maybe the result of misinterpretation of the survey question. The Future of Competition Looking at the future competition in terms of storage capabilities for VMware virtual environments, Gartner believes that such competition will not only continue among external storage array vendors, but will also arise between what VMware offers natively from the host side and what the arrays offer from the storage side. Another competitive factor is the integrated VMware solutions, such as EMC's Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Vblock, HP's VirtualSystem and NetApp's FlexPod. VMware Storage Initiatives In the past two years, VMware has started adding more storage capabilities natively on its platform, such as Site Recovery Manager, Storage vMotion, Storage Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vSphere Replication, vSphere Profile-Driven Storage, VMware Data Recovery, and vSphere Storage Appliance. For the new storage features offered by vSphere 5.0, see Gartner report "New Storage Initiatives From VMware's vSphere 5.0 and Why They Matter." While many of these storage feature functions are complementary with storage arrays, they do require storage arrays to support VMware storage APIs for seamless integration. In the end, it's all about control. The more storage features exposed to the vCenter, the more they will empower vCenter administrators to manage storage together with servers. Storage vendors that want to appeal to broader user profiles should not be conservative about exposing their storage features to the vCenter. This applies especially to vendors and products targeting SMBs, which tend not to have a dedicated storage team. 5
  • 6. Other VMware storage features, such as vSphere Replication and vSphere Storage Appliance, are in direct competition with storage arrays, although the competition is still new and weak. However, one Gartner user survey on virtualization in 2011 showed an increasing interest in adopting native features from server virtualization vendors, indicating that users are more open-minded when deploying a new virtualized environment. Integrated VMware Solutions Converged technology infrastructures where vendors are tightly integrating servers, networking and storage technologies with management software and VMware represent an alternative to buying what users may consider to be discrete best-of-breed technology. Optimized for utilization and cost efficiencies, converged technology infrastructure solutions hold the promise of resolving management complexity and lowering the risk interoperability issues, as well as simplifying service and support problem resolution. Notable examples of this approach include Dell's vStart, HP's VirtualSystem, NetApp's FlexPod and VCE's Vblock. Dell's vStart Virtual Infrastructure is a preconfigured, tested and validated solution that is optimized to support VMware environments. There are three vStart models — vStart 50, vStart 100 and vStart 200 — that scale out as customer VM needs grow. The external controller-based (ECB) disk storage system that is part of these vStart models is the EqualLogic SAN storage system, which supports the VAAI and VASA. As part of the vStart solution, Dell has integrated the EqualLogic Host Integration storage tools and Dell Server Management Plug-in into vCenter. The HP VirtualSystem portfolio includes three offerings that are individually sized to support a specific number of VMware VMs, ranging from 750 VMs to 6,000 VMs. Fully integrated with vSphere 5.0, the converged configurations include from 28 to 128 vSphere licenses and Insight Control Storage Module for vCenter 6.3. The ECB disk storage systems that are part of the HP VirtualSystem include the P4000 LeftHand SAN arrays and the 3PAR F and V series, both of which support VAAI and VASA. Based on a partnership between NetApp, Cisco and VMware, the VMware vSphere built on FlexPod includes Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco's Nexus switches, NetApp's FAS3200/6200 unified storage systems, and VMware vSphere 5.0 virtualization software in a single integrated package. Various VMware vSphere built on FlexPod configurations are available, which can scale performance and capacity up and out to meet needs that range from the midrange to the enterprise. Featuring core functionality features such as deduplication, FlexClone, SnapShot and SnapManager, all NetApp FAS series platforms support VAAI and VASA. Management tools include Cisco's UCS Manager and NetApp's OnCommand Management Suite, both of which are tightly integrated with VMware's vCenter 5.0. While support is coordinated, users are required to execute a validated support contract with each vendor. VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with minority investments by VMware and Intel, was an early entrant as a provider of converged technology infrastructures to support VMware environments. Its Vblock integrated infrastructure platform portfolio, composed of Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS), and Nexus and MDS switches, EMC VNX and VMAX disk storage systems, and VMware vSphere 5.0 virtualization software, can scale to handle the requirements of midsize to very large VMware deployments. Emphasizing their core functionality, such as FAST VP and hardware accelerated Fast Clones, the EMC VNX and VMAX ECB disk storage systems 6
  • 7. support VAAI and VASA. Management tools include EMC's Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI), Unisphere, ProSphere and Ionix Data Center Insight, and Cisco's UCS Manager, all tightly integrated with VMware vCenter 5.0. Future Competitive Focuses No matter what kind of storage infrastructure for VMware is developed, users are most likely to choose their VMware storage infrastructure based on the following areas: ■ Performance ■ Storage efficiency ■ Ease of management ■ Backup/recovery Performance Storage performance will be a hotly contended area among various vendors. As storage benchmark results are typically based on heavily tuned, specially configured hardware and software features, it's difficult to find apples- to-apples comparisons. However, it's generally true that when storage arrays take over storage-related functions from the host, the host can increase the VM density by dedicating more resources to applications. Storage array vendors should develop user case studies to demonstrate real-world deployments in terms of VM density. Aside from helping increase host performance by offloading storage functions, storage vendors are expected to continue investing in storage designs involving solid state drives and scalable file systems for the more demanding environment. They should also provide clear best-practice papers for users to understand the performance impact of various features and configurations. Storage Efficiency Storage efficiency is an area where external storage arrays are likely to continue to shine. Storage array vendors have developed for years various storage efficiency algorithms running on their controllers, such as thin provisioning, deduplication, compression, and space-efficient snapshots and cloning. Such knowledge and techniques are not easily transferrable to the host operating environment or may consume too many host resources. Therefore, besides performance, storage efficiency is another key area of investment for array vendors in order to continue their unique value propositions. Ease of Management Ease of management goes beyond an intuitive graphical user interface. It's more about integration with the VMware framework to make the job easier for different administrators who manage storage. And it's about automating repetitive or inefficient operational processes, such as enabling vSphere Profile-Driven Storage. One major problem of managing storage in the VMware environment is the misalignment of the granularity level between the vSphere side and the storage side, which makes it impossible to assign different policies at the VM or application level. VMware revealed at the VMworld in October 2011 that it is working with key storage array 7
  • 8. partners such as Dell, EMC, HP, IBM and NetApp to develop a new storage model. This new model promises to support VM-level granularity policy setup and simplify management. Backup/Recovery While VM density continues to rise on hypervisors, backup/recovery remains a major challenge for many organizations, as the physical server has limited physical resources (CPU cycles, memory and I/O bandwidth) to be shared by all of the VMs. As a result, Gartner is seeing an increased adoption of snapshots and replication to augment, or even replace traditional backup processes. For large VMware environments, it's most common to see users using array-based snapshots and replication, as storage arrays can handle a large volume of data and offload the data collection process from the vSphere server, which can then dedicate more resources to servicing production applications. However, array-based snapshots that are not used in conjunction with additional management modules often lack some of the basic features that are taken for granted in a backup application, such as application integration, centralized reporting and an integrated catalog for easy search of the individual items and for data versioning. Therefore, Gartner believes that storage array vendors should continue to enhance their snapshot and replication solutions in the following areas: ■ Application consistency for VM backups ■ Automated discovery of new VMs via continued vSphere API support ■ An updated understanding of the current VM locations via continued vSphere API support, as VMs are mobile and can move from server to server ■ A catalog-based backup solution that's integrated with its array's snapshot and replication technologies and can support VM configurations Array vendors should also pay close attention to what VMware is doing with backup/recovery and disaster recovery, as many users prefer using VMware native tools because of tighter integration, lower cost and heterogeneous hardware support. VMware in 2011 introduced its native software-based replication tool with vSphere 5.0 Site Recovery Manager, which will likely cannibalize some array-based solutions, especially for SMBs. If VMware or OS vendors such as Microsoft start offering improved and more scalable backup/recovery solutions, it could change the market dynamics. They could become disruptive, in that the buying center is changed from the storage team to the server organization — something already happening for VM protection, and in fact, through bundling, could essentially make backup appear to be free of charge. Competitive Profiles Competitive profiles provide a way to compare the major storage platform providers. This report focuses on the top seven storage system vendors because they represent the mainstream market trends; small storage system vendors can learn from their "big brothers" and benefit from the overall trends. 8
  • 9. Dell Company/Product Overview Investing in R&D and M&A to accelerate growth and span of reach, Dell is on a journey to transition from a pure product sale organization that largely resold other vendors' products to becoming a company that provides integrated solutions based on its intellectual property (IP). Recognizing the importance of storage as part of its emerging IT solution portfolio, Dell has expanded its ECB disk storage IP portfolio through acquisition. Complementing the market-leading iSCSI entry-level EqualLogic external disk storage system, the February 2011 acquisition of Compellent provides a competitive midrange-to-high-end modular ECB disk storage system with advanced data management service software replacing the Dell:EMC co-branded systems previously sourced from EMC. Dell is the sixth-largest ECB disk storage system vendor in the world. The Dell EqualLogic and Dell Compellent are the main primary storage platforms for VMware. In 2011, Gartner estimates that Compellent revenue grew 144% year over year, accounting for 27% of the combined EqualLogic and Compellent revenue. Both the EqualLogic and Compellent platforms support VAAI primitives; however, only the Dell EqualLogic supports VASA. Dell reports that VASA support for Dell Compellent is scheduled for availability in mid-2012. Product Marketing Strategy Stressing ease of use, performance, and technological features, Dell positions its ECB disk storage platforms as best-in-class offerings. For example, Dell markets EqualLogic storage as a "versatile and uncomplicated" platform with all-inclusive software pricing and more-advanced VMware integration; it markets Compellent storage as "self-optimized and powerful" platform with more-advanced storage tiering. While EqualLogic targets IT generalists, Compellent targets organizations with dedicated storage administrators. As Dell has broadened its IT portfolio through an aggressive acquisition program beyond clients and servers, it is increasingly adopting an "end-to-end" marketing strategy that emphasizes superior value via a converged infrastructure composed of Dell server, networking, storage and management technology in partnership with leading independent software vendors (ISVs), such as VMware. How Dell Competes Generally, Dell prefers to sell an integrated IT solution in which the ECB disk storage products are packaged with server and networking sales. But, considering that a rather large base of Dell server customers has the Dell:EMC co-branded CLARiiON CX and AX series (previously sourced from EMC) installed, Dell is actively pursuing a competitive replacement program offering either the Dell Compellent or Dell EqualLogic storage systems as appropriate. As a volume reseller of VMware software, Dell emphasizes the overall interoperability integration with its ECB disk storage solutions and VMware vSphere software. Dell, with its EqualLogic product line, is one of the few storage vendors that have been working closely from the beginning with VMware to define vSphere storage APIs and are therefore an early adopter of the APIs. 9
  • 10. EMC Company/Product Overview The largest external storage array vendor in the world, EMC offers three primary storage platforms that can support VMware virtual environments. They are Symmetrix VMAX/VMAXe, VNX/VNXe and Isilon. The VMAX/ VMAXe product line continues to be EMC's flagship product for the high-end enterprise and consolidated data centers; its revenue constitutes over 50% of the three platforms' combined revenue in 2011 and grew 11.5% year over year, based on Gartner's estimates. EMC's midrange modular storage is represented by its unified VNX/VNXe product family, introduced in the first quarter of 2011. It has been replacing the two separate CLARiiON and Celerra product lines. The combined hardware revenue for VNX/VNXe, CLARiiON and Celerra grew 20.6% in 2011 year over year, according to Gartner's market share statistics. EMC's Isilon platform grew revenue in triple digits in 2011, but this platform has limited adoption for VMware support, as its key strength lies with managing a large amount of unstructured data. Both Symmetrix and VNX platforms fully support VAAI and VASA. Product Marketing Strategy Although EMC owns the majority of VMware, it has allowed VMware to function independently in terms of support for heterogeneous storage systems. Nevertheless, the majority ownership can project a biased image of tighter integration between VMware and EMC's storage offerings in users' minds. Aware of that potential bias, EMC's marketing tends to stay away from the ownership fact and focus on its storage platforms' value propositions, such as FAST VP. VMAX is targeting data centers with the most comprehensive consolidation in mind, such as consolidating both physical and virtual server storage and consolidating both open-system and mainframe storage. It's also positioned for the environment with the most demanding storage performance requirements. VMAXe is a light version of VMAX and doesn't support mainframe. VNX/VNXe offers customers the additional choice of NFS data stores for fast, efficient VM-level cloning, whereas Isilon offers a highly scalable NFS data store with easy management. How EMC Competes EMC has the largest direct storage sales force among all storage vendors. With VNXe, it also grew its channel partners tremendously. For VMware environments, EMC highlights the fact that it has a single vCenter plug-in, called Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI), for both its VMAX and VNX families. VSI can automatically discover VMAX or VNX arrays and populate the basic information vCenter needs and allow vCenter administrators to provision and manage SAN/NAS storage, such as replicating a writable snapshot of a data store or a VM. VSI also simplify the manual process of VMware SRM fail-back. Other EMC and VMware integration for EMC's primary storage includes its ProSphere and Ionix Data Center Insight, which offer mapping information from VMs down to disk drives, service dependencies among different elements, and compliance reporting. 10
  • 11. HP Company/Product Overview HP is a leading global IT and infrastructure supplier for consumers, SMBs and large enterprises. It is the fourth- largest external storage array vendor in the world. Although it offers four primary storage platform families for the VMware environment (P4000 LeftHand, P6000/EVA, 3PAR and P9000), its marketing and sales focus is on 3PAR and LeftHand. Gartner estimates 3PAR's hardware revenue growth in 4Q11 was 157.2% over 4Q10 while LeftHand's year-over-year hardware revenue growth in 2011 is estimated at 22%. Both platforms support VMware VAAI primitives, VASA, application-consistent VMware-aware snapshots, SRM, vCenter management plug-ins and Pluggable Storage Architecture. Product Marketing Strategy HP focuses most of its product marketing for VMware on 3PAR and LeftHand platforms. HP targets different VMware user markets with these two storage families. The LeftHand P4000 Virtual SAN Appliance and the LeftHand P4300 target the SMBs and branch offices that don't have a SAN infrastructure or are planning to have a starter SAN. The company targets midmarket VMware users mainly with the 3PAR F-Class and LeftHand P4500. For heavy VMware users in the high-end enterprise arena, HP promotes 3PAR's T-Class and V-Class series as "next-generation, federated Tier 1 storage" for agility and efficiency. For VMware VDI deployments, HP promotes the LeftHand and 3PAR, with the P4800 SAN for BladeSystem being the storage in the HP Client Virtualization integrated system due to its tight integration within the BladeSystem architecture. How HP Competes HP touts P4000 LeftHand's and 3PAR's key design differentiators when competing in the VMware environment. For LeftHand, HP focuses on storage clustering for linear performance, capacity scalability, network RAID and multisite SAN, in conjunction with VMware High Availability or VMware Fault Tolerance. For 3PAR, HP competes on its controller scalability and wide striping for consistent performance in a mixed workload environment — typical for VMware — and a suite of thin technologies, including the built-in zero-detection capability of the 3PAR ASIC for creating thin Eager Zeroed Thick VMDKs and Thin Persistence capabilities for reclaiming storage capacity when deleting or moving VMs. On both platforms, HP also promotes unified management functionality with the Insight Control for vCenter Management Plugs-ins across storage, servers and networking and VMware-aware, application-consistent, snapshot-based online data protection. Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems Company/Product Overview Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems is the fifth-largest storage system vendor in the world. Although Hitachi Ltd. has a broad technology portfolio, Hitachi Data Systems is Hitachi's subsidiary selling storage solutions in the Americas, EMEA and Asia/Pacific excluding Japan. In recent years, Hitachi Data Systems has been successful in going beyond its traditional image of a "big iron" storage hardware supplier and achieved significant software and 11
  • 12. service revenue (nearly 50% in 2011). It recently announced its vision for a journey from building an infrastructure cloud to building a content cloud and then an information cloud. Hitachi/Hitachi Data Systems has two main product families to serve VMware primary storage: high-end monolithic USPV/VSP and midrange modular AMS. Gartner estimates that its USPV/VSP hardware revenue grew 28% in 2011, accounting for 66% of the combined revenue of the two families. The AMS product revenue, on the other hand, remained flat in 2011. Both the USPV/VSP and the AMS platforms support key VAAI primitives. Their VASA support is expected in 2012. The September 2011 acquisition of BlueArc signaled that Hitachi Data Systems is getting more serious with its NAS strategy, which is likely to include VMware support with NFS data stores. Product Marketing Strategy VMware support is part of Hitachi Data Systems' broader product marketing strategies, which focus on the storage virtualization technologies based on its ISPV/VSP platform to consolidate separate islands of storage infrastructure for various applications. Unlike some of its peers, which created VMware integrated solutions, Hitachi Data Systems chose to focus on Microsoft with its Microsoft HyperV Fast Track and Hitachi Exchange Converged Solution. Although the Hitachi NAS (HNAS) product line based on BlueArc has a low attach rate to VMware today, we expect Hitachi Data Systems to start marketing HNAS as a viable NAS solution for VMware in 2012 with its scalable file system and space-efficient cloning technologies. How Hitachi Data Systems Competes Hitachi Data Systems has been focusing more on software and service capabilities, channel partner programs and emerging global markets with successful results in the past few years. Hitachi Data Systems claims that its storage virtualization is able to offer up to 65% of capacity reclamation on existing storage assets, which include many heterogeneous arrays from different vendors. For VMware environments, Hitachi Data Systems stresses the benefits of its core storage functions, namely Hitachi Dynamic Tiering and Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning for increased VM density and automated performance load balancing, as well as 99.999% guaranteed uptime and no single point of failure. IBM Company/Product Overview With 14.2% market share in 2011, IBM is the second-largest ECB disk storage system vendor in the world. Its general-purpose ECB disk storage system portfolio consists of five disparate platforms — DS8000, XIV Storage System, Storwize V7000, DS5000 and N series. Representing approximately 30% of IBM's 2011 ECB disk storage market, the DS8000 is mainly deployed with IBM System z and IBM Power Systems, with limited installations supporting VMware. Presently, the DS8000 does not support VAAI or VASA. As a group, the IBM XIV, Storwize V7000, DS5000 and N series focus on the midrange and high-end modular disk storage market. This group increased year-over-year revenue by only 5% in 2011, based on Gartner's estimates. While the Storwize V7000, XIV and DS5000 target the block-access ECB disk storage market, the N series addresses the file-access market. 12
  • 13. Product Marketing Strategy The XIV Storage System, Storwize V7000 and the N series are the most popular products in the IBM ECB disk storage system portfolio that natively support a VMware environment. Each brings a different set of attributes that make them an attractive alternative for VMware infrastructures. IBM stresses the advantages of the XIV grid architecture because of its ability to provide predictable and consistent performance with low resource overhead. Moreover, the XIV supports VAAI and VASA, as well as vCenter and SRM plug-ins. The advanced data service software, such as thin provisioning, Easy Tier and virtualized storage, as well as unified storage, are the points of emphasis made by IBM for the Storwize V7000. However, while the Storwize V7000 supports VAAI and has vCenter management SRM plug-ins, it does not presently support VASA. Even though the N series is a unified ECB disk storage system supporting both file- and block- access infrastructures, IBM markets the N series as its primary general-purpose file-access ECB disk storage platform. The N series provides comprehensive support for VMware environments and fully supports VAAI or VASA. How IBM Competes There is considerable overlap in IBM's ECB disk storage product portfolio. Accordingly, IBM has to be extremely crisp in its product positioning and messaging. For VMware infrastructures, IBM provides the following guidance to its worldwide field organizations: ■ Emphasizing its price/performance attributes, the XIV is targeted at the high-end enterprise, nonmainframe segment. ■ The Storwize V7000 is the block-access platform of choice for midrange VMware environments and is increasingly promoted as IBM's unified ECB disk storage system of choice. ■ While the N series is a unified ECB disk storage platform, IBM positions it as the file-access platform of choice for midrange to enterprise VMware environments. ■ The DS5000 is an ECB disk storage system that offers good price/performance with basic data management services. NetApp Company/Product Overview Propelled solely by organic growth, NetApp is the third-largest provider of external controller-based disk storage systems in the world. It offers an integrated unified storage architecture that simultaneously supports file- and block-access protocols with common management and data service software. The NetApp Data ONTAP platform scales seamlessly from its entry-level FAS2200, through the midrange FAS3200, and up to the high-end FAS6200. This platform is supported by a rich library of software that addresses utilization efficiency, data protection, multitenancy, high availability, and data retention and archiving for organizations ranging from large enterprises to SMBs. In 2011, Gartner estimates that NetApp's FAS systems grew revenue by 18.9%. NetApp has done a noteworthy job of integrating its value-added software with VMware core functionality, as well as being an early implementer of applicable VAAI and VASA. The company believes that the number of its customers using NFS to support the VMware environment has gone up substantially to about 50% to leverage the ease of management for NFS data stores. 13
  • 14. Product Marketing Strategy Emphasizing utilization efficiency, ease of use, common data service software for file- and block-access applications, and optimum time to value messaging, NetApp presents its FAS storage systems as best-of-breed offerings. This fundamental position is augmented by tight integration with leading ISVs, including Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and VMware, to create unified solutions for targeted industries. How NetApp Competes NetApp employs a diversified go-to-market strategy embracing value-added resellers (VARs), system integrators (SIs), distributors and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that generate over 70% of its annual revenue. Beyond relationships with leading global distributors, NetApp also benefits from its reseller and OEM relationships with Fujitsu Technology Solutions (FTS), Fujitsu and IBM. These indirect sales channels are augmented by NetApp's direct sales force, which concentrates on a small number of multinational accounts that require global support. Aside from early integration with VMware vStorage APIs and popular array-VMware integrations, such as remote replication and a vCenter plug-in, NetApp likes to highlight its other core value propositions. It claims that its deduplication function for primary storage can save VMware virtual server customers over 60% of storage capacity on average, and its FlexClone function, which supports the VMware linked clone offload, can save significant time by provisioning a large amount of VMs in minutes. NetApp's Snapshot and SnapManager technologies are VMware-aware and support different levels of granularity for easier management. Other integrations with VMware include MetroCluster with VMware HA and Fault Tolerance, as well as MultiStore with VMware vShield. Oracle Company/Product Overview Oracle's entry into the ECB disk storage market stems from its acquisition of Sun Microsystems in 2009 and Pillar Data Systems in June 2011. Oracle offers two primary ECB disk storage platforms for VM infrastructures: ZFS Storage Appliance and the Pillar Axiom. Both systems offer a broad set of controller-based data management service software to address the storage infrastructure needs of midsize to enterprise markets. Market traction for the ZFS Storage Appliance is improving, with 2H11 growing 8.2% over 2H10. Gartner's revenue estimates for Pillar Data Axiom are almost $20 million for the second half of 2011. Product Marketing Strategy While both the ZFS Storage Appliance and Pillar Data ECB disk storage systems are able to support both block- and file-access protocols simultaneously, the ZFS Storage Appliance is targeted at the NAS market while the Pillar Axiom is Oracle's lead offering for the SAN market. When selling the ZFS Storage Appliance into a VMware environment, Oracle emphasizes its advanced set of data service functions coupled with the Hybrid Storage Pools to enhance performance and comprehensive storage analytics. Presently, the ZFS Storage Appliance does not support VAAI or VASA. For VMware infrastructures, Oracle highlights the Pillar Axiom Quality of Service (QoS) feature, which is used to assign storage resources to match the VM physical server resource allocation, as well 14
  • 15. as its support for multitier hard-disk drives and solid-state drives. The Pillar Axiom does not support VAAI or VASA. How Oracle Competes The Pillar Axiom is recommended when customers want to discreetly provision and manage quality of service among VMs. The ZFS Storage Appliance is recommended when automated performance management with deep storage analytics is required. References and Methodology Gartner established the preliminary inclusion criteria for this report and conducted a vendor survey among all the players that potentially were to be profiled in this report. Other sources of information include vendor briefings with Gartner in the past years and relevant Magic Quadrant survey responses in the past, as well as vendors' public websites. © 2012 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner’s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity” on its website, http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp. 15