has been combined with virtualized server consolidation and cloud computing. ... on-premises and public cloud infrastruc
— Report Excerpt Insight from 451 Research
Integrated infrastructure: toward software integration Until recently, servers, storage and networking occupied separate domains of infrastructure, each with their own experts and management tools. But over the past half-decade a new breed of integrated infrastructure systems have come to market, arguably simplifying procurement, integration and operations management. This can result in both a more efficient and more agile IT infrastructure. The current market for integrated infrastructure has followed four approaches: single SKU, application-optimized appliances, reference architectures and hyperconverged. All four approaches also involve some convergence at the management software layer.
Shifting server buying trends have spurred the development of integrated infrastructure. An increased acceptance of low-cost x86 hardware for servers, storage and networking has been combined with virtualized server consolidation and cloud computing. We believe that software-based management tools, able to operate seamlessly between hybrid on-premises and public cloud infrastructure, will play a much more important role as part of the integrated infrastructure products that emerge over the next few years. THE KEY ROLE OF THE MANAGEMENT LAYER Convergence at the software layer, unifying standard hardware building blocks, is where the market is ultimately heading. Simplicity of management is one of the key value objectives of integrated infrastructure. The idea is to eliminate the need for specialist expertise in storage, servers and network management. As the software-defined paradigm gathers pace, the management stack is likely to become the primary integration point between different domains. Software can take advantage of hardware-level convergence where it exists to improve performance and functionality. In the meantime there’s a confusing array of choices available, even from single vendors, ranging from legacy ‘framework’ systems management tools through hardware-specific element managers up to cloud services orchestration and automation tools. A new breed of higher-level management and orchestration tools more geared toward delivering IT as a service has started to emerge, but role-based admin continues to be important, even when ‘one pane of glass’ is a supposed goal of convergence. Many of these strive to become hardware independent, which is often a gradual process.
TOWARD THE CLOUD AND ‘SOFTWARE-DEFINED’ From the evidence of the past five years, it seems that customers that have bought into the idea of integrated platforms are willing to pay a premium for converged benefits, such as simplified vendor relationships. But justifications for the additional spending can be hard to quantify. Vendors need to do more to smooth the path for customer adoption. Services to aid adoption are a necessary part of the transaction, whether delivered directly or through partners. And finally, it has to be remembered that this is a market in transition. Some form factors and go-to-market strategies may soon look very different. As mentioned above, we believe that software-based management tools, able to operate seamlessly between hybrid on-premises and public cloud infrastructure, will play a much more important role as part of the integrated infrastructure products that emerge over the next few years.
BMC TrueSight Operations for Availability and Performance Monitoring of Integrated Infrastructure BMC TrueSight Operations Management provides a converged view of end user, application and infrastructure performance across a multi-source cloud environment as well as the insight IT operations needs to deliver high-quality digital services quickly and effectively enough to keep pace with business demand. TrueSight illuminates the entire IT environment with visibility into mobile, web, and on-premises applications. By examining operational norms, automatically revealing abnormalities, measuring service impact, and proactively identifying risk, TrueSight helps ensure that the applications and services that business depends on continue to perform optimally. This includes support for modern stack and cloud technologies such as Docker, OpenStack, Hadoop, MongoDB, Microsoft Azure and AWS in addition to traditional infrastructure. With vendor agnostic, full stack coverage from device to database, TrueSight provides a single source of truth for monitoring, event correlation analysis, operational analytics and application performance management. Shayne Higdon Vice President of Product Management & Marketing BMC Performance and Analytics
REPORT EXCERPT
Integrated Platforms Market Map 2016 JOHN ABBOTT
F O U N D E R , D I S T I N G U I S H E D A N A LYS T
Key Findings Integrated infrastructure represents a rare growth area in a generally stagnant market for servers, storage and networking equipment. Upcoming refresh projects are driving 2016 enterprise investments in servers and converged infrastructure. The development of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) has been rapid and dramatic, and we’re starting to see deployments on a larger scale, where HCI is intended to be used as the primary systems architecture. Hadoop offers a clear example of the potential advantages of integrated infrastructure systems for specific workloads. The mix of I/O-bound or CPU-bound jobs requires both storage-heavy and compute-heavy resources, dynamically configurable to suit particular requirements. Integrated platforms have significantly changed the available options for end users. It has become commonplace for them to expect that expensive and time-consuming systems integration tasks do not need to be the responsibility of the customer. Composable systems and programmable or software-defined infrastructures are hot platform marketing themes. However, a fully hardware-agnostic software layer operating at enterprise scale is still aspirational rather than practical.
Market Challenges and Innovations Customers aren’t looking for a new management console, and the much-promised ‘single pane of glass’ can create as many problems as it solves. The current set of market offerings is confusing, and many are not yet fully available. Software-defined storage and networking continue to evolve. We’re heading toward a control plane platform that can mask the complexities of the underlying infrastructure and intelligently consolidate and manage them.
Management and Software defined The management and software defined segment of the 451 Research Integrated Infrastructure Market Map includes convergence at the software level, separating out the software management or data layers from any hardware dependencies. Common management, virtualization, automation and data services software layers are likely to become the primary integration point between different domains over time, enabling increasingly standard and modular hardware building blocks to be run as dynamic resource pools of compute, storage and fabric. The ongoing development and maturity of software-defined storage and networking technology will help enable this. Unified management consoles and APIs are an initial phase, but the introduction of entirely new management consoles isn’t something that many users are asking for, so plug-ins to existing consoles have become the norm. Over time we’re likely to see the emergence of a carefully layered combination of virtualization management, hybrid cloud platform management, intelligent application workload placement, automation, DevOps and mobility layers coming together, spanning bare metal, containers, virtualization and cloud deployments.
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R E P O R T E X C E R P T: I N T E G R AT E D P L AT F O R M S M A R K E T M A P 2 0 1 6 The software-defined datacenter is a bringing together of virtualized compute, storage and networking across the entire datacenter, including both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure. We are a long way away from that, although VMware in particular is now talking in these terms, adding availability, security, management and automation to the list of attributes to be included. OpenStack has sometimes been positioned as a less proprietary alternative that could play a similar role. The trouble is that no one technology or approach can span such a wide set of use cases. We see a distinction between more generalized virtualization, cloud and software-defined platforms and more specific systems, virtualization or cloud management consoles. In the former category, in addition to VMware, Microsoft and OpenStack, we also see some smaller companies with big ambitions, such as Nutanix with Acropolis/Prism and SimpliVity with its Data Virtualization Platform. On the management side, so-called single-pane-of-glass initiatives from systems management software houses have largely floundered for this reason. A more successful approach has been to provide some high-level unification tools that provide integration capabilities for more specific and established tools (like VMware’s vCenter) to be plugged in where required. In the meantime there’s a confusing array of choices available in the integrated infrastructure sector, even from single vendors, ranging from legacy ‘framework’ systems management tools through hardware-specific element managers up to cloud services orchestration and automation tools. A new breed of higher-level management and orchestration tools more geared toward delivering IT as a service has started to emerge, but role-based admin continues to be important, even when one pane of glass is the supposed goal.
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About 451 Research 451 Research is a preeminent information technology research and advisory company. With a core focus on technology innovation and market disruption, we provide essential insight for leaders of the digital economy. More than 100 analysts and consultants deliver that insight via syndicated research, advisory services and live events to over 1,000 client organizations in North America, Europe and around the world. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in New York, 451 Research is a division of The 451 Group. © 2016 451 Research, LLC and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this publication, in whole or in part, in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The terms of use regarding distribution, both internally and externally, shall be governed by the terms laid out in your Service Agreement with 451 Research and/or its Affiliates. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. 451 Research disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Although 451 Research may discuss legal issues related to the information technology business, 451 Research does not provide legal advice or services and their research should not be construed or used as such. 451 Research shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. N E W YO R K
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