Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2017.  Read them in this 9th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Jesse St. Laurent, VP of product strategy, SimpliVity

The Hyperconverged Contenders and Pretenders will Become Clear in 2017

Hyperconvergence is a red-hot market, with potential customers, analysts and investors all devoting a lot of time to analyzing each vendor's solution, keeping a pulse on different technologies and closely examining the overall industry as it grows and transforms. Perhaps the most prominent way we've seen the hyperconverged space evolve over the past year is the sheer number of vendors attempting to enter the market. In 2017, we expect that some will successfully enter the market while others will not.

For a long time, hyperconverged infrastructure was the domain of young technology innovators looking to disrupt the status quo of traditional IT infrastructure. This dynamic lasted for a few years as companies like SimpliVity and Nutanix gained traction in introducing hyperconverged infrastructure solutions to data centers around the globe. This cornering of the market didn't last forever, however, as big legacy IT players, like EMC/Dell, VMware and HPE, saw the success of these technology innovators and wanted in on the momentum and potential of hyperconvergence.

Once a two-company competition, hyperconverged infrastructure has gone mainstream in a big way. There are now more than a dozen vendors claiming to be "hyperconverged," and while not all of these offerings are created equal, they are opening up more choice for customers to meet their specific business and IT demands. Unfortunately, as vendors try to rebrand their products as "hyperconverged," it is creating a tremendous amount of confusion in the marketplace.

2016 was a year in which many legacy vendors made the move to establish a foothold in hyperconverged infrastructure, either through acquiring existing technology, partnering with an established vendor or by building an original solution. Now that these legacy vendors have officially entered the picture alongside the technology innovators, 2017 will be a year in which the contenders and pretenders are separated from one another. The question is though, will it be the technology innovators or legacy vendors who emerge as the leaders in hyperconvergence?

Up to this point, the technology innovators have had the advantage in the industry, at least according to analysts, with Forrester listing SimpliVity and Nutanix as "Leaders" in its Q3 2016 Wave evaluation of the top hyperconverged solutions. In this same report, all competing legacy vendors are listed in either the "Strong Performers" or "Contenders" sections. These rankings seem to be near-consensus for all the leading analyst firms. Gartner, as well, listed both SimpliVity and Nutanix in the "Leaders" quadrant of its 2016 Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems, and noted in its companion Critical Capabilities for Integrated Systems report that "the hyperconverged integrated system (HCIS) market has become more competitive, and technologies are evolving that cater to specific, emerging use cases."

As the hyperconverged infrastructure market continues to heat up and displace traditional IT infrastructure, only time will tell who will decisively lead the revolution towards simplified IT. One thing seems certain, however: 2017 will be a defining year for hyperconverged infrastructure vendors.

##

About the Author

Prior to SimpliVity, Jesse served as the CTO at Corporate Technology Inc (CTI), a Systems Integration company worth $100 million+, where he focused on evaluation emerging technologies such as NetApp, 3PAR, Acopia, Riverbed, and F5. Jesse frequently speaks at industry events both in the US and internationally.