EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. MARKET OVERVIEW Data in the Enterprise · Distributing Mission-Critical Applications · Storage Expansion and Network Demographics · The Cost of storage
User's Requirement · Accessibility and Continuous Data Availability · Scalability and Product Transparency · Performance · Connectivity and Platform Independence · Manageability and Total Storage Solution · Security
Market Trends · User's Maturity · Enterprise-Class Client server Model · The Road to Fulfilling User's Requirements · Servers and/or Storage Re-centralization · Increased Popularity of Microsoft NT
Market Segmentation
2. APPLICATIONS · Arrays and Processing Applications · OLTP · CAD/CAE · Image · Decision Support · Large Sequential Processing · Multi-Application Enterprise Storage · Video and Multimedia applications
3. ARCHITECTURES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Fault Tolerance · Definition and Basics · Mirroring and Duplexing · Server and File Mirroring . Redundant Arrays of Storage Devices · Introduction: striping, write penalty · Adaptive, Transparent, and Distributed RAID · Active Hot Spare · Arrays of Tape Drives
Network Storage · Block Services · File services · Network Attached Storage · Network Ready storage · Network-Attached storage servers · Storage Area Networking · Storage Servers - Product Classes · Network Computers
Interfaces and Protocols · Fibre Channel · Ultra SCSI · Intelligent I/O (I2O)
Performance related Technologies · Caching · Clustering · Solid State Disk · Data Sharing
4. PRODUCTS · Product selection criteria · Product Classes · Vendor selection Criteria · Features Matrix ( 40 vendors and over 80 products)
5. REVENUES AND FORECAST · Market Forecast by Operating system · Server Storage Capacity · RAID Penetration · Evolving Storage Architectures · Prices · Distribution Channels · Video Systems Forecast
6. COMPANY PROFILES and Statement of Direction
7. GLOSSARY
1-1 HDD Capacity Projection 1-2 Key Network Demographics Data 1-3 Major Cost Components 1-4 Importance of storage and storage management Characteristics 1-6 Market segmentation
2-1 Today's Applications 2-2 Migration of Applications to Client server Model 2-3 Aspects of Managing Information 2-4 US Cable Modem Shipment Forecast 2-5 Consumer Based VOD
3-1 Server Mirroring 3-2 File Mirroring 3-3 Network Ready Storage 3-4 Network-Attached storage 3-5 Storage Area Network 3-6 Architecture Evolution 3-7 Arbitrated Loop topology 3-8 Multi-path Expandable storage 3-9 FC-AL Physical Loop 3-10 Fibre Channel Switched Fabric 3-11 Intelligent I/O 3-12 Caching File Systems 3-13 Availability Clusters 3-14 Scaling Clusters 3-15 Performance Clusters 3-16 Performance of SSD combined with RAID 3-17 Using SSD along With RAID
4-1 RAID Product Classes 4-2 Product Trends 4-3 Reasons For selecting a Manufacturer/ Vendor 4-4 Product selection criteria
5-1 RAID System Revenue Forecast 5-2 1997 Shipment Revenue Share - The Big Eight 5-3 Shipment Revenue Share - The Next Ten Vendors 5-4 Shipment Revenue Share - Mainframe 5-5 Shipment Revenue Share - UNIX and Midrange - The Big Six 5-6 Shipment Revenue Share - UNIX and Midrange - The Next Seven 5-7 Shipment Revenue Share - PC + NT 5-8 Open System Storage Capacity 5-9 Open System Server Profile 5-10 Total Capacity of All Databases 5-11 Number of servers per Site 5-12 Average server Capacity - UNIX 5-13 Average server Capacity - NT 5-14 RAID Penetration in Percent 5-15 Mirroring, RAID and JBOD - % Penetration by Revenue 5-16 Open System SAN and NAS - Shipment Revenues 5-17a Open System SAN and NAS (Centralized) 5-17b Open System SAN and NAS (Consolidated) 5-17c Open System SAN and NAS (Distributed) 5-18 World-Wide Clustered Systems Forecast 5-19 Average Price per Megabyte
2-1 RAID Applications Levels 2-2 Optimal applications 2-3 RAID Comparisons 2-4 Relative RAID Performance 2-5 I/O Workload Characteristics 2-6 I/O Ratios for Image Applications 2-7 Interactive Video Trials 2-8 Disk Drive Storage for Video Applications
3-1 Storage Servers - Product Classes
5-1 Primary Companies Surveyed 5-2 Array Market Forecast by Operating System 5-3 1997 Company Market Share by Operating System 5-4 Number of servers per Site 5-5 Average server Capacity - UNIX 5-6 Average server Capacity - NT 5-7 RAID Penetration in Percent 5-8 Estimated RAID Distribution Channels by Supplier 5-9 Summary Forecast - Video server Systems market 5-10 High Performance Video server Forecast Summary 5-11 Midrange/ Large Video Server Forecast Summary 5-12 Small/ PC Video Server Forecast Summary
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At a time where advances in network storage architecture and storage management are about to revolutionize the way corporations access data, continuing to "do business as usual" is risky for the supplier as well as for the user. A simple extrapolation of past methods to develop and expand storage can lead to erroneous decisions, and could prove to be very costly to the corporation.
1997 marks a turning point for a number of factors affecting storage. These factors are discussed in this report. The report:
· Analyzes market trends · Discusses users expressed requirements · Compares product features · Evaluates new products and architectures · Predicts important industry and technology moves · Identifies successful companies · Forecasts new revenue producers · Recommends strategic directions
The report is co-authored by Peripheral Research Corporation (Dennis Waid) and Peripheral Concepts, Inc. (Farid Neema). It is addressed to marketing managers, planning executives, and system designers from storage system component vendors, integrators, and value-added resellers. It also addresses Managers of Information Systems, administrators and Information Technology personnel responsible for re-architecting their enterprise Storage and Data Management system.
This report will trigger new ideas, and make you sensitive to important criteria that will influence your choice. We hope you will find it a useful tool to plan, develop and implement your storage strategy.
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The Market
By year 2000, Intelligent Storage Arrays are expected to capture the lion share of the projected $23.7 billion RAID revenue. Calendar year 1997 RAID revenue is expected to reach $15.9 billion, a 22% increase over 1996.
The market and the technology are moving at an increasing pace, and the significance of this rapidly evolving environment on the future of storage and storage management is complex. 1997 marks a turning point for a number of factors affecting storage. These include user's expectations for higher data accessibility, the rise of new applications, newer product implementations, and recent industry moves.
With MIS regaining control of distributed data in the enterprise, traditional IT values of availability, manageability, and scalability have resurfaced and become the most important attributes required for storage. Scalability is a on the top of the list of most users' requirements. It includes much more than the ability to grow in capacity. Users want to be able to transparently scale performance, fault tolerance, connectivity and manageability.
Heterogeneous platforms are found in every middle to large size corporation. Segmenting the market by operating system only is no longer significant. We propose a segmentation based on the centralization factor affecting servers, administration, and purchasing authority. Each segment has its own characteristics related to features, and buying criteria. The common factor is the dynamic and rapid evolution of needs as storage tends to become multi-platform. NT has gained a tremendous popularity, and needs to be part of every equation. The mainframe is part of the network as another server, and its integration to the network provides capabilities inherent to its design. UNIX remains the operating system where most open data resides. Consequently, storage solutions can no longer be limited to connecting to a single platform.
RAID has gained very wide market acceptance in all segments, and the generalization of its use is foreseen by year 2000, fueling an 18% average growth rate in revenue. Figure 1 summarizes this growth identifying NT as the fastest growing platform, and a new market for shared storage starting in 1997. By year 2000, it will be practically impossible to differentiate RAID from JBOD, as RAID controllers will be integrated in several motherboards and in many operating systems.
Most applications can benefit from RAID. Applications can be classified in one or more of the following categories: · OLTP · Workgroup · Decision support · Large Batch Processing · Interactive
Of particular interest, video and multimedia constitute a very large market potential for RAID storage systems. They will find applications in education, medical, entertainment, travel and hotel industries among others, and the annual revenue will grow from $1 billion today to over $4 billion in 2000
Technology and Products
RAID progression will continue at a annual rate of 18% of shipment revenue. The share of mirroring will remain high. Prices will come down reaching 25 cents per megabyte
RAID requirements are growing in sophistication. Basic RAID controllers are implemented with a smaller number of ASICS, lending implementations that can be added to a motherboard, and can soon shrink to a single chip. Controllers are evolving on several directions with additional functionality and reduced costs. Integrated array controllers and controllers on a motherboard are becoming popular. Also, Operating systems are incorporating RAID options.
New File systems offer the users the ability to share all storage systems of a network, and provide RAID capability on the file level. It is expected that users awareness of such system increase, and that they demand their arrays to integrate with these file systems
Storage components and architecture will be very much influenced by four techniques: Network-attached storage, storage area network (SAN) attached storage, clustering, and data sharing.
Network attached storage (NAS) is an alternative to modularly adding storage. It is a solution that independent vendors cannot ignore, as its market will experience a very healthy growth particularly in the distributed market segment. A special case of Network Attached storage has surfaced in implementations dubbed Network Ready storage, where products are readily available for plug-in and play. They offer a very elegant solution to scalability and connectivity.
Storage Area networking (SAN) provides great flexibility in scaling independently data storage capacity and server processing power. When combined with Fibre Channel, the use of modular networking devices such as hubs, switches, bridges and routers enables advanced SAN application capabilities in storage management and load balancing, and offers very wide range of scalability. It is anticipated that SAN be the architecure of choice of system and server suppliers. Figure 2 summarizes the revenue forecast for each of NAS and SAN, and the report analyzes their penetration in each of the market segment.
New storage products developed or purchased should comply to system clustering requirements. Clustering is a very powerful technology that will see an expansion similar to the one experienced in the past two years by RAID.
Data sharing techniques should prevail over storage sharing in a multi-platform environment. Data Sharing is a very effective way for heterogeneous platforms to read and interpret data. As compared with storage sharing, it saves transfer time and storage space
The Industry
There are today over 150 vendors in RAID , and close to 200 that are somewhat related to selling components for Intelligent Storage Arrays.
Much is going on in the storage system industry. It is quite obvious that the revenue in spite of a healthy growth, cannot sustain the present 200 actors. Presently, 86% of the revenue is made by eight vendors. Many of these companies have experienced over 30% revenue growth in the second quarter of 1997 over the same 1996 period. The next ten companies capture another 8% of the total revenue, leaving 6% to some 130 companies.
The notion of captive market for storage is fading. In the evolving world of heterogeneous platforms and operating systems, system vendors and independent storage vendors will compete in a market that privilege the total solution concept. While system vendors are more vulnerable to third party vendor attacks, they are invading other territories outside their base. Vendors must expect all-around competition in the Open market
Adapting to 1997 Moves
For all practical purposes, the new Market segmentation proposed in this report has far reaching implications for system suppliers and vendors. Determining the market segment defines the development and sales strategy. Users are moving towards an internal organization that is increasingly centralized. Regardless of the market segment to which they belong, an enterprise-wide solution is becoming a must. This means that systems must be transparent to the platform and the OS, and capable of integration with a variety of storage and storage management products. They must offer similar user interfaces, and common servicing philosophy
Users have moved to demand higher levels of fault tolerance involving the total system as opposed to the disk subsystem. Minimum configurations and products that do not provide scalability will either offer very attractive prices, or be doomed to failure. They might soon be displaced by new extensions to operating systems, and controller entry configurations (controller on motherboard).
Integrated array controllers and controllers on a motherboard are to be watched closely, as they have the potential of putting some RAID vendors out of business. With RAID controllers approaching the size of a single chip, an important question faces controller suppliers: how do they maintain or increase their revenue? This trend is very important for RAID vendors to follow and monitor. Some implementations may have very little future. Vendors must understand what is being integrated to properly position their product.
Newer applications are requiring shifts from compute-centric to I/O centric (or storage centric) architectures. Users should be aware that implementations emphasizing the easy and rapid transfer of large amounts of files are preferable and give higher overall performance for such applications. This will have an impact on setting performance benchmarks. Network attached storage and storage area network attached servers constitute responses to this need.
Vendors definitely need to get ready to implement serial interface. Early 1998 is when the Fibre market will start taking off, and the take off promises to ramp fast, at least in the high end systems.
Year 2000 is around the corner. There is probably room for no more than 30 RAID suppliers. Will your company be one of them?
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