Flash arrays are here to stay, according to recent research released by IDC, and adoption is growing at a rapid pace.

The research covers both all-flash arrays (AFAs) and hybrid flash arrays (HFAs) and shows the worldwide market for flash arrays will hit US$11.3 billion in 2014. IDC credits the growth to a wider of variety of offerings from vendors that handle different, increasingly complex workloads. The forecast is based on worldwide data on AFA and HFA sales revenue and raw terabytes sold between January 1, 2012 and June 30, 2014 that IDC has collected.

“The market grew significantly faster than we expected,” said Eric Burgener, research director for storage systems at IDC. It was clear throughout last year that adoption was accelerating beyond initial forecasts, he said. The worldwide HFA and AFA segments will reach $10.0 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively, in 2014, according to IDC’s research.

Adoption of AFAs started around 2010, Burgener said, although vendors such as Violin Memory were selling them as early as 2007. The flash array landscape now includes startup revenue leaders Nimble Storage, Pure Storage, and SolidFire, while traditional enterprise storage vendors such as EMC, NetApp, Dell and others have all moved to offer flash-optimized HFAs, and in some cases AFAs. Some have acquired startups to add or enhance their flash capabilities.

In the early days, organizations were typically buying AFAs for specific applications, such as databases that required a high level of performance, said Burgener. What’s driven last year’s growth is that vendors have been adding features that enterprises have come to expect on legacy storage systems. One of the major trends IDC identified for 2014 is that enterprises are now using AFAs for more primary applications – anywhere from five to eight, he said.

More flash-based platforms are delivering enterprise-class data services, including snapshots, clones, encryption, replication, and quality of service as well as storage efficiency features, added Burgener, and once enterprises start putting more applications on a flash array, they don’t want to use the individual features such as replication for each application; they want one replication capability for all applications on that array.

Mark Peters, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, said the improved economics of flash are contributing to the adoption of AFAs and HFAs. While the price per gigabyte for flash is still not matching that of spinning disk and won’t any time soon, enterprises are starting to look at the bigger picture when evaluating flash arrays, he said, including features such as encryption.

Enterprises are figuring out that efficiently-used flash is better than inefficiently-used hard drives, Peters said, and although there is a place for AFAs in some organizations, “a hybrid infrastructure is where most people will end up.” And there’s still a place to be had for cheaper forms of storage depending on requirements, including disk, tape, and the cloud, he said.

Burgener said upfront cost is still an issue when buying a flash array, but that’s no longer a proper method of evaluating flash, as it doesn’t allow for total cost of ownership. There are other benefits to consider such as reduced floor space and lower power consumption, he said.

For AFA vendors in 2015, a competitive advantage will be offering mixed workload capabilities, said Burgener, and not all do. They will have to offer a flash-optimized platform with enterprise-class data services, including in-line compression and de-duplication.

IDC recommends that end users should consider flash-based arrays when retiring existing enterprise storage platforms; ESG’s Peters said starting a new company or location from scratch is a logical time to look at adopting a flash array.

By: DocMemory
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