Storage Systems

IDC's Storage Systems service delivers a detailed analysis of vendor performance and industry trends, as well as the anticipated rate of the adoption of new storage technologies and delivery models and their impact on existing markets and vendor alliances, strategic initiatives, and new product introductions. IDC's Storage Systems service covers block, file, and object storage as well as solid-state and spinning disk storage across a variety of array, software-defined, and server-based storage. Clients also benefit from comprehensive views provided of the data storage market, including forecasts, ecosystems, competitive analysis, customer requirements for workloads and use cases, and technology assessments.

• Enterprise, midrange, and entry storage systems
• All-flash arrays (AFAs) and hybrid (HDD/flash) and HDD-only storage systems
• Storage systems produced by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs)
• Block-, file-, and object-based data organization and access mechanisms used to deliver full systems solutions
• NVMe over Fabrics, Fibre Channel, Ethernet file/object, Ethernet block, direct-attached storage (DAS), and FICON data access
• Significant product announcements and analysis
• Trends such as adoption of NVMe and related offerings (emerging persistent memory, NVMe-oF, and their use in unstructured storage)
• Use of hardware (workload and function-offload) accelerators in new-generation storage systems
• Storage for virtualized and containerized environments
• Hot, warm, and cold storage systems
• Infrastructure and technology evolution to support unstructured data and data lakes
• Vendors delivering scale-out file- and object-based solutions with focus on architectures, use cases, and supporting software
• Use of flash for accelerating object- and file-based storage systems
• Unstructured data management (content management) using metadata-based tools
• File- and object-based storage market (terabytes shipped and revenue)
• Event coverage (e.g., acquisitions) and impact analysis
• Quarterly summary analysis of IDC's Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker results

• Worldwide Storage Systems Forecast and Analysis
• Worldwide Storage Systems Vendor Shares
• Vendor Profiles, Case Studies, Demand-Side Viewpoints, and End-User Insights
• Market Analysis Presentation for the Enterprise Storage Systems Market
• Quarterly Storage Systems Market Results
• Qualitative Insights and Technology Assessments

In addition to the insight provided in this service, IDC may conduct research on specific topics or emerging market segments via research offerings that require additional IDC funding and client investment.

1. What products are competitors introducing, and what impact will this have in their markets?
2. How will the proliferation of solid-state, public cloud, and software-defined storage solutions affect demand for storage systems?
3. What are some of the developing technologies, use cases, and business models around infrastructure and software for unstructured data?
4. How do evolving unstructured storage platforms impact strategic planning for enterprise storage?