Spotlight

Report:

The Forrester Wave™: Hyperconverged Infrastructure, Q4 2023

How does Forrester define the Hyperconverged Infrastructure market in 2023?

Enterprise infrastructure leaders are managing increasingly complex environments that balance workload support across multiple data center, public cloud, and edge environments. There is growing need for abstraction across platforms, advanced levels of resiliency, improved security, and resource deployment patterns that maximize resource utilization and reduce total cost of ownership. Hyperconverged infrastructure vendors are rapidly iterating to meet these needs by improving flexibility, scalability, security, and resilience features within their products.

Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Hyperconverged Infrastructure, Q4 2023 in 2023

How did the Hyperconverged Infrastructure market evolve in 2023?

What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?

What are the common features of top products in the Hyperconverged Infrastructure space?

No common features specified.

Scope Exclusions

Inclusion Criteria

Vendors must, among other requirements:

Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting

Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting

FAQs

Q: What does this research cover?

A: This research provides a comprehensive evaluation of 11 hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) providers across 36 criteria, assessing their current offerings, strategic vision, and market presence. The report evaluates vendors on compute and network capabilities, storage and data management, scalability and cloud integration, security, operations, support, innovation roadmaps, partner ecosystems, and pricing models. It includes detailed vendor profiles highlighting strengths and weaknesses for Nutanix, VMware, Microsoft, HPE, Sangfor Technologies, Cisco, IEIT SYSTEMS, IBM, Scale Computing, Huawei, and SmartX.

Q: Who should use this research?

A: Infrastructure professionals evaluating HCI solutions should use this research to understand vendor capabilities and select the right provider for their specific needs. The report helps buyers identify vendors best suited for their requirements, whether they need simple, scalable platforms for cloud-native architecture, vSphere integration with cross-cloud workload support, Azure edge functionality, reliable VMware storage platforms, identity management capabilities, distributed edge environments, bare metal Kubernetes, large cluster support, or cost-effective solutions for specific regional markets. The downloadable Excel-based comparison tool allows readers to customize criteria weightings to align with their individual priorities.

Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?

A: Vendors must deliver a comprehensive software-defined hyperconverged platform with support for virtualized compute, storage, and/or network resources. They must have at least $50 million in annual HCI product revenue and demonstrate significant mindshare with Forrester clients through frequent mentions in client inquiries, vendor selection RFPs, shortlists, consulting projects, and case studies.

Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?

A:

  • Annual HCI category revenue below $50 million threshold
  • Lack of comprehensive software-defined HCI capabilities
  • Insufficient Forrester client mindshare or market presence
  • Not frequently mentioned in Forrester end-user client inquiries or vendor selection processes
  • Declined to participate or only partially participated in the evaluation process

Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?

A:

  • Advanced snapshot and replication capabilities - essential for creating resilient replicas of running workloads with features like immutability for ransomware recovery
  • Disaggregated scaling of storage and compute resources - independent scaling flexibility to add only required resources (compute-focused or storage-focused nodes) rather than always purchasing both
  • Comprehensive virtualized network function (VNF) support - solid SDN stack supporting NAT, QoS, load balancing, routing, switching, microsegmentation, packet inspection, and network encryption for Zero Trust strategies

Q: How has the Hyperconverged Infrastructure market evolved in 2023?

A:

  • Managing more complex environments balancing workload support across multiple data center, public cloud, and edge environments
  • Growing need for abstraction across platforms
  • Advanced levels of resiliency required
  • Improved security capabilities
  • Resource deployment patterns that maximize resource utilization and reduce total cost of ownership
  • Rapid vendor iteration on flexibility, scalability, security, and resilience features

Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?

A: Current Offering (vertical axis) evaluates the strength of a vendor's existing product capabilities across compute/network, storage/data, scalability/cloud, security, operations, and support. It measures what the product can do today. Strategy (horizontal axis) evaluates the vendor's vision, innovation approach, roadmap clarity, partner ecosystem strength, pricing models, and community engagement. It measures the vendor's ability to execute on future market needs and maintain competitive advantage over time.

Reference

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