Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage
Gartner's view of the primary storage market is focused on innovative storage technologies and hybrid platform initiatives, IT cloud operating models, and as-a-service deployment and fulfillment methods that will shape the future needs of end users. The primary storage market is entering a period of accelerated innovation, with end users shifting from traditional capex financing to hybrid platform strategies embracing on-premises cloud operating models and new vendor storage asset financing methods. Vendors' advancements in platform capabilities, data and cyberresilience, and new storage operating system architectures provide on-premises I&O leaders with SLAs targeted at IT operating model outcomes. Gartner defines the market as vendors offering dedicated products or services that pool capacity across storage media devices to present LUNs to business applications over block interface protocols, providing high availability and data protection through SSAs, SDS, or hybrid storage arrays.
Vendors must, among other requirements:
A: This research evaluates vendors offering primary storage products including solid-state arrays (SSAs), software-defined storage (SDS), and hybrid storage arrays. It covers vendors' product capabilities, strategic vision, market execution, STaaS offerings, AIOps capabilities, hybrid cloud integration, and cyber resilience features. The evaluation focuses on vendors that support mission-critical and business-critical database workloads, application consolidation, virtualization, container environments, and hybrid cloud IT operations across on-premises, colocation, edge, and public cloud infrastructure.
A: I&O leaders should use this research to evaluate and select primary storage vendors based on their ability to deliver consumption-based services, automate operations through AIOps, support hybrid platform strategies, and provide SLA guarantees for IT operating model outcomes. This research helps organizations assess vendors' capabilities in storage asset management, cyber resilience, data protection, hybrid cloud integration, and transition from traditional capex models to STaaS consumption models. It enables comparison of vendor strengths and limitations across product portfolios, geographic reach, pricing models, and innovation strategies.
A: Mandatory features for vendors in this market include: block-based or file-based host interface protocols (Fibre Channel, iSCSI, SAS, NFS, SMB); data services that pool capacity and present LUNs to applications; data services for capacity conservation, efficiency, resilience, and ransomware protection with local/remote replication; block-based STaaS offerings; AIOps software for operational monitoring, capacity management, performance optimization, and telemetry; SDS product architecture separating hardware from software with public cloud marketplace support; nondisruptive data migration with 100% availability guarantee; and cyber storage protection including ransomware detection and recovery capabilities.
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A: Ability to Execute focuses on current operational capabilities including product quality, sales effectiveness, market responsiveness, customer experience, and operational efficiency. It measures how well vendors are performing today in delivering and supporting their products. Completeness of Vision focuses on forward-looking strategic capabilities including market understanding, innovation, product strategy, and the vendor's ability to anticipate and shape future market needs. It measures the vendor's strategic direction and ability to influence market evolution.