Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/08/21/mainstream_storage_array_suppliers_losing_business/

Death by 1,000 cuts: Mainstream storage array suppliers are bleeding

Cloud, all-flash kit, object storage slicing away at titans of storage

By Chris Mellor

Posted in Storage, 21st August 2014 12:57 GMT

Comment Great beasts can be killed by a 1,000 cuts, bleeding to death from the myriad slashes in their bodies – none of which, on their own, is a killer. And this, it seems, is the way things are going for big-brand storage arrays, as upstarts slice away at the market with converged systems, virtual SANs, all-flash kit, hybrid devices, object storage, software-defined storage and the cloud.

Up until a few years ago, say around 2009, storage arrays ruled supreme, with monolithic, multi-controller arrays on the top of the heap: VMAX, VSP, DS8000, and dual-controller arrays beneath them – NetApp FAS, EMC VNX, HP 3PAR, and Dell Compellent for example. There were rumblings in the storage jungle from object storage, early flash arrays like those from Violin Memory, and scale-out filers like Isilon, but the rumbles did not take centre stage.

These were early signs that the classic storage array was under attack because it was becoming too limiting, complex and expensive for more and more use-cases.

Another indication was the rise of virtual SANs, software-only SANs like the one produced by LeftHand Networks, with LeftHand acquired by HP and the P4000 product emerging. Shared storage went through a renaissance, as had occurred with the previous emergence of Compellent, EqualLogic, 3PAR, XIV and others – all acquired and absorbed into the mainstream suppliers' product lines.

But soon developers and engineers realised that there really were other ways of providing shared storage that sorted out monolithic and dual-controller array issues and helped bring compute and storage closer together:

Classic array limitations

In short, classic storage arrays are limited, not being software-defined in the latest use of the term, expensive, complicated to operate, slow to provide data, and with quality of service affected by RAID rebuilds.

Cloud storage avoids the on-premises mess by putting the data elsewhere. Flash and hybrid storage, say, get high-speed access to data without suffering disk array latencies. Converged storage says combine servers and storage with VSAN ideas to simplify the whole complicated mess in your data centres. Object storage says replace your centralised arrays with distributed, self-healing boxes not prone to RAID rebuild slowdowns. VSANs says get rid of your storage arrays.

All of these ideas are "solving the problem" of traditional storage arrays.

If we chart the recent quarterly storage revenue numbers from the mainstream array suppliers, we can see that some mainstream storage suppliers are feeling a revenue pinch. Take, for example, Dell, HP, IBM and NetApp. HDS's revenues are not growing particularly quickly and EMC storage (EMC Information Infrastructure excluding VMware and Pivotal) revenue growth is also not that impressive. If we could extract the VMAX and VNX numbers we'd possibly see even less growth.

Charting decline

Here are the six charts: look at the overall pattern and not the actual values.

Dell:

Dell storage revenues

EMC:

EMC II storage revenues

In $1,000s. Source: Aaron Rakers of Stifel Nicolaus.

HDS:

HDS storage revenues

HDS numbers exclude Japan. Source for numbers: Aaron Rakers of Stifel Nicolaus

HP:

HP storage revenues

IBM:

IBM storage revenues

NetApp:

NetApp storage revenues

Note that these charts use fiscal quarters, which may coincide with calendar quarters. It's the overall pattern that matters – not the precise quarter dating.

Peak array passing

These mainstream supplier storage results indicate a slowdown. That has been and could be attributed to a recent recession and an enterprise storage spending freeze, but startups in converged systems, virtual SANs, all-flash and hybrid arrays, etc, have grown their revenues over this period, many of them dramatically, with three-digit percentage growth numbers.

What enterprise spending freeze and recession has affected them? None. Their customers chose to buy new storage gear instead of the same old, same old mainstream storage vendors' gear. Why was that?

They offered better value storage than the mainstream array vendors.

Now legacy storage array marketeers are fighting on too many fronts as they try to optimise the positioning of their products to grow revenues, or even just to maintain them.

What is going to happen? As lemmings near a cliff their comments change in content from "No problem" through "We're fixing this" to "Er, Houston we have a problem," to "Our new CEO will ..."

Are we approaching a tipping point in the fortunes of mainstream storage arrays?

Are there now so many better alternatives for so many data storage use cases that legacy array sales will start tanking and mainstream storage vendors' array product strategies start unravelling, prompting a new wave of frantic technology catch-up acquisitions?

El Reg's storage desk thinks that we could be at that point – where peak array has passed and decline lies ahead.

It won't be the death of the mainstream storage array but we may be looking at a period of no growth and possible/probable decline as the upstarts slash their thousand cuts in the body of the storage array beast and it bleeds, and bleeds, and bleeds ... ®