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Storage faithful tremble as Gartner mages prep flashy array quadrant

Who’s in... and who’s out

Gartner's unveiling of all-flash array rankings in its Magic Quadrant – expected in July this year – has been eagerly anticipated.

Which supplier is in which box? Who is included?

Now sources who've seen a possible version of the flash MQ have shared their insight with El Reg – revealing some suppliers are in and others (potentially) out, much to their chagrin.

Enterprise-level storage buying lore says some CIOs only buy kit from suppliers in the MQ and no other, and some only from vendors in the top right "Leaders" box, so vendors are understandably on edge until they see the final version.

Our understanding is that the following suppliers are included in Gartner's tentative list:

  • Cisco Invicta
  • EMC XtremIO
  • IBM FlashSystem
  • Kaminario K2
  • Huawei (OceanStor Dorado)
  • Netapp EF540/550
  • Nimbus Gemini
  • Pure Storag FA-400s
  • Skyera
  • Solidfire
  • Violin Memory

Our understanding is that Gartner has criteria for all-flash array product inclusion which include having a separate SKU, being a dedicated solid state array, and being a separately marketed product and model from existing storage arrays.

This would seem to exclude all-flash array versions of existing arrays, such as EMC's VMAX and VNX, NetApp's FAS, etc, had it not been that NetApp's EF540/550 all-flash arrays appear to be included.

The Coraid all-flash EtherFlash array, Dell all-flash Compellent and EQualLogic, Fujitsu all-flash ETERNUS, HP all-flash 3PAR and HDS all-flash VSP and HUS VM are not included in the tentative list that El Reg saw either.

Fusion-io now has an all-flash array, the ION Accelerator, and that isn't on the Gartner list we have. Perhaps it's too new.

Asked about its criteria and other points, a Gartner spokesperson said: "The 'Solid State Array Magic Quadrant' is due for publication in July. I don’t have anything more concrete than that at this point I’m afraid." ®

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