Frost & Sullivan
Global Storage Market
2013 Global Storage Market
Research Report
July 2013
Copyright 2013 Frost & Sullivan
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Frost & Sullivan
Global Storage Market
Table of Content
1
2
3
4
5
Executive Summary............................................................................................ 3
Research Background ........................................................................................ 4
Global Storage Market Overview ........................................................................ 6
3.1 Product Classification and Definition ........................................................ 6
3.2 Industry Development Cycle ..................................................................... 7
3.3 Market Size .............................................................................................. 8
3.3.1
Global Market Size ......................................................................... 8
3.3.2
China Market Size .......................................................................... 9
3.4 Market Drivers and Restraints ................................................................ 10
3.4.1
Market Drivers .............................................................................. 10
3.4.2
Market Restraints ......................................................................... 12
3.5 Application.............................................................................................. 12
3.5.1
Enterprise Data Storage ............................................................... 13
3.5.2
Big Data Storage in Vertical Industries ......................................... 13
3.5.3
Public Cloud Storage Service ....................................................... 14
3.6 High, Middle and Low-end Storage......................................................... 14
Global Storage Market Competitive Analysis .................................................... 16
4.1 Competitive Landscape .......................................................................... 16
4.2 Competitiveness Analysis of Major Players ............................................ 20
4.3 Growth Matrix of Major Players .............................................................. 22
4.4 Major Players Analysis ........................................................................... 26
4.4.1
EMC ............................................................................................. 26
4.4.2
NetApp ......................................................................................... 26
4.4.3
Dell ............................................................................................... 27
4.4.4
IBM .............................................................................................. 29
4.4.5
Huawei ......................................................................................... 30
4.4.6
HP ................................................................................................ 31
4.4.7
HDS ............................................................................................. 33
Industry Development Trend............................................................................. 35
5.1 Market Development Trend .................................................................... 35
5.2 Product / Technology Development Trend .............................................. 36
5.2.1
Intellectualization Trend ................................................................ 36
5.2.2
Integration Trend .......................................................................... 36
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Table of Chart
Chart 1 Comparison between major storage technologies .................................. 6
Chart 2 Development Cycle of Global Storage Market ........................................ 8
Chart 3 Market Size of Primary Storage Technologies by Revenue (Global),
2008-2018E ................................................................................................. 9
Chart 4 Market Size of Primary Storage Technologies by Revenue (China),
2008-2018E ............................................................................................... 10
Chart 5 Impact of Market Drivers ...................................................................... 10
Chart 6 Impact of Market Restraints ................................................................. 12
Chart 7 Comparison of Big Data Usage among Vertical Industries, 2012 ......... 13
Chart 8 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Revenue (Global), 2012 16
Chart 9 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Shipment (Global), 201217
Chart 10 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Revenue (China), 2012
.................................................................................................................. 17
Chart 11 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Shipment (China), 2012
.................................................................................................................. 18
Chart 12 Competitive Landscape of Carrier Storage Market by Revenue (Global),
2012 .......................................................................................................... 19
Chart 13 Competitive Landscape of Carrier Storage Market by Shipment (Global),
2012 .......................................................................................................... 19
Chart 14 Competitiveness Analysis of Major Storage Vendors (Global), 2012 .. 20
Chart 15 Growth Matrix of Major Storage Vendors (Global), 2012 .................... 22
Chart 16 Growth Matrix of Major SAN Storage Vendors (Global), 2012 ............ 23
Chart 17 Growth Matrix of Major NAS Storage Vendors (Global), 2012 ............ 24
Chart 18 Growth Matrix of Major CAS Storage Vendors (Global), 2012 ............ 24
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
Global Storage Market
Executive Summary
The primary storage technologies include NAS, SAN and CAS. NAS is
defined as a network based technology that is simple to implement and
use in file storage. SAN is a storage technology that is able to integrate
storage devices, connection devices, and ports in one high speed storage
network, and transfer data in the file system through network on to disk
storage. While CAS is an object-based storage where each data is
addressed to a specific location for the users to locate.

In 2012, the total revenue of primary storage technologies worldwide has
reached USD9.2 billion, with an annual growth rate of 16.7% compared to
2011. As one of the largest market in the world, China has taken over 31.5%
of the total revenue of the world.

In 2012, the NAS has occupied the largest proportion of over 58.4%
among the primary storage technologies in the world. It is the same
situation in China, where the NAS has taken the largest market share of
48.9% in the overall market. However, the share of CAS is expected to
experience the fastest growth in the future.

In 2012, EMC occupied the largest market share in the global market,
followed by NetApp and Dell. In the China market, IBM, EMC and Huawei
ranked the top 3. At the same time, more local vendors, such as H3C and
Toyou joined the competition in China market.
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Research Background
Global data volume is experiencing high growth in these years. Most
organizations are facing with overwhelming data, while most of which is
unstructured and disorganized, including emails, web pages, random
knowledge and so on. How to store and manage these data, to achieve cost
control, and to maximize storage resource utilization have become several of
the most important issues for business executives and IT managers.
The fast-growing stored data volume, especially the explosive growth of
unstructured data, leads the ever-increasing demand in the storage market.
Moreover, the awareness of storage system building and management is
increasing among many governments and organizations around the world.
This research is proposed to analyze the global and Chinese storage markets
from both the market and technology perspectives. As the number of
customers has risen rapidly and market demands has further extended, we
have carried on research on the telecom carrier storage market typically. The
scope of this research is mainly focus on the three primary storage
technologies, including Network Attached Storages (NAS), Storage Area
Network (SAN) and Content Addressed Storage (CAS).
NAS is known as one of the primary disk based storage and network based
technologies. SAN provides a solution to the increasing demand on big data
and high-speed storage option. CAS, a technology suitable for permanent
storage, was first proposed in April 2002. As laws and regulations regarding
minimum storage life of specific documents, the market attention, as well as
the market share of CAS is expected to increase in the near future.
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This storage market research focuses on mainly these three technologies
because of the following reasons. First, considering the development history of
storage market, the three technologies cover the entire development cycle of
modern storage market. DAS, SAN, and CAS are representative technologies
of the star-up period, development period, and growth period respectively.
Second, from market share perspective, SAN and NAS are two mainstreams
of the overall market, and they stay in the first two positions in the external
storage market in recent years. Third, the three technologies will still represent
the primary development trend of storage technology in the near future.
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Global Storage Market Overview
3.1
Product Classification and Definition
Data storage systems are highly demanded throughout a wide range of
industries for file storage purpose. Various structures and features are
available for different needs of companies.
Chart 1 Comparison between major storage technologies
Storage
Data Stored
Transfer Channel
Typical Application
Price
NAS
Files
TCP/IP, Ethernet
Documentation Server
Medium
SAN
Data Block
Fiber
Database
High
CAS
Data Object
IP
Content Management
High
Technology
Network attached storages (NAS) is considered one of the primary disk based
storage technologies applied among business users. It is defined as a network
based technology that is simple to implement and use in file storage. The
protocols of NAS include TCP/IP and Ethernet, which is fast but often carries
high overhead cost. Taken business size into consideration, NAS is relatively
less expensive than fiber channel storage area network (SAN), but sale at a
much higher price level than some other types of storage, such as Direct
Access Storage (DAS). The price differences not only provide a particular
niche of customer bases for NAS, but also define the comparative advantage
of NAS.
SAN, known as the storage area network, is a storage technology that is able
to integrate storage devices, connection devices, and ports in one high speed
storage network, and transfer data in the system through network on to disk
storage. With Fiber channel, SAN provide a closed system with high security
and rapid transfer speed of up to 200 Mb/s. SAN is mainly applied to in data
block storage. However, comparing to other available option, SAN is more
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expensive and less affordable. Therefore, it is not highly used by most
companies. Because of the high price, some companies often consider NAS
as a lower cost alternative to SAN.
CAS, stands for content addressed storage, is network based technology that
uses IP as the channel of transfer. Each data file stored in the system
represents a designated data object; therefore, each data is addressed to a
specific location for the users to locate. Comparing to other data storage
options, this technology is relative new, and therefore hasn’t be widely used
among business clients.
3.2
Industry Development Cycle
Global storage market has experienced the start-up period, the development
period, and entered into the growth period, in which the market has
accelerated its growth, technologies have been improved, and the competition
has upgraded.
In the start-up period, DAS is the dominant storage technology to be applied.
As it is not a network-based storage option, DAS has large limitations on data
volume stored. Other than that, its vulnerability to downtime with external
influences has made it a low-end, low-price storage option.
With the increasing demand on larger data storage capacity, NAS technology
emerged. As network-based storage technology, NAS has largely improved
the problem of big data storage. However, NAS is still file-level storage, as it is
limited in the expansion on storage devices for the purpose of storage capacity
improvement. Comparatively, SAN, as a storage network itself, has provided a
solution to high-speed storage option. No matter how, the emergence of NAS
and SAN has led the storage market to enter into the development period.
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Furthermore, as SAN technology has been integrated with IP network, the
development of the market has further accelerated.
CAS, a technology suitable for permanent storage, was first proposed in April
2002. Compared with other traditional storage technologies, CAS has many
advantages, such as lower cost, bigger storage space and easier maintenance.
However, during the past 10 year, CAS has been widely accepted and
recognized by the market. As laws and regulations regarding minimum storage
life of relevant documents, such as criminal and medical history, have been
released by US and Chinese governments, the market attention on CAS is
expected to increase, as well as the market share in the overall market.
Chart 2 Development Cycle of Global Storage Market
3.3
Market Size
3.3.1 Global Market Size
The global storage market has accelerated its growth after gradual recovered
from the economic crisis. In 2012, the total revenue of primary storage
technologies has reached USD9.2 billion, with an annual growth rate of 16.7%
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compared to 2011. Due to the increasing demand of big data storage, the
market is expected to keep a high growth in the next few years. Up to 2018,
the market size is expected to increase to USD23.6 billion with a CAGR of 16.9%
from 2012 to 2018.
Chart 3 Market Size of Primary Storage Technologies by Revenue (Global), 2008-2018E
Source: Frost & Sullivan
In 2012, the NAS has occupied the largest proportion of over 58.4% among the
primary storage technologies, due to the affordable price and relative strong
storage capacity. On the other hand, CAS has gained less market recognition,
while it gained 2.6% of market share. In the following years, affected by the
governmental regulations, the proportion CAS occupied is expected to
experience a gradual increase.
3.3.2 China Market Size
As one of the largest market in the world, China has taken over 31.5% of the
total revenue of the world in 2012. Meanwhile, compared to the global market,
China market has experienced faster growth, as the total revenue increased
from USD1.5 billion in 2008 to USD2.9 billion in 2012, at a CAGR of 17.7%.
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Along with the increase of market demand, the market size will experience a
fast growth. In 2018, the total revenue of China market is forecasted to grow
above USD8.9 billion, and the CAGR will exceed 20.7%.
Chart 4 Market Size of Primary Storage Technologies by Revenue (China), 2008-2018E
Source: Frost & Sullivan
It is the same situation in China, where the NAS has taken the largest market
share of 48.9% in the overall market. Compared to the global market, CAS has
occupied relatively higher market share in China, mainly because that Chinese
government regulated storage life of specific documents, which raised the
demand and application of CAS.
3.4
Market Drivers and Restraints
3.4.1 Market Drivers
Chart 5 Impact of Market Drivers
Market Drivers
1 to 2 Years
3 to 5 Years
Increasing Number of Enterprises
Increasing Requirements on Data Volume Stored
Increasing Requirements on Data Availability
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Emergence of New Competitors
Level of influence from high to low:

Increasing Number of Enterprises
Along with the recovery of economy, the number of enterprises worldwide has
gradually increased over time, which provided new potential customers to the
storage vendors. Meanwhile, the enlargement of user base is expected to
bring positive effects to the growth of market size.

Increasing Requirements on Data Volume Stored
The ever-increasing volume of data need to be stored has raised higher
requirements on the storage capacity of the storage system. The development
of user demand has driven the upgrade of existing technologies, and the
emergence of new technologies. In the next 5 years, the raising demand on big
data storage is expected to lead technology innovation, while driving the
market to grow at a high speed.

Increasing Requirements on Availability of Data
Along with the increasing demand on stored data volume, users have also
raised high requirements on data availability. As the mobility of working
location increases, data is expected to be retrieved anytime at anywhere. High
availability of data requires stronger storage systems, which will drive the
technology development in the next few years.

Emergence of New Competitors
As CAS was first proposed in 2002, the storage market has entered into high
growth period. Due to the emergence of more medium or small-scale new
competitors, the competition is expected to be promoted, and the demand for
higher-quality storage products and systems will increase. However, the factor
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will make less impact on the market compared to others, as the market shares
are expected to be dominated by several large-scale players who master
advanced technologies, and have large user bases.
3.4.2 Market Restraints
Chart 6 Impact of Market Restraints
Market Restraints
1 to 2 Years
3 to 5 Years
Low Affordability on High Performance Solutions
Lack of Environmental Friendly Solutions
Level of influence from high to low:

Low Affordability on High Performance Solutions
Compared with larger enterprises, medium or small-scale companies often
have limited budget. Most of the time, they are facing a trade-off between high
performance and low cost. Meanwhile, the cost of continuous management
and maintenance of storage system has also occurred as additional expense
to users. As a result, the high price will limit the growth of the market. Along
with the innovation and improvement of technology, the problem is expected to
be solved gradually in the future, and the negative impact will become smaller.

Lack of Environmental Friendly Solutions
Due to the explosion of data volume worldwide, there is an increasing demand
for big data, as well as cloud storage solutions. However, along with the rise of
storage capacity, the energy consumption of storage system also increases
dramatically. The market is calling for more environmental friendly big data
storage
solutions.
Meanwhile,
as
time
pass
by,
lacking
of
low-energy-consumed will become a more essential factor that restricts the
development of the storage market.
3.5
Application
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3.5.1 Enterprise Data Storage
Enterprise data storage is the foundation for an enterprise’s information
management. In order to integrate, manage and control the information
distributed among individuals in every business unit, a centralized storage
system is necessary and undoubtedly requires large storage capacity.
Furthermore, securities, scalability, ease of use, total cost of ownership and
service quality are required to consider when choosing optimized data storage
solutions.
In general, enterprise data include unstructured data in form of files like
drawings, models, technical documentations, audio programs and structured
data in form of database like parameter database, test database. NAS and
SAN, as the major enterprise storage solutions, are wildly used to optimize the
data architecture. NAS mainly deals with the unstructured data, while SAN
applies mainly to structured data. To realize advantageous complementarities,
enterprises are tending to adopt the combination of the two solutions.
3.5.2 Big Data Storage in Vertical Industries
Chart 7 Comparison of Big Data Usage among Vertical Industries, 2012
Major Vertical Industries
Big Data Usage
Government
Communications, Media and Services
Banking and Securities
Manufacturing and Natural Resources
Insurance
Retail
Transportation
Healthcare Providers
Education
Utilities
Wholesale Trade
Usage from high to low:
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With the rapid increase in the data volume, big data storage gains much more
importance attached by various industries, especially government, and
communications, media and services.
Government, with the promotion of increasing investment in infrastructure
construction, invests more on data storage system purchase these years. Big
data storage provides reliable information protection and efficient information
management for the construction and promotion of E-government system. In
media industry, the data storage system generally collects characters, pictures,
charts, videos and other data resources and also finishes formulating
hundreds of media information products. Furthermore, financial area and
manufacturing industry have bought out more and more demand on big data
storage.
3.5.3 Public Cloud Storage Service
Cloud storage helps to collect large amounts of server storage resources into
an integrated system, and on the other hand, backs up users’ database on
different servers to guarantee the reliability of data. Customer-facing data,
distributed access data and data backups mainly apply to public cloud storage
service. In public cloud storage era, with CAS, users can have access to the
data stored in system without geographical limitation. And users only pay for
the resources that needed or even needless to pay, while the providers bear
the cost of building and maintaining the storage architectures. Different from
traditional business model of selling hardware or software, the public cloud
sells storage capacity instead of commodities and avoids waste of resources.
3.6
High, Middle and Low-end Storage
Improvement in basic indexes like capacity, reliability and availability is the
eternal theme of high-end storage systems. However, for the longer period
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needed for updating and relatively advanced technical development, high-end
storage systems show slower developing trend. Meanwhile, middle and
low-end storage systems have progressed well with the strengthening demand
of medium and small-size enterprises. The emerging storage products have
more kinds of functions and are more convenient for using and maintaining.
Therefore, cost-effective middle and low-end storage systems are favorably
received in both domestic and overseas market.
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Global Storage Market Competitive
Analysis
4.1
Competitive Landscape
Chart 8 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Revenue (Global), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
The global competitive landscape of the storage market is clearly displayed in
the pie chart above. As of 2012, the company dominating the largest percent of
market share was EMC with a market share of 31.4%, followed by NetApp,
who controlled 19.3% of the global market. Dell was listed under NetApp by
taking 11.9% of storage market share. Worldwide companies like IBM, HP,
HDS, Huawei, and Oracle each dominated under 5% of market share on the
global scale. Other smaller storage system firm together took 22.0% of the
total market share.
Regarding the shipment, EMC was still considered the largest storage vendor
worldwide, with 28.6% of market share. However, as the average prices of
products and solutions of large-scale vendors are comparatively high, the
market shares they have occupied decreased more or less correspondingly
compared to shares ranked by revenues.
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Chart 9 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Shipment (Global), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
Regarding the product shipment, EMC, NetApp, and Dell are the top three
vendors in the global market, whereas they occupied 28.6%, 19.6%, and 10.7%
respectively in 2012. IBM, HP and Huawei exceeded HDS and Oracle and
ranked the fourth, fifth and sixth largest vendor.
Chart 10 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Revenue (China), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
Compared to the global market, there are more local vendors, such as H3C
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and Toyou, joined the competition in China market. In 2012, IBM, EMC and
Huawei ranked the top 3, with market shares of 18.9%, 16.5% and 8.9%
respectively, with the great brand awareness and customer base. As Huawei
has showed an outstanding revenue growth in the past few years, the market
share of Huawei is expected to keep rising in the future. As other local vendors,
except for Huawei, still achieved relative small market shares, China market
was still dominated by mainly international vendors.
Chart 11 Competitive Landscape of Storage Market by Shipment (China), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
In the China market, IBM had not only the largest revenue share, but also the
largest shipment, while it took 17.8% of the market share in 2012, followed by
EMC, Huawei, HP, and HDS. Local vendors, represented by Huawei, H3C and
Toyou have also shown a large increase in market share, compared to
international player. As the leading local storage vendor, Huawei has
experienced fast growth in market performance and market position in 2012,
as it ranked top three vendors in the China market, regarding no matter
revenue or shipment.
In the SAN storage market, Dell was the leader in 2012. EMC followed Dell as
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the second in the market. In the NAS storage market, EMC dominated almost
half of the world market. Because CAS is a relatively new technology that is
still in the development stage, the market is well highly concentrated. EMC
was the first company to propose the idea of CAS technology. Therefore, EMC
basically dominates a large proportion of the market share for CAS stage
market.
Storage products with high effectiveness, guaranteed security and high fitness
are significant to telecom carriers in the world, as the rapid development of
comprehensive services and demand of integrated system. America is the
largest carrier storage market in the world. And the Asia-Pacific market has
been gradually expanding with the increased demand of medium and small
size enterprises. EMC, NetApp, Huawei and other key storage vendors have
all conducted active cooperation with global major carriers. The competitive
landscape is analyzed as following.
Chart 12 Competitive Landscape of Carrier Storage Market by Revenue (Global), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
Chart 13 Competitive Landscape of Carrier Storage Market by Shipment (Global), 2012
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Source: Frost & Sullivan
EMC dominants the global carrier storage market both in terms of revenue and
shipment, with the percentage are 42.7% and 38.6% respectively. EMC has
provided storage support and cloud service to several worldwide large carries
such as AT&T, Orange, Verizon, and Vodafone, NTT euro, etc. NetApp ranks
second and also established cooperative relationship with NTT euro and
Verizon. Huawei has provided service support for both Chinese and foreign
carriers. For instance, it won the bid to supply cloud computing related
products in China Telecom’s purchase in 2012. Globally, Huawei takes third
and fourth places respectively in the aspects of carrier storage shipment and
revenue.
4.2
Competitiveness Analysis of Major Players
Chart 14 Competitiveness Analysis of Major Storage Vendors (Global), 2012
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Source: Frost & Sullivan
As the market leader, EMC has the highest competitiveness regarding market
performance, followed by NetApp while it ranked the second in the competitive
landscape of global storage market in 2012. Meanwhile, with a revenue growth
of over 30%, Huawei has become the storage vendor with the highest revenue
growth, which represents an outstanding potential increase of its market
performance. Product strength, as the support to the growth of revenue,
reflects the capability of the vendors on product upgrade and innovation.
Considering the market performance and the market recognition of the
products, EMC, NetApp and Huawei have ranked on top regarding product
strength.
With strong research teams and large amount of R&D investments every year,
EMC, Huawei and IBM are both highly competitive on technology capability
compared to other vendors. Due to the devotion, these vendors are all highly
efficient on product upgrade and technology innovation, which help them
maintain the leading position on technology capability.
With a long corporate history started from 20th century, EMC has accumulated
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abundant experience on storage project delivery, so as IBM and Dell. As a
China-based vendor, although Huawei started its storage business in 2002, it
has gained outstanding competitiveness on project delivery. It is mainly
because that it has established an efficient project delivery process with other
business, which has been successfully applied to their storage business.
It is estimated that the energy consumption of a storage system takes about 30%
to 40% of the total consumption of a data center. As a result, reducing energy
consumption has gained more and more attention over years. Most of the
large-scale vendors have already given many attempts, for example, Huawei
has launched green solutions, HDS has focused on the establishment of green
data center, and EMC has set up a “green team” in order to develop high
efficient hardware devices.
4.3
Growth Matrix of Major Players
Chart 15 Growth Matrix of Major Storage Vendors (Global), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
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Taken the vendor’s market performance, technology capacity, product
innovation capacity, and implementation excellence into account, EMC,
NetApp, Huawei, Dell and IBM occupy the leading positions in the global
storage market. Among the vendors, EMC, with its competitive advantages,
possesses the strongest growth potential. In recent years, Huawei is dedicated
in developing various storage products with high reliability, intelligence, and
high performance to meet different customers’ requirements. Therefore,
Huawei maintains good momentum of market growth. Compared to the five top
vendors, other storage vendors have weaker overall performances.
Chart 16 Growth Matrix of Major SAN Storage Vendors (Global), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
In the SAN market, Dell is performed as the market leader, while it has shown
good market performance, as well as large growth potential. EMC, as a strong
competitor in the storage market, has comparatively weaker performance and
growth. It is also noticeable that due to the continuous innovation and
development on technology and products, Huawei has gradually caught up
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with other potent international players, and presented ever-increasing growth
potentials. NetApp, HP, and other players have reached a high level of
technology capability but still have space for improvement in SAN market.
Chart 17 Growth Matrix of Major NAS Storage Vendors (Global), 2012
Source: Frost & Sullivan
In the NAS market, EMC has displayed comparative competitive advantages
than other players. Vendors such as NetApp and Huawei have shown fast
growth in the past few years, and are expected to emerge higher market
shares in the near future. Compared to the above three vendors, other players
have displayed weaker growth.
Chart 18 Growth Matrix of Major CAS Storage Vendors (Global), 2012
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Source: Frost & Sullivan
With the Centera platform, EMC is the most well-known vendor in the CAS
market, where it dominated a large proportion of market shares. Caringo, as
one of the leading providers of CAS storage, has experienced fast growth over
years. With its CAStor platform, Caringo has accumulated over 450 clients
worldwide. Other large players, such as HDS, NetApp and Huawei, have
strived to enlarge their CAS storage market share.
In the network-based storage field, the idea of object-based storage system
has been proposed to remedy the shortages of SAN and NAS. CAS, as one of
the suitable technology, has been widely used in object-based storage system.
Moreover, other storage vendors have launched their products based on other
technology and structure. For example, Huawei’s OceanStor UDS adopted the
ARM structure and distributed storage server technology, and provided a low
cost but high performance object-based storage solution for massive data
storage and cloud storage. The continuous technology progress and product
innovation have helped Huawei to achieve fast growth in the sub-market.
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4.4
Global Storage Market
Major Players Analysis
4.4.1 EMC
EMC, founded in 1979, is one of the world-leading data storage companies.
EMC provides solution for data storage and protection, content management,
RSA information security and VMware virtualization. EMC currently cooperates
with global institutions covering a various range of industries including public
utilities and private companies. The clients of EMC consist of money center
bank, major financial service companies, manufactures, health care centers,
Internet service provider, telecommunication services providers and education
institution. At present, EMC employs more than 40,000 staff members, in
which over 8000 are research staff.
The core storage products of EMC are the Celerra series and VNXe series.
Celerra is the leading product of IP storage market. Celerra provides the
feature of multi-protocol storage connectivity. The storage space is expanded
from GB to hundreds of TB. The main functions of Celerra series include
web-based management, virtual provisioning, dynamic file mobile and
multi-path file system etc. Those functions form the distinguished advantages
of Celerra containing real availability, high cost performance, and advanced
information life cycle management.
Another core product of EMC is the VNXe series. VNXe can support 6 to 120
disk drivers as well as 240 TB capacities so that it is able to satisfy increasing
demand of complex organizations. The VNXe series feature outstanding
capacity utilization, data protection and availability solutions and senior
support functions.
4.4.2 NetApp
NetApp, founded in 1992, is a world-leading storage solutions provider. It is the
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second largest fiber connection storage provider and first NAS、ISCSI storage
provider. NetApp owns global enterprises customer base and over 180
hundred systems. It is equipped with around 10,000 staff in 138 countries. It
aims for providing convenient, efficient and reliable design for storage. The
NetApp storage solution covers professional hardware、software and service,
offering seamless storage management for open network environment.
The core products of NetApp are FAS3200 series and FAS6200 series.
FAS3200 adopts brand new CPU and share system memory architecture and
improve the flexibility of business. Self-management system can decrease
delay time so that it can achieve business results more quickly. Another feature
of FAS3200 is that the cluster mode can eliminate planned and unplanned halt
through uninterrupted operating.
FAS6200 series products are capable of providing high-quality applicability,
expandability and optimal performance in view of flash memory to accelerate
business operation. Similar to FAS3200, FAS6200 can realize uninterrupted
operation. What is new to FAS6200 is that it can expand to 24 panel points
using cluster mode, Data ONTAP. Clients can cluster different controllers
according to size, year and characteristics.
4.4.3 Dell
Dell is a publicly trading company that focuses in the industries of computer
software, hardware and information technology consulting, services. Well
known products of the enterprise include desktops, notebooks, servers,
printers, smartphones and storage. With over 108,800 employees worldwide,
the company is listed 38 in the Fortune 500 list.
The newly introduced Dell Compellent Storage Center over turns the
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traditional idea of storage center being a static and not self-functioning object.
Data center not only function as a storage for data, but also as an active
management storage for data. The changes will strike to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of the enterprise. Based on the technology of Dell
Fluid Data, the Dell Compellent Storage Center will be able to provide internal
features for automatic management of data block and enterprise level
consolidation in order to minimize total storage expense. Aiming for both
security and simplicity, the Compellent Storage Center results in a more
efficient enterprise level storage structure to not only raise organizational
profitability but also adapt to the constantly changing market. Some
outstanding features of Dell Compellent Storage Center include the following:
 Adaptable Hardware
Through the use of Compellent Storage Center, companies can lower the risk
of periodic technology elimination by increasing the ability to adapt to new
technology. The mixed use of SSD, Fibre channel and SAS drive together in
the same system can help to improve capacity on the same platform. The
storage can also function both horizontally and vertically without stop in order
to meet the demand of the business.
 Long Lasting Design for Software
The installation of eternal licensed intelligent data management software in the
Storage Center ensured the future usage of the product. Dell Compellent, also
eliminated the waste capacity in traditional SAN.
 Dynamic Capacity
The simplified features in the Dell Compellent can minimize the stopping time
in case of application failure and maximize the completeness during disaster
recovery.
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 Long Lasting Design for Software
The installation of eternal licensed intelligent data management software in the
Storage Center ensured the future usage of the product. Dell Compellent, also
eliminated the waste capacity in traditional SAN.
 Dynamic Capacity
The simplified features in the Dell Compellent can minimize the stopping time
in case of application failure and maximize the completeness during disaster
recovery.
4.4.4 IBM
IBM (International Business Machines Corporation), founded in 1911, is one of
the world-leading information technology and business solution companies. It
currently owns over 300 thousand staff and operates in over 160 countries.
Presently, IBM still possesses most patents around the world. Its main
products vary from software, systems, storage to some additional products like
financing and security products.
The core products of IBM storage are N series. The N series has its own
release model that is different compared to other software packages. Data
ONTAP can provide full-featured and multiprotocol data management for both
block and file serving environment through N series storage operating system.
At the same time, it simplifies data management through single architecture
and user interface and reduces cost for SAN and NAS deployment. It is
highlighted in the N series products that the products can accommodate
capacity growth with scale-out performance for both random-access and
streaming file workloads and can increase up to 40% with automated lifecycle
management and migration to type.
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4.4.5 Huawei
Founded in 1987, Huawei becomes one of the leading global ICT solutions
providers. To meet market demands, Huawei has established end-to-end
capabilities and strengths across the carrier networks, enterprise, consumer,
and cloud computing fields. With its customer-centric innovation and strong
partnerships, Huawei endeavor to create maximum value for telecom carriers,
enterprises and consumers by providing competitive ICT solutions and
services. The enterprise business develops information and communications
technology products and solutions such as enterprise network infrastructure,
cloud-based data centers, enterprise information security, and unified
communication and collaboration solutions.
With the boosting development of big data and mobile trend, Huawei has
developed multi-series of storage solutions applied to different scenarios for
different customers. After more than ten years’ consistent research and
development, Huawei has formulated its unique competitive advantages and
owns a huge share of worldwide storage market.
Huawei started its prepared research on storage technology in 2002 and
released the first generation of 2Gb fiber SAN storage product in 2004. As the
technology progressed, the first set of virtual storage products came out in
2008, and the first solid storage system released in 2011.
Besides, the business strategy and product idea have upgraded accordingly.
Currently, the basic idea of Huawei storage solutions is to provide “intelligent
and convergent storage”. "Intelligent" refers to intelligent elastic architecture,
intelligent data distribution, and intelligent management and scheduling.
"Convergent" refers to protocol convergence, product technology convergence,
and lifecycle management convergence.
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The storage solutions and products cover unified storage, solid state drive
(SSD), big data NAS, data protection, and cloud storage fields. With its high
reliability, intelligence, and high performance, disk storage system is
developed to meet customers’ requirements for centralized storage,
high-availability clustering, data sharing, etc. High-performance clustered NAS
series product and EB level scalability and cost-effective massive storage
system are developed to cope with big data and cloud storage requirements.
Moreover, data protection systems provided by Huawei include backup
storage and virtual tape library series so that to meet operators’ requirements
for data archive/backup, disaster recovery and cloud storage backup.
Huawei’s rapid development of storage technologies and products has a
significant impact on the global storage market. So far, its storage products
have over 2000 customers worldwide. The application industries cover
government, telecom, media, finance, energy & power fields and many large,
medium and small enterprises. Its customers include the governments of
Brazil, Polish, Russian and Spain, Vodafone, Telefonica, CCTV, Phoenix TV,
ICBC, Copel, etc. For instance, in China's Golden Auditing Project, Huawei
storage has provided rigorous protection and disaster recovery service; N8000
storage product has been used in the IMG digital media platform to meet the
demand of network.
4.4.6 HP
The Hewlett Packard Company, more commonly known as HP is an American
firm headquartered in California, USA. The company is known for providing
technology products such as computer hardware and supporting services such
as software solutions to customers.
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HP has various product lines within the storage department of the company.
Each product line is designated to serve a particular category of customers or
solve a specific problem.
 HP Converged Storage
Focusing on both structured and unstructured data, HP has built the line for
achieving virtualization and providing cloud services. Products in this line
include but not limited to HP 3PAR StorServ Storage, HP StoreVirtual Storage,
HP StoreOnce Backup and HP StoreAll Storage. All of the above products aim
at optimizing a specific area. For example, the HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage is
particular introduced to optimize all flash arrays.
 Simply Store IT: Storage for Small and Midsize Businesses
For small and midsize firms, there is no need to purchase enterprise level
storage center. Requirements such as data protection, backup and file sharing
can be achieved through storage solution under the Simply Store IT product
line. Products under this line include HP MSA Storage, HP StoreVirtual
Storage, HP StoreEasy Storage and HP Storage Media. All of the products
listed above focus on efficiency, security and availability. The idea of simply
address files and application is a goal for all storage systems.
 Software and Infrastructure
HP offers a comprehensive selection of SAN infrastructures and storage
software products. Under this product line, products such as HP StoreFabric
Storage Networking and HP Storage Software focus on integrating storage
system that emphasis on optimizing server environment and converging new
designs with pervious investments.
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4.4.7 HDS
Hitachi Data System, for short as HDS, is a company that provides a full range
of storage system products. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd, the
company is centered in California, USA, but has customers worldwide through
direct and indirect channels in more than 170 countries. Over 50% of the
company’s customers are Fortune 100 companies.
There are three products under the storage system category of the company’s
product. The storage system differentiates itself from others by focusing on
transforming data into valuable information, doing so by making raw data more
accessible and simpler to manage. As one of the leaders in the storage system
market, HDS offers a centralized and virtualized platform for files and data
blocks In order to meet the needs of different customers.
 Hitachi Unified Storage 100 Family
This product is a combination of file, block, and object storage which focuses
on balancing scalability and meeting customer requirements. One feature of
the product is high density storage, which is designed to reduce carbon
footprints. One benefit of the product is the automated data management
technology that it is dynamically working.
 Hitachi Unified Storage VM
The product focuses on improving the productivity of the management of the
data through more efficient and simplified methods of management. Aiming to
provide high service and better performance, the product virtualizes, manages
and unifies all data type.
 Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform
This product is known as a powerful enterprise storage system. While the
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emphasis is been placed on availability of data to customers, virtualization
technology of this product enables the migration and consolidation of data.
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Industry Development Trend
5.1 Market Development Trend
The world enterprise storage systems market showed its strength and
resilience in customer revenue in recent years due to the rebounding from
global economic recession. The major driving force was recovery in end-user
spending in overall IT infrastructure. SAN and network attached storage (NAS)
represent the two fastest growing material installation segments of the
worldwide enterprise storage systems market from both revenue and terabyte
perspectives. Spending on SAN and NAS will continue to experience strong
growth driven by a major shift of storage deployments toward IP-connected
systems. Apart from the famous brand, there will be a noticeable shift in
end-user spending to the entry level and midrange price brands driven by
increasing adoption of modular system architectures.
Emerging market segments and technologies will have a profound impact on
the storage systems market landscape in the next five years. Among them are
emerging customer segments such as content depots and cloud storage
providers, emerging data use cases such as business analytics and medical
imaging, and emerging solution bundles such as application appliances.
With the rapid development of IT system of enterprises, the global market is
entering into a new stage. In 2012, 65% enterprises’ application completed IT
virtualization reform to some certain extent. Virtualization requires integrated
resource management and the establishment of data sharing platform. It is
reasonably assumed that space is deployed by demand and elasticity is
expanded smoothly.
The future development of global co-ordination depends on data management
in the following ways. The first is global sharing that supports WAN accelerator.
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Secondly, storage management is going to be simplified and take the
capabilities they need into the field in order to satisfy future growth of
enterprises. The data, without doubt will keep informed in real-time to increase
efficiency and lower the cost.
5.2
Product / Technology Development Trend
In response to the customer demand and industry trend, storage technology
and product are adjusting to cater to the current need.
5.2.1 Intellectualization Trend
In terms of system architecture, the scale up architecture will turn into a unified
scale out structure. In the future storage market, product framework tends to
support distributed resilient framework and realize capacity expansion
intelligently as businesses grow.
The traditional data layout is based on physical disk unit using the RAID
technology. Now, the layout is turning into two-layer virtualization technology
based on logical disk. Thereby, reconstruction speed can be increased and
more flexible QoS support in virtualization environment can be realized.
Besides, storage product with built-in management scheduling module
facilitates more direct system sensory ability. Furthermore, data display
module tends to be more lightweight and mobile.
5.2.2 Integration Trend
To meet the demand of comprehensive service bearing, storage products with
multi-interface that can support SAN, NAS or Object will obtain higher market
share.
On a broad view, there used to be product split between high-end and low-end
products. In the near future, high, middle and low-end products will integrate
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through technical extension and platform sharing.
In the past, different and independent products require human inference to
complete data flow between different products. The prospective management
will rely on only one single product to support storage, analytics and archive
functions so that the data can be flowed without restriction.
What’s more, there is a strong integration trend among technologies in the
aspects of storage, calculation, security, network, etc. As the demand varies
and increases, integrated product will attract more users.
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