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BULLETIN : TRENDS
6
External storage market down for ninth consecutive quarter
Total EMEA external storage systems
revenue fell by 3.9% in the first quarter of
2017, according to the International Data
Corporation (IDC)
EMEA Quarterly Disk
Storage Systems Tracker 1Q17
. The all-
flash market outpaced expectations and
grew 100.7%, with accelerated growth in
Western Europe and in the Middle East
and Africa. In contrast, the traditional
hard disk array (HDD) segment in EMEA
fell 34.5% in the first quarter.
Silvia Cosso, IDC research manager,
European Storage and Datacenter
Research, said: “Brexit uncertainty,
unfavorable exchange rates, major vendors’
internal reorganisations and increased
component costs for SSD have weighed
down on EMEA performance once
again, making 1Q17 the ninth quarter of
uninterrupted decline for the region.
“However, as enterprises progress in
their digital transformation paths, sales
of all-flash array systems, standalone or
converged, see no crisis in sight, doubling
their sales compared to the same period
a year ago and reaching a quarter of total
sales.”
Enterprise storage trends
Spectra Logic has published its annual
review of the data storage industry.
Digital
Data Storage Outlook 2017
explores how
enterprise flash will displace two-and-half-
inch 15,000 RPM magnetic disks and
explains why existing technologies like
tape will have a significant impact on the
storage market through 2026.
Spectra Logic CEO Nathan Thompson
said: “The world’s repository of data is
growing more rapidly than we could have
imagined. At the same time, organisations
are more reliant than ever on digital
assets, and must protect and preserve
access to this data forever.
This is a unique time for the
data storage industry, and we
are proud to take a leadership
role in helping the industry
anticipate the trends, tiers and
technologies of the future.”
/
digital-data-storage-
outlook-2017
Purpose-built backup
appliance market declines
Vendor revenue from purpose-built
backup appliances (PBBA) in EMEA
declined by 12% year over year to reach
$191 million in the first quarter of
2017, according to International Data
Corporation’s (IDC)
Worldwide Quarterly
Purpose-Built Backup Appliance Tracker.
In the same period, total capacity
shipped reached 235PB, an increase of 5%
from 1Q16. Growth mainly came from open
systems products, with capacity increasing
11% year on year.
Even so, total EMEA PBBA open systems
vendor revenue decreased 11% year on year
in the quarter, to $178 million. Mainframe
system sales increased 23% year on year
in 1Q17.
Jimena Sisa, IDC senior analyst,
European storage research, said: “As
European organisations modernise their data
protection infrastructures, they are solving
the backup performance problem through
investment in different storage technologies,
such as purpose-built backup appliances.
“Companies’ main objective when
approaching the infrastructure refresh cycle
is to save costs. Those companies that have
decided to renew their disaster recovery
solutions using backup appliances as the
primary driver have done so due to the
benefits that PBBA provides in terms of
controlling expenditure, as they can extend
organisations’ existing investment and data
protection hardware and software without
having to change.”
With such a wide choice of solutions
and engagement just a click away, the
managed services industry faces a
challenge in deciding which products
and partners to work with, claims
John Garratt, director of the Managed
Services & Hosting Summit to be held in
London on September 20.
“In recent months we have seen many
initiatives from distribution, vendors and
managed services players themselves to
help build a co-operative approach to
solving customer business issues, but it is
not easy,” he said.
While the managed services market is
in a very healthy state, Garratt says it needs
to evolve further to meet the challenges
posed by rising customer demand for
digital transformation.
The scale of these challenges and the
opportunities they offer will be the focus of
a keynote presented by Gartner Research
Director Mark Paine,
Do You Have What It
Takes To Sell Digital Business Solutions?
.
The Managed Services and Hosting
Summit UK 2017 will take place at 155
Bishopsgate, London on September 20,
2017.
Sponsors of this year’s event include
SolarWinds MSP, Highlight, Mimecast,
Datto, Kaspersky, ConnectWise, Kingston
Technology, Autotask ESET, DataCore
Software, Cisco, WatchGuard, Continuum,
Deltek, RapidFireTools, Altaro, APC by
Schneider Electric and Kaseya.
Managed Service Providers
must choose partners with care
MSPs suffer from cloudy vision
MSPs’ cloud capabilities are being
compromised by poor products, bad
business practices and unreliable
vendors, warns Chris Piggott, technical
director and co-founder of Synextra.
He said: “MSPs are making more work
for themselves and lowering their profit
levels by reselling ‘rebadged’ products
and labelling them as Cloud. This causes
confusion and issues for end users, putting
real businesses and real people in jeopardy.”
Piggott adds that many MSPs end up
being tied in with vendors who don’t offer
managed services. “Vendors are taking the
money and running, shunning responsibility
and leaving MSPs with large issues and
limited access to remedy them. And the
end users are the ones who suffer,” he said.
Another concern is pricing. “Vendors
(and consequently MSPs) don’t tell you
how much services actually cost per seat. If
their pricing isn’t transparent, then neither
is the company. This will only lead to
issues down the road, where vendors shirk
responsibilities,” Piggott warned.
He added: “Partners need to start
looking at what they’re actually selling.
Rather than selling Office365 and making
>10% margin, MSPs should be focused
on ancillary services they can wrap
around that, such as Cloud capacity,
Dropbox alternatives, Hosted Desktop, VoIP
telephony, SIP trunking and more.”
Since launching it in late 2016,
Synextra has had tremendous success with
its channel partner programme, proving
that Cloud can be a successful vertical. The
programme contributed greatly to the 54%
growth Synextra achieved in its second
financial year.
Chris Piggot
