Prepare for the 'Third Wave' of Integrated Systems, hyperconvergence will grow 79 percent and hit $2b in 2016  

The hyperconverged integrated systems (HCIS) market is anticipated to grow 79 percent this year, says a new prediction by the analyst firm Gartner.

The market will reach almost $2 billion in 2016, which Gartner says is a sign HCIS is moving towards being mainstream.  If things continue to move in this direction, HCIS will become the system of choice in the next five years.

"The integrated systems market is starting to mature, with more users upgrading and extending their initial deployments," said Andrew Butler, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

HCIS will become the fastest-growing segment of the overall market for integrated systems, reaching almost $5 billion, which is 24 percent of the market, by 2019.  Although the overall integrated systems market is growing, Gartner said other segments of the market will face "cannibalization from hyperconverged systems."

The industry is undergoing a series of waves in the integrated systems market.  The first phase (2005 - 2015) was the peak period of blade systems.  The second phase (2010 - 2020) witnessed the arrival of converged infrastructures -- integrated storage, compute and networking bundles.  And the third phase (2016 - 2025) is the continuous application and micro-services delivery on HCIS platforms.

But despite high market growth rates, Gartner claims HCIS use cases have so far been limited, causing silos with existing infrastructure.  In response, the analyst firm says its progression will be dependent on multiple hardware and software advances, such as networking and software-defined enterprises.

"We are seeing a high level of interest in HCI from every segment of the market because storage, compute, and virtualization are now seen as commodities," said Jason Collier, Founder of Scale Computing, a leader in hyperconverged technology across the mid-market.  "No datacenter wants to focus resources and expertise on infrastructure commodities but would rather focus on the application and service delivery."

Collier added that after a few decades of "innovating" business with information technology, we're finally innovating IT with "dead simple infrastructure," adding, "the change couldn't come fast enough for most organizations."

"It is delivering the simplicity of cloud computing in a on-premises solution that gives complete ownership and piece of mind and without any more investment than a standard infrastructure refresh," Collier continued.  "It is already changing the way infrastructure is defined and where it is headed." 

"HCIS is not a destination, but an evolutionary journey," said Butler.  "While we fully expect the use cases to embrace mission-critical applications in the future, current implementations could still pose constraints on rapid growth toward the end of the decade."

Gartner clients can download the full report: Prepare for the Next Phase of Hyperconvergence