Gartner defines file and object storage platforms as software and/or hardware platforms that offer object and distributed file system technologies for storing and managing unstructured data over NFS, SMB and Amazon S3 access protocols. File and object storage platforms store, secure, protect and scale an organization’s unstructured data with access over the network using protocols such as NFS, SMB and Amazon S3. Use cases include analytics, workload consolidation, backup and archiving, hybrid cloud, object-native applications, cloud IT operations, and high-performance files.
Full-stack HCI software provides a complete software solution that includes virtualized compute, storage and networking from a single instantiation designed to run on-premises or in a colocation environment. This market consists of those vendors that develop and sell hyperconverged infrastructure software that comprises the vendor’s own server virtualization, software-defined storage and network management tools. The full-stack software solution may also be integrated with a hardware stack as a complete offering spanning both software and hardware. In the last year, the full-stack HCI market has been heavily influenced by the positioning of storage virtualization and private cloud infrastructure looking to revirtualize compute, as well as considering alternatives to incumbent vendors.