Gartner defines full-stack hyperconverged infrastructure software as the market consisting of complete software solutions that include virtualized compute, storage and networking from a single instantiation designed to run on-premises or in a colocation environment. It consists of those vendors that develop and sell hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) software comprising 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. Recently, this market has been heavily influenced by the positioning of storage virtualization and private cloud infrastructure looking to revirtualize compute and providing alternatives to incumbent vendors.
Integrated systems combine server, shared storage and network devices, along with management software and support in a preintegrated stack. The integrated system market has four segments: integrated infrastructure system, integrated reference architecture, integrated stack system and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) segment. The overall HCI segment is further subdivided into Hyperconverged Integrated Systems (HCIS), which provides both software and hardware in an appliance model and the software only segment in which vendors provide the Hyperconverged software. This is then integrated with HW by a reseller or the end customer.
The managed network services (MNS) market focuses on externally provided network operations center (NOC) functionality, as well as relevant network and security life cycle services. Gartner defines the MNS market as globally capable providers of remote service management functions for the network and security operations of enterprise networks, including: Managed LAN services (MNS for LAN) must include the management of enterprise LAN customer premises equipment (CPE), such as campus switches and wireless access points. It provides single point of contact (SPOC) ownership for the life cycle management of these devices. These services may include the management of customer Internet of Things/Industrial IoT (IoT/IIoT) infrastructure and endpoints. These services may include managed operations services for other elements, such on-premises servers, storage, gateways and controllers. Managed WAN services (MNS for WAN) must include the management of site edge ingress and egress CPE and any WAN connections and service operations management. These services provide life cycle management for site edge CPE, such as routers, firewalls and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), with or without security co-residency on site edge CPE. The services must include a SPOC, ownership for the life cycle management of these devices for site edge CPE and transport services connecting client sites to any destination. This includes hybrid cloud or other non-client-owned locations. These services may also include the operations management of enterprise customer IoT/IIoT infrastructure and endpoint management. Managed security services (MNS for security) supports branch offices, remote workers and on-premises general internet security, private application access and cloud service security functions for consumption use cases. Services include health, configuration and maintenance support for security technologies. Service delivery is for a single provider to enterprise clients of multiple vendors of converged network and security function life cycle management operations. These include the support of: (1) SD-WAN-embedded security functions; (2) secure web gateways (SWGs); (3) cloud access security brokers (CASBs); (4) network access control (NAC); (5) network firewalling, with or without intrusion prevention system/intrusion detection system (IPS/IDS); (6) universal/zero-touch network access (UZTNA/ZTNA) architectures.
Server virtualization includes a range of technologies that abstract an underlying infrastructure layer (networking, storage and compute [including memory]). In doing so, it improves hardware utilization, workload portability, automation and availability. Server virtualization is most often associated with hypervisor-based server workloads running in data center environments on industry-standard servers. In reality, server virtualization incorporates multiple technologies, spans locations from public cloud to edge, and supports initiatives for both cloud-native transformation and infrastructure modernization. It includes hardware-, cloud- and software-based technologies.