Apple quietly making inroads into enterprise storage markets
Although Apple hasn't made much noise to the effect, the company has consistently been making strong progress in the enterprise markets, especially when it comes to storage.
According to some reports, Apple?s storage products have been selling like hot croissants on a cold Parisian morning and at the end of second quarter of 2005, had shipped 76 petabytes of storage," notes gigaom.com, a broadband weblog focused on the next generation internet.
Robert Cox, vice president of research, who tracks the storage business for Gartner says that in 2004, Apple did about $78 million in storage sales and were the No. 12 ranked storage vendor in the world. By the end of 2005, Apple?s storage sales more than doubled around $185 million, edging the Cupertino, Calif.-based company into the 10th spot overall.
"They have done a good job of selling into the small and medium business market,? Cox said. According to his estimates, nearly 40 percent of XServe RAIDs are connected to non-Mac OS servers.
Cox believes Apple will continue to do well in 2006 and "should move up a notch or two in the world wide rankings." However, the company will have a tougher time thereafter, and will need to transition from current generation technologies such as SATA and embrace SAScsi, a new architecture that can give Apple a big leg-up against fiber channel based storage devices, he said.
According to some reports, Apple?s storage products have been selling like hot croissants on a cold Parisian morning and at the end of second quarter of 2005, had shipped 76 petabytes of storage," notes gigaom.com, a broadband weblog focused on the next generation internet.
Robert Cox, vice president of research, who tracks the storage business for Gartner says that in 2004, Apple did about $78 million in storage sales and were the No. 12 ranked storage vendor in the world. By the end of 2005, Apple?s storage sales more than doubled around $185 million, edging the Cupertino, Calif.-based company into the 10th spot overall.
"They have done a good job of selling into the small and medium business market,? Cox said. According to his estimates, nearly 40 percent of XServe RAIDs are connected to non-Mac OS servers.
Cox believes Apple will continue to do well in 2006 and "should move up a notch or two in the world wide rankings." However, the company will have a tougher time thereafter, and will need to transition from current generation technologies such as SATA and embrace SAScsi, a new architecture that can give Apple a big leg-up against fiber channel based storage devices, he said.
Comments
The OS is lickable, iLife scrolls like butter, what more could you want?!
Originally posted by JeffDM
I'm more surprised that only 40% of XRaids are going to non-Apple servers. I expected that number to be higher, though maybe they also buy an XServe to go with it, in an otherwise non-Mac environment.
Some companies still don't believe Apple can be actually cheaper than the status quo.
I'd like to see Apple go a little bit deeper. Storage in the SMB space is growing @ %47 a year. That's lucrative. In fact Microsoft has just made a storage company aquisition in String Bean Software.
Apple shouldn't sit silently on the sidelines here. Xserve RAID is nice but there are so many ancillary products that could be sold to support it.
This is not dominated by Media houses needing large storage systems.
This is dominated by actual Fortune 1000 companies, the Fed and various other branches of government that need custom application suites built where large database pools are stored.
The reason Apple wanted it to be certified by so many non-Apple vendors was to get into these markets. Enterprise Markets are multi-billion dollar markets. There are many segments each in the billions.
Apple would be quite happy that large companies deploying on Linux purchase petabytes of XRaid systems to be their main storage option.
Ideally they'd want a few clusters of XServers running XSan to manage these XRaid SAN systems. XSan continues to mature.
According to Jon William Toigo the Enterprise Storage arena is growing annually at %5 whilst the SMB market is growing at %47.
Microsoft bought String Bean not because they are Enterprise players but because they live comfortably in the SMB market.
Hopefully Apple is cooking up some juicy stuff for some large updates. I'd love to see a redundant controller Xserve RAID with 4GB fibre and internal SAS drives. I'd love to see Xserve RAID mini with 20+ SFF SAS drives as well.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Well Truth be told the Xserve RAID is not an Enterprise level piece of hardware.
According to Jon William Toigo the Enterprise Storage arena is growing annually at %5 whilst the SMB market is growing at %47.
Microsoft bought String Bean not because they are Enterprise players but because they live comfortably in the SMB market.
Hopefully Apple is cooking up some juicy stuff for some large updates. I'd love to see a redundant controller Xserve RAID with 4GB fibre and internal SAS drives. I'd love to see Xserve RAID mini with 20+ SFF SAS drives as well.
What you think XRaid lacks doesn't mean it's not an "Enterprise level piece of hardware."
What you are asking for is a product that has very little inroads into currently deployed markets.
This article talks about how SAS Raid controllers and SAS drives will change the footprint of enterprise storage.
http://www.serialstoragewire.com/Art...veloper10.html
Yes this will eventually happen, but unless you pay attention to how large enterprises move at a snails pace then don't expect most enterprises to "jump on this bandwagon."
I really don't care how "fast" or how "footprint efficient" the hardware is when the software management tools aren't as efficient and seemless as there hardware counterparts.
Yes Apple is targeting the SMB, but at the same time, most enterprises realize how Apple XRaid systems are more than satisfying many of their subsystem needs.
When large database vendors like ORACLE endorse your product you suddenly become inked on the preferred vendor list.
One of the biggest selling points Apple has with these systems is under $2 per gigabyte of storage.
The cost of what you want will have to be a new product.
I'd welcome a "high-end" XRaid, but then again Apple will determine this by the demand for one from customers and potential large-scale customers.
Originally posted by mdriftmeyer
I'd welcome a "high-end" XRaid, but then again Apple will determine this by the demand for one from customers and potential large-scale customers.
I'd welcome a low-end XRaid, most multidrive enclosures with quick release drives are either pretty shaky looking or very expensive.
Originally posted by JeffDM
I'd welcome a low-end XRaid, most multidrive enclosures with quick release drives are either pretty shaky looking or very expensive.
I hope Apple provides a 3-tier option like they do with their personal computers. low-mid-high.
Originally posted by mdriftmeyer
I really don't care how "fast" or how "footprint efficient" the hardware is when the software management tools aren't as efficient and seemless as there hardware counterparts.
Do you think ZFS addresses some of those issues with software management tools?
What you think XRaid lacks doesn't mean it's not an "Enterprise level piece of hardware."
Redundancy. I think the next Xserve RAID should be fully redundant. From controller to Power Supply to redundant links to the SAS/SATA drives inside.
I love the affordability (relatively) of the Xserve RAID I'd love to see Apple move to a more cohesive lineup. With SAS you can sell expanders to fanout more drives without the need for more controllers. I see you're a storage lover as well Mdriftmeyer. That's cool
I don't necessarily think Apple should go ultra high end because it's just not a core competency but there are some very lucrative areas in storage that people are flocking to.
Direct to Disk backup. Apple's already hyping Bakbone's Netvault.
Disaster Recovery
Continuous Data Protection
Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and other compliance mandates
Great time to be in storage. I'd love to see Apple embrace iSCSI simply because it doesn't require expensive Fibre Channel. Imagine the sales of XSAN when you don't have to factor in Fibre Switches