Nick Cross, EMEA HCI Senior Director

Hyperconverged infrastructure may have been around for a while, but for VMware, 2018 was the year our position as one of HCI’s leading vendors was further consolidated. With over 17,000 customers using VMware vSAN we knew that our approach had resonance in the market, and two independent reports underline the value of VMware’s approach, identifying VMware as one of the world’s leading HCI vendors.

VMware A Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant – Twice

In November, VMware was named a leader in the 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructure. VMware believes that this report showcases the strength of our unique vision for HCI: by leading with a hardware agnostic approach, VMware is uniquely positioned to deliver full-stack hyperconverged infrastructure to support organizations’ digital transformation and cloud strategy.

We are obviously delighted with the recognition as this is a validation not only of our strategy, but also our ability to execute on our vision and deliver real value to our customers.  We believe there are three main reasons why IT leaders are increasingly turning to VMware HCI for their mission-critical applications: a continuously expanding application ecosystem; industry leading deployment options; and an unwavering commitment to innovation. For further details, read our post on Virtual Blocks.

VMware vSAN the Most Adopted Hyperconverged Infrastructure

On top of that, a new study from 451 Research identified VMware as 45% of respondents’ primary HCI vendor, while 65% of respondents use VMware as one of their HCI vendors – in both instances, the leading choice by over 25%.

The report, which canvassed the opinion of 750 IT decision-makers in August and September, went on to identify that value for money (80%) and technical expertise (58%) were the two most important attributes when selecting an HCI vendor.

These factors were exactly why the University of Pisa, one of the world’s oldest universities, is using vSAN. It has moved to an enterprise-class IT infrastructure in order to improve its teaching, learning and research facilities, remaining competitive in the digital age. This was all achieved, according to the university’s CIO, Maurizio Davini, because “There are three main features of the solution we have implemented with VMware technology: quality, reliability and flexibility”.

It’s great confirmation of our approach and solution, coming as it does from professionals investing in us to deliver their technology requirements.

VMware vSAN Wins Product of the Year from CRN

Finally, VMware vSAN has recently won the prestigious CRN Product of the Year award in the Software Defined Storage category for the third year in a row. Coming from our partner community, this is a huge endorsement, and we are delighted to have won yet again.

It’s a fitting end to a year that has seen VMware vSAN excite over 34,000 attendees from both VMworld US and Europe, with a variety of keynotes, sessions and partner showcases. As we head into 2019, we’re looking forward to welcoming more enterprises to incorporate VMware into their HCI strategy as they continue their digital transformation.

With the help of our webinar Innovating Beyond HCI: How VMware is Driving the Next Data Center Revolution, you can learn about the latest hyperconverged infrastructure insights and how our technology can future-proof your business.

If you’re looking for insights on how to Hit Refresh on your data center infrastructure, click here

UPDATE: vSAN 6.7 has been shortlisted as a finalist in TechTarget’s Storage Magazine and SearchStorage.com Product of the Year Awards for 2018.

TechTarget is one of the leading IT publishers across the globe with over four million tech buyers subscribed to their IT titles across EMEA.   Criteria for this award: nominees must “be designed to run on industry standard servers – with no dependencies on the underlying hardware – and cloud storage”.  You can read more here to see which other vendors we are competing against. The winner will be announced in February.

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