Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, HCI Global Market

Before the concept of Converged Infrastructure (CI), data centers were built from separate, "independent" components - computing systems, storage systems, network modules and software. In a converged system, all of them are combined into a single system, allowing you to unify the management of previously disparate elements. This dramatically reduces the deployment time of the solution and simplifies technical support - the supplier is fully responsible for it, regardless of which components are "inside" the converged system^[1].

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) was the next step in optimizing hardware in the data center. Hyperconvergence is the creation of an infrastructure that combines servers, storage systems, network functions, and software in one modular solution to create a pool of IT resources, quickly and easily reconfiguring them. At the same time, not hardware (as in the case of "simple" convergence) come to the fore, but software tools and software-defined components. This provides hyperconverged systems with greater flexibility and scalability of their server infrastructure.

Stages of evolution IT infrastructures

Source: Gartner, 2018

The hyperconverged solution is easily distinguished from "simply converged" and externally. If the former are usually 1U or 2U rack modules with their own storage array, converged solutions usually look like large rack solutions - there are no dedicated DSS in it, it combines the disks of the servers that make up the solution.

2024: Global Hyperconverged Infrastructure Market Growth by a Quarter to $46.88 Billion

In 2024, the global hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market reached $46.88 billion. This is about a quarter more compared to 2023, when expenses, according to updated data, amounted to $37.5 billion. This is stated in a study by Market Research Future, the results of which were published in early September 2025.

Demand for HCI platforms that combine computing power, storage, and network components into a single system is growing amid the ongoing digital transformation of enterprises across industries. The HCI architecture helps organizations reduce capital and operating costs and improve operational efficiency. This is achieved, among other things, due to the ease of deployment and scaling. HCI components are pre-integrated and configured to avoid the cost of building a traditional infrastructure. Additional nodes can be added to the cluster as needed - when loads or business tasks change.

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Фото: Freepik

Analysts call the growing need for reliable and secure IT platforms another stimulating factor. The multi-node architecture inherent in HCI systems provides high availability and protection against failures: in the event of a failure of one node, others can take on the load. However, the software-defined HCI environment provides automatic recovery functions. HCI solutions come with built-in security tools such as snapshots, backups, and more.

Due to its simplicity and reliability, the hyper-converged infrastructure is ideal for companies that care about safe and stable operation, notes Market Research Future.

A significant advantage of HCI over traditional infrastructures is improved performance. HCI components are unified and located within a single platform to minimize data latency. A survey conducted by IDC experts suggests that almost 70% of organizations plan to consolidate their data centers, which highlights the trend towards switching to hyperconverged solutions.

HCI uses modern technology solutions and virtualization tools, and integration with cloud services makes it possible to form hybrid environments. Enterprises are committed to leveraging these infrastructures to optimize operations and reduce costs. By hypervisor type, the study authors segment the market into VMware, KVM, and Hyper-V. In 2024, platforms with VMware accounted for about $18 billion in the total market volume. The contribution of systems based on KVM and Hyper-V is estimated at $14.5 billion and $14.38 billion, respectively.

Geographically, North America was leading in 2024 with costs of $18.48 billion. This is followed by Europe with $12.98 billion, and the Asia-Pacific region closes the top three, where costs are estimated at $9.83 billion. The contribution of South America amounted to $3.73 billion. Globally, the list of leading industry players includes:

• HPE;
• Scale Computing;
• Microsoft;
• Lenovo;
• Synergy Resources;
• Citrix;
• OpenStack;
• Cisco;
• VMware;
• Nutanix;
• NetApp;
• Pure Storage;
• Zyter;
• Dell Technologies.

In 2025, the market size is expected to reach $58.6 billion. Market Research Future analysts believe that in the future, the average annual growth rate in complex percentages (CAGR) will be 25%. Thus, by 2035, costs may increase to $545.76 billion.^[2]

2023: Global hyperconverged infrastructure market growth by 29% to $31 billion

At the end of 2023, costs in the global hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market amounted to about $31 billion. This is 29% more than in the previous year, when expenses in this area were estimated at $24 billion. Industry trends are addressed in a Market Research Future analysis published in early November 2024.

HCI is a software-defined architecture that integrates computing power, storage, and network components into a single system. This approach, the study authors note, offers a number of advantages over traditional infrastructure, including improved information security and better resource management. In addition, HCI provides a robust and centralized data management platform that simplifies the implementation of security policies and helps prevent leaks. The technology also offers advanced security features such as encryption and multi-factor authentication.

One of the key drivers of the analytics industry is called the spread of cloud computing. Enterprises across industries are moving their workloads to the cloud to increase scalability, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility. HCI solutions facilitate smooth integration of local and cloud resources. With HCI, organizations can easily move workloads between private and public clouds, enabling the deployment of a hybrid cloud that combines the benefits of both environments. Such synergy between HCI and cloud computing drives market development.

It is also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated digital transformation initiatives in all industries. Organizations around the world have recognized the importance of a flexible and resilient IT infrastructure to support remote work, online collaboration, and the delivery of digital services in various areas. This was an additional incentive for the expansion of the HCI industry as a whole.

At the same time, experts point to certain restraining factors. These are, in particular, high initial costs for the implementation of HCI solutions. While hyperconverged infrastructure offers many benefits, including simplified management, improved scalability, and lower operating costs, the investment required to deploy such solutions can be significant. The cost of hardware, software licenses, and professional services is often too high for small and medium enterprises with limited IT budgets.

North America is HCI's largest market. The region has seen a high level of adoption of advanced technologies; in addition, a large number of data centers and cloud providers are located here. In second place in terms of costs is, Europe while the Asia-Pacific region is showing some of the fastest growth rates. In a list of leading industry players, the study authors include:

• Dell;
• Nutanix;
• Hewlett Packard Enterprise (НРЕ);
• VMware;
• Maxta;
• SimpliVity;
• Scale Computing;
• Gridstore;
• Nimboxx;
• Cisco;
• Pivot3.

Market Research Future analysts believe that in the future, the CAGR in the market under consideration will be 25%. Thus, by 2032, costs in the field of hyperconverged infrastructures on a global scale, according to the presented estimates, can reach $56 billion.^[3]

2019: IDC data

Sales of hyperconverged systems are growing rapidly. In Q1 2019, the corresponding market reached $1.8 billion, an increase of 46.7% compared to the same period in 2018. The share of hyperconverged systems in the total sales of converged solutions amounted to 48.6%.

Similar indicators ($1.9 billion, 57.2%, 46.5%) showed the HCI market in Q4 2018. The last figure is growing from quarter to quarter, so it can be confidently argued that hyperconverged architectures are replacing other converged system options.

Since the market for these solutions can be viewed from two points of view - as single hardware and software complexes of a particular manufacturer (HCI Systems as Branded in terms of IDC) and as software solutions that "hyperconverge" the hardware platform of any vendor, IDC separately analyzes the markets for these categories.

The first of IDC's Q1 2019 ratings is led by Dell Technologies (32.2%) and Nutanix (14%). The third place was shared by HPE (4.6%), Cisco (4.5%) and Lenovo (4%) - the analytical company considers the difference less than 1% insignificant to determine the place in the ranking.

IDC's "software" rating for the HCI market is led by VMware (41.1%) and Nutanix (28.9%). In third place are again three companies - HPE (4.6%), Cisco (4.5%) and Dell Technologies (4.6%).

By the totality of IDC and Gartner quadrant data, the leaders in the HCI market are Dell EMC, VMware, Nutanix, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems. Huawei does not reach their level, the Chinese company is only a "contender," but Gartner emphasizes its great potential, as well as strong positions in the markets of Asia and EMEA countries. In the Russian market, the fact that Huawei, unlike the leaders, is a non-American company can also play a role.

Dell EMC

Dell EMC's HCI product line includes a complete suite of both hardware and software solutions. This is not surprising when you consider that the corporation includes a server manufacturer (Dell Technologies), a manufacturer of software infrastructure solutions (EMC), a developer of virtualization technology (VMware) and a number of other companies. Dell's VxRail hardware solution is built around Dell EMC PowerEdge servers. It uses virtualization and other HCI tools based on VMware Virtual SAN. The hypervisor is VMware ESXi.

VMware

Although VMware is a subsidiary of Dell EMC, it does not limit its sales and sells the vSAN solution without any restrictions through other partners, including Dell competitors. This feature introduces confusion in the valuation of the HCI market, which has long been controversial among its participants. VMware Cloud Foundation provides customers with a complete set of software-defined HCI features that can be used to manage computing, storage, networking, cloud, and security management.

Nutanix

The portfolio of one of the market pioneers presents a complete set of software solutions for HCI. Its solutions promote many large "hardware" brands, deploying them on their equipment and selling under their own brand. One of the "trump cards" of Nutanix is its own hypervisor [Nutanix Acropolis]]. To manage the HCI infrastructure, Nutanix offers the Prism software system for cluster administration: Prism Element is used for dedicated management of a separate cluster, Prism Central for multi-cluster management.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HPE entered this market by purchasing SimpliVity solutions for the comprehensive transformation of server hardware into HCI infrastructure. SimpliVity is part of the HPE Synergy buildable infrastructure platform and the HPE OneSphere hybrid cloud management platform. Features of the HPE offering include data deduplication and compression on the fly before being written to storage.

Cisco Systems

Cisco HyperFlex is a unified computing complex that optimizes all operations that extend to the calculation subsystem, network infrastructure, cloud management, hypervisor, and HX Data Platform. Analysts highlight primarily Cisco's developed tools for working with new data hosting platforms - serverless and hardware-independent.

Huawei

The company offers the FusionCube HCI platform. Its advantage is the proposal of its own versions of the FusionSphere hypervisors, which are based on the KVM and Xen hypervisors. Until recently, the company used virtualization software from VMware; recently it became known that the release of the FusionServer 2288H V5 server has begun, where the Nutanix OEM solution works.

... and contenders

Almost all major software and hardware vendors offer their HCI solutions, including Lenovo, Microsoft, Oracle and a number of niche players. Some of them have a chance to move to another category, for example, the HCI-solution Hyper-Converged Infrastructure from Red Hat after the recent takeover of this vendor by IBM.

Russia They also position their developments as hyperconverged IBS Kraftway ones (based on the company's software ""). Rosplatforma Another hyperconvergence software platform, "ev3," included in "for Unified Register of Russian Programs electronic computers and databases" was created by the company "." Open Virtualization Technologies Russian developments already have implementations, however, until they fall into IDC analytics and Gartner quadrants.

2018: Gartner data

Gartner builds its "magic square" based on the priority of the software. The leadership group includes Nutanix, VMware, Dell EMC, HPE and, in the latest ranking, Cisco.

2015-2018

Hyperconverged Systems Market Growth by 35-50% Annually (!)

Архитектурная эволюция IT infrastructures. Gartner Report ID G00298562

Read also

• Virtualization. Classification and applications
• Virtualization Systems and Projects Catalog
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
• Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) Base Article
• Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) (Russian market)
• Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI) Global Market
• How to Deploy a Hyperconverged System in a Small Company
• Converged Infrastructure (Global Market)
• NFV Network Functions Virtualization
• DaaS Desktop as a Service
• Hardware Virtualization
• Five Steps to Successful Consolidation and Virtualization
• Top 10 events in the virtualization market in 2011
• Virtualization: 10 Critical Events in 2012

Notes