Global HPC external storage revenues will grow 7.8% over the 2016-2021 timeframe according to an updated forecast released by Hyperion Research this week. HPC server sales, by comparison, will grow a modest 5.8% to $14.8 billion; that said, servers are still by far the largest chunk of the HPC market. Storage will hit $6.3 billion in 2021 according to Hyperion.
The HPC storage arena has been an interesting place of late. Just yesterday Seagate and Cray announced a deal in which Cray will take over the Seagate ClusterStor line. “Adding Seagate’s ClusterStor product line to our DataWarp and Sonexion storage products will enable us to provide a more complete solution to customers,” said Peter Ungaro, CEO, Cray, in the official release. “Current ClusterStor customers and partners can be assured that we will continue to advance and support the ClusterStor products.”
In the latest Hyperion forecast, storage revenue will expand “fastest in EMEA (9.8% CAGR) and Asia-Pacific without Japan (9.6% CAGR). External HPC storage growth in North America will remain robust (6.2% CAGR.”
Interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly, government labs (17.1%), academic institutions (15.2%), and defense (18.2%) were the biggest consumers of HPC external storage in 2016. Hyperion says it now tracks HPC storage and software by 26 countries and twelve verticals. Hyperion defines external HPC storage as located outside of the server cabinets and can include solid-state, disk, and tape media.
Although focused on storage, the Hyperion update suggests HPC growth overall will outpace the general IT market and singles out the following drivers:
- AI/Deep Learning. “Requirements for new HPC systems with a broad range of architectures to support development and operational capabilities in the artificial intelligence sector – especially in the area of deep learning.”
- Enterprise and Cloud. The continued migration and expansion of enterprise HPC workloads to cloud-based ecosystems is spurring storage demand. “Hyperion expects that in many cases, HPC in the cloud operations will be used not as a replacement scheme but instead to augment critical on-premise HPCs capabilities,” according to the report.
- Dig Data Analytics. The growth of new big data analytics workflows in non-traditional HPC environments, “especially in the finance, personalized medicine, and cyber security sectors.”