Converged infrastructure spend on the rise, Cisco benefiting

Spending on converged infrastructure is set to increase in 2016, according to new forecasts from 451 Research.

The research company says upcoming refresh projects are driving enterprise investments in servers and converged infrastructure, with 60% of enterprises planning to increase spending on servers, and 79% planning to spend more on converged infrastructure in 2016.

The Voice of the Enterprise: Servers and Converged Infrastructure study says spending on hyperconverged infrastructure will be particularly strong in 2016 with 86% of respondents planning to increase spend and over 32% planning a major server and storage refresh project.

According to the study, vendors will not benefit equally from spending allocations in 2016.

Cisco is expected to gain the most with 70% of its customers planning to increase spending allocations on its server portfolio. HP, IBM and Oracle had more customers planning to cut spending, than those planning to spend more.

The study reveals budgets are strong for the majority of converged infrastructure vendors.

The newly formed EMC Converged Platforms Division, formerly VCE, leads in budget increases, with 78% of its customers planning to increase budgets in 2016 with 32% in the 'above $2m' spending bracket.

"We see a sea change in the industry with Dell's acquisition of EMC/VCE, and Nutanix filing for IPO," explains Nikolay Yamakawa, senior analyst at 451 Research.

"These shifts are putting a spotlight on converged infrastructure and providing IT buyers with more options," he says.

Yamakawa says converged infrastructure vendors most commonly get into enterprise environments through a technology refresh project, especially a server refresh.

He says decision-making authority on converged infrastructure is most often shared by general infrastructure staff and server staff, but the ultimate decision to adopt rests with CTO/CIO, while management is most often delegated to cross-functional groups.

"To ensure success, vendors need to communicate with all converged infrastructure stakeholders in a target organisation and provide training early in the process to help with customer onboarding," Yamakawa says.