According to IDC data, in the first half of 2023, the hyper-converged market saw a year-on-year growth of 3.2%. The demand for hyper-converged system solutions remains strong, propelling the Chinese hyper-converged market to maintain a compound annual growth rate of 7.2% over the next 5 years, far surpassing traditional storage arrays. By 2027, the hyper-converged market size is projected to reach nearly $3.1 billion.
IDC's survey of IT users indicates that the support for business intelligence in core data centers, including data analytics, IoT, security applications, and big data operations, as well as the prioritization of digitization and optimization of workflows and operations, are driving workloads to the edge, thus fueling the growth of the Chinese hyper-converged market.
Cao Zhen, Product Manager of QingCloud YunYijie, told Titanium Media that hyper-converged architecture has deeply penetrated various industries and is widely used in the process of digital transformation across different sectors.
Taking the industrial and manufacturing sectors as examples, industrial internet, as a crucial direction for digital technology development in China, serves as a key driver for optimizing and upgrading manufacturing, accelerating digital transformation, and fostering digital economic development. In this context, Cao Zhen stated that a stack of technology comprising full-stack, information creation, cloud-native, and industrial-grade components is an indispensable part of the development of the industrial internet. "This technology stack can be gradually upgraded and built upon using hyper-converged architecture. With hyper-converged architecture as the technological foundation, it can adapt to domestically produced information creation equipment, natively integrate container cloud platforms, and facilitate the transformation of business systems into microservices. Finally, it can integrate with the central cloud to achieve unified headquarters-to-branch management," said Cao Zhen.
Taking Shao Feng Cement Group as an example, during its digital transformation, it applied QingCloud's YunYijie hyper-converged architecture to quickly build a cloud-ready hyper-converged platform. This platform supports expert optimization, production data integration, intelligent logistics, and other business systems. Initially, it consisted of 3 converged nodes, with the capability for smooth expansion and upgrade in the future. Moreover, the underlying IT architecture possesses upgradability, enabling stable upgrades to a full-stack enterprise cloud. The full-stack enterprise cloud and branch YunYijie can also interact to form a distributed cloud.
The improvement in system performance not only manifests in the cement industry but also has significant implications for the financial sector. China Bank adopted a certain vendor's hyper-converged products and services in its digital transformation. By consolidating computing, storage, networking, and other resources onto a single platform, China Bank achieved the rapid deployment of new applications and services. Furthermore, the flexibility and scalability of hyper-converged architecture have brought China Bank more business opportunities and room for development. For instance, China Bank can swiftly launch new service products through the hyper-converged platform, enhancing its market competitiveness.
Hyper-converged architecture integrates computing, storage, and other resources, reducing the number of devices and space occupation, thus lowering the overall cost of IT infrastructure. Additionally, hyper-converged architecture provides automated management and maintenance functions, reducing labor and management costs.
Similarly, referring to Shao Feng Cement, Cao Zhen noted that besides the demand for IT flexible upgrades, Shao Feng Cement faces operational challenges. "Previously, IT platforms were managed separately for computing, storage, and networking. Once there was an operational failure, administrators had to log in to different management platforms separately to troubleshoot issues, which was cumbersome and inadvertently prolonged the downtime," Cao Zhen pointed out. "However, hyper-converged architecture can effectively address this issue, reducing enterprise operational management costs."
