Clare Hopping

Cloud service providers continue to drive computing server investment. Meanwhile, vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 26.4 percent year-over-year to $20.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017 (Q417), according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The server market continues to gain momentum, as traction for newer Purley- and EPYC-based offerings grows. While demand from cloud service providers has propped up overall market performance, other areas of the server market continue to show growth now as well.

Global server market development

According to the IDC assessment, worldwide server shipments increased 10.8 percent year-over-year to 2.84 million units in Q417.

Volume server revenue increased by 21.9 percent to $15.8 billion, while midrange server revenue grew 48.5 percent to $1.9 billion.

High-end systems grew 41.1 percent to $2.9 billion, driven by IBM's z14 launch in the last quarter of 2017. However, IDC expects continued long-term secular declines in high-end system revenue, with short periods of growth related to major platform refreshes.

"Hyperscalers remained a central driver of volume demand in the fourth quarter with leaders such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google continuing their data center expansions and updates," said Sanjay Medvitz, senior research analyst at IDC.

ODMs continue to be the primary beneficiaries from hyperscale server demand. Some OEMs are also finding growth in this area, but the competitive dynamic of this market has also driven many OEMs such as HPE to focus on the enterprise.

Two key points to consider regarding new growth: IBM captured the third market position at 13 percent share with revenue growing 50.3 percent year-over-year to $2.7 billion. The ODM Direct group of vendors grew revenue by 48.1 percent to $4.2 billion.

Outlook for geographic growth trends

On a geographic basis, Canada was the fastest growing region in Q417 with 69.7 percent year-over-year growth. The United States grew 29.6 percent, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) grew 17.4 percent, and Latin America declined 5 percent.

Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan and China) grew 38.2 percent, China grew 33.8 percent, and Japan grew 4.3 percent. The outlook for market growth in 2018 is equally encouraging.

That being said, there's another key trend that's noteworthy. Demand for x86 servers increased 24.7 percent in 4Q17 with $17.5 billion in revenues. However, non-x86 servers also grew by 36.4 percent year-over-year to $3.2 billion.

Are Amazon and Facebook the standard bearers when it comes to security? According to the latest identity and access management (IAM) study from Gemalto, more than half of respondents say their organisation’s work authentication methods are worse than those offered by the two tech giants.

The study, which polled more than 1,000 IT decision makers globally, found that the continued rise in cloud applications, as well as the similarly shopworn story around device proliferation, means enterprises are considering consumer approaches to security. Seven in 10 respondents said authentication methods applied in consumer-land can be applied to secure access to enterprise resources, while two thirds (64%) are considering implementing consumer-grade access to cloud services for employees.

61% of those polled said they were still not implementing two-factor authentication to allow access to their network, with concerns evident around organisations’ – and employees’ – security postures.

Yet the report also assesses how cloud-based approaches can help organisations. 62% of those polled said cloud access management tools can help simplify the login process for users, while almost three quarters (72%) said they were considering cloud management in order to reduce the threat of large scale breaches.

While the overwhelming majority (94%) of those polled said cloud access management was key in adopting cloud applications, getting things right first time remains important. Nine in 10 respondents said ineffective cloud access management can lead to issues for their company, with more than half (52%) specifically saying security and 39% adding IT staff’s time would be used less efficiently.

“These findings clearly show that IT managers are struggling to balance the need for a simple and easy login experience with security,” said Francois Lasnier, Gemalto SVP identity and access management. “While there is a need to make things easier for employees, there is a fine line to be walked.

“IT and business line managers would do best to figure out the risks and sensitivities associated with the various applications used in their organisations and then use access management policies to manage risk and apply the appropriate authentication method,” added Lasnier. “In this way, they can ensure a convenient login experience for their users, while still maintaining access security.”

You can read the full report here (email required).

Clare Hopping

Consumerization is the design, marketing, and selling of products and services targeting the individual end consumer. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently promoted a $100-per-year iPhone app called Derm Expert. Derm Expert allows doctors to diagnose skin problems using only their iPhone.  Doctors take a photo of a patient’s skin condition and then Derm Expert diagnoses […]

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