Cisco in FCoE, Emulex for CNAs, HP for Storage Virtualization, Dell for iSCSI

IT Brand Pulse, a source of data and analysis about IT infrastructure, announced the results of the November 2011 Brand Leader Awards survey.

In this survey, respondents were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in six IT categories: FCoE Switches , Converged Network Adapters, Storage Virtualization, Server Virtualization, Blade Servers and ISCSI Storage.

For each category, respondents chose the brand leader in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation.

Highlights of the survey:

• Cisco took the Market Leader award in FCoE Switches for the third straight year and nearly swept all six categories of brand leadership for the third time in as many years. In the Price category, Cisco found itself in a three-way tie with Brocade and HP this year. Brocade was second in every category except Service and Support, where HP placed second. "As part of its vision for delivering multi-protocol convergence, Cisco was the first to market with an FCoE solution, delivering benefits to customers that include reduced cabling, reduced power and cooling costs, and simplified management, " said Shashi Kiran, Director, Data Center and Switching Solutions, Cisco. "Our customers continue to deploy a Cisco Unified Fabric solution because a converged network is proven to deliver simplicity and reduced TCO."
• For the third year in a row, Emulex captured the Market Leader award for Converged Network Adapters. The company was also selected as the Performance Leader, Reliability Leader, and Service Support Leader. QLogic took both the Price and Innovation categories. "Emulex is #1 in market share for Ethernet LOM and Fibre Channel over Ethernet host ports," said Shaun Walsh, vice president of marketing, Emulex. "Being recognized as the Converged Network Adapter Market Leader for the third straight year clearly reflects our unique position as a market share leader in both LAN and SAN adapter markets."
• In a repeat of last year, HP secured the Market Leader award for Storage Virtualization. EMC and VMware placed a close second and third in this same category. Server virtualization software vendor VMware took the Innovation Leader award. "IT organizations recognize that storage virtualization is embodied in HP’s Converged Storage approach to manage data growth and transition to cloud computing," said Tom Joyce, vice president, Marketing, Storage, HP. "By integrating scale-out storage software with converged server and storage hardware, virtualized storage from HP speeds deployment, reduces systems management and delivers high performance."
• For Server Virtualization, VMware was selected by over 80% of respondents as the Market Leader, and was the front-runner in all six brand leader categories by a margin. Microsoft and Oracle rounded out the survey finishing second or third in all six categories.
• Driven by wide margins in the Performance and Reliability categories, HP won the Market Leader award for Blade Servers for the second consecutive year, as well as five out of the six categories of brand leadership. Dell was chosen as the Price Leader.
• IT professionals selected Dell as the Market Leader for iSCSI Storage for the second year in a row. The other category won by Dell was Price Leader; highlightling the importance of price performance in the iSCSI storage market. HP led the Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation categories, while EMC came out on top as the Performance Leader.

"In the November, 2011 surveys, Cisco and Emulex stood out by winning Market Leader awards for the third consecutive year for FCoE Switches and Converged Networking Adapters, respectively," said Frank Berry, IT Brand Pulse CEO and Senior Analyst. "HP demonstrated their dominant brand presence by winning or placing second in four out of six products surveyed this month."