2018 Brand Leaders for Networking and Storage – IT Brand Pulse

IT Brand Pulse, in research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, announced the results of its IT brand leader survey covering Networking & Storage products.

IT professionals from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored annual survey in March 2018, asking which vendors they perceive to be leaders in these eleven categories:
• Bare Metal Switch OS
• Scale out Object Storage Appliance
• Embedded Blade Server Networking
• Scale out Object Storage Software
• Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing
• Scale-out File Storage
• Multi-Protocol Core Switches
• Servers for Software Defined Storage
• Multi-Protocol Top-of-Rack Switches
• WAN Optimization
• Open Networking Switch (Bare Metal Switch)

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“Although enterprise IT giants mostly prefer to sell their branded products, they are carefully building brand eq uity for their open networking and bare metal products,” said Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “This is evidenced by IT pros selecting Arista and Dell EMC as market leaders for bare metal switch OS and open networking switches.

Survey Highlights

NetApp
Scale-out File Storage
NetApp retained Market leadership for Scale-out File Storage, along with accolades for Performance, Reliability, and Innovation. Dell EMC was named Price Leader and finished second as Market Leader; while IBM walked away with Service & Support and rounded out the third market award. 

“In 2018, digital transformation is only possible through innovative data management solutions that are performant and reliable in both data center and hybrid cloud environments. We are especially pleased to be recognized in the innovation category in back-to-back years, which reflects our mission to build future-ready solutions that fuel our customers’ digital transformation as they increasingly invest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, real-time analytics and other data-driven technologies,” said Jeff Baxter, chief evangelist, ONTAP, NetApp.

Red Hat
Scale-out Object Storage Software
In this competitive grouping with thirteen vendor choices, Red Hat was selected Market Leader and closed out all remaining achievements in this class – Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. The number two and three market positions went to IBM/Cleversafe and Scality, respectively.

“Organizations are adopting object-storage to handle the needs of the modern data center. We are honored that Red Hat has once again been recognized as a leader in scale-out object storage software,” said Irshad Raihan, senior manager, product marketing, storage, Red Hat. “Red Hat Ceph Storage is designed to offer a single, open, and unified platform to handle the web scale object storage for modern workloads often require. Managing data on distributed scale out clusters, Red Hat Ceph Storage can simultaneously lower the cost of storing enterprise data and enhance customers’ ability to efficiently, flexibly, and automatically manage this exponential data growth.”
 
Cisco
Embedded Blade Server Networking
Former runner-up in this section, Cisco, secured the Market Leader accolade this year along with honors for Performance, Reliability, and Innovation. After five consecutive years on top, Dell EMC dropped to the second market spot, but was able to hold onto Service & Support and Price; followed by HPE, which finished third overall.

Multi-Protocol Core Switches
Expanding this section from Ethernet to Multi-Protocol Core Switches, Cisco was voted Market Leader for the eighth consecutive year with over two thirds of the votes; all while completing the sweep for Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Following behind were Dell EMC and HPE as number two and three in the market category.

Multi-Protocol Top-of-Rack Switches
The ToR Switch segment has been expanded to Multi-Protocol as well, with Cisco winning over 65% of the votes to be named Market Leader (fifth year) and picked Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation.  HPE and Dell EMC captured the next two shares of the market titles, in that order.

WAN Optimization
Cisco successfully defended its 2017 Market Leader designation for WAN Optimization while clinching Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Riverbed and Citrix landed in the same positions as last year with second and third place market honors.

Dell EMC
Open Networking Switch (Bare Metal Switch)
Dell EMC headed up all six leader categories in Open Networking Switch for the fourth time: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. HPE concluded second all around, along with Quanta QCT placing in the top three.

Scale-out Object Storage Appliance
Dell EMC picked up the entire lot of Scale-Out Object Storage Appliance honors – Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation – for the fifth straight year. NetApp and IBM garnered their own share of market votes, accordingly.

Servers for Software Defined Storage
Former runner-up, Dell EMC, became the 2018 Market Leader champ while sweeping the other award classes – Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Cisco dropped in market votes to second place, followed by HPE in third.

Arista
Bare Metal Switch OS
Arista repeated its Market Leader achievements from last year’s Bare Metal Switch OS and went on to claim Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Cumulus Networks and Big Switch ended up in the number two and three slots in the market.

Google
Enterprise File Synchronization & Sharing
As more vendors enter this sector, a new Market Leader emerged in Google; which also earned honors for Price, Reliability, and Innovation. Market runner-up, Microsoft, held on to Service & Support (and this time around added Performance Leader); leaving Dropbox, third place overall. 

Global IT Pro respondents to recent surveys include:  Advance Pierre Foods (Tyson Foods) – Advocate Health Care – Allstate –  Allergan – AT&T – AXA – Bank of America – British Columbia Lottery Corporation – Bechtle – Belfast Health and Social Care Trust – BMPC (Naval Nuclear Laboratory) – Boeing –  Boston Scientific – Brinker International – British Airways – CA Department of Insurance – Capital Group – Capital Power Corp – Cargill – CBS – Chevron – Citigroup  – City of Los Angeles – Comcast – CoreLogic – Cox Media Group – Daiwa Capital Markets – Delta Airlines -DISA – Daybreak Game Co. – ESPN – Estee Lauder Companies – EverBank – FedEx – Fermilab – FHLBC – Foley & Lardner – Four Seasons Resorts – Freudenberg – GWDG mbH – General Motors – Infosys – Intuitive Surgical – Investment Technology Group – Japan Vietnam Petroleum Co – Kaspersky Lab – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – LRZ – Milliman – MSC Industrial Direct – Mylan – NASA – National Nanotechnology Center – NCR – NIH – NIS – NORC – Novelis – Ogilvy & Mather – Optum – OraSure – Orbital ATK – Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – Porsche Cars, North America -Polycom – Raytheon – Ryder – Sandia National Laboratories – Scottrade – SEC – Siemens Corp. – State of Alaska. – Sysco – TD Ameritrade – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – T-Mobile – UBS – U.S.Navy – United Nations – United Airlines – USC – U.S. Dept. of Labor – UPS – Verizon – Walgreens – Walmart– Warner Brothers – William Blair.