IT Brand Leader Survey on Flash Storage – IT Brand Pulse

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

IT professionals from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored annual survey in June 2018, asking which vendors they perceive to be leaders in these sixteen categories: All Flash FC Array, All Flash Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), All Flash iSCSI Array, All Flash NAS Array, All Flash NVMe-oF Storage, All Flash Unified SAN/NAS Array, Computational Storage, Flash Cache Software, Hybrid HDD/SSD Array, NAND Flash Chips, NVDIMM, NVMe-oF Network Adapters, PCIe NVMe Card – SSD, SSDs, Ultra-Low Latency SSD, Contributions to Innovation: Ultra-Low Latency Storage for Edge Computing (2014-2018)

“The industry is moving to storage media and networks with microsecond access times, and vendors are jockeying for brand leadership in the new low-latency market,” said Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “The results of this survey indicate Intel is establishing incumbency for ultra-low latency media; Pure Storage and NetApp are solidifying their new leadership in AFAs as Samsung has done in SSDs and NAND; with ScaleFlux first out of the gates for computational storage.”

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Survey Highlights

Intel
NVDIMM
Intel emerged as a first-time Market Leader in this survey for NVDIMM and also was the choice for Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Runner-up, and 2017 winner, Micron, picked up the Price title. HPE took the third all-around spot.

PCIe NVMe Card – SSD
Another new Market Leader victory for Intel came in the PCIe NVMe Card – SSD category, breaking up Western Digital’s six-year lock on the top position (pushing them down to second this year, ahead of Dell EMC). Intel split up the remaining honors, capturing both Performance and Innovation, leaving Price and Reliability to Western Digital, and Service & Support to Dell EMC.

Ultra-Low Latency SSD
For 2018, Ultra-Low Latency SSD was newly-added to the product category polling. Intel scored Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leadership with Samsung receiving Price.   

Contributions to Innovation:
Ultra-Low Latency Storage for Edge Computing (2014-2018)
IT pro respondents were asked to bestow a special achievement award in the 2018 Flash Storage brand leader survey.  For “Who contributed most to innovation in Ultra-Low Latency Storage for Edge Computing over the past five years?” voters selected Intel over second-place Samsung.  Dell EMC, HPE, and Mellanox filled in the lineup results, respectively.

Samsung Electronics
SSDs
Samsung prevailed at the top of the leader board, pulling down a fifth SSD Market award-plus awards for Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Intel was next for Market Leader; Western Digital, third.

NAND Flash Chips

Garnering nearly double the votes of its closest competitor (Western Digital), Samsung repeated its 2017 NAND Flash Chips accomplishment as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader. Toshiba rounded out the number three Market Leader position. 
 
“Samsung is honored to have been selected for our multi-faceted customer focus in solid state storage and NAND flash by those most instrumental in transforming today’s data centers,” said Jim Elliott, corporate SVP, memory sales and marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. “We take great pride in delivering the best in NAND flash and SSD performance, reliability and customer service to ensure the most innovative IT solutions.”
 
Pure Storage
All Flash FC Array

Last year’s All Flash FC Array Innovation Leader struck it big this time around as end users handed Pure Storage not only this title once again, but added first-ever Market and Performance honors. NetApp/SolidFire and Dell EMC finished second and third as Market Leader.

“Pure Storage is honored to be recognized by IT professionals all over the world as a first-time Market Leader, in addition to being recognized again as an Innovation and Performance Leader for All Flash FC Array,” said Jason Nadeau, VP of product marketing, Pure Storage. “We are committed to helping our customers build a data-centric architecture and these acknowledgements reassert that we are heading in the right direction towards achieving our goals.”

Mellanox
NVMe-oF Network Adapters 
Making it a Market Leader three-peat for NVMe-oF Network Adapters, Mellanox also took home the Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Cavium/QLogic was designated second overall, trailed by Intel.

“We are pleased to be recognized by IT professionals for excellence in NVMe-oF Network Adapters with a sweep of all six award categories: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leadership,” said Rob Davis, VP of storage technology, Mellanox Technologies. “By providing the most efficient data delivery and acceleration offload technologies, our ConnectX network adapters and BlueField Storage SoC solutions deliver dramatic performance improvements to match networking bandwidth to ever faster storage and data processing requirements.”

ScaleFlux
Computational Storage
Another product category-Computational Storage-made its entrance into the annual Flash brand surveys resulting in ScaleFlux as the top vote-getter for all six leader distinctions: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. NGD and Agylstor were number two and three, across the board.

“As the pioneer in deploying Computational Storage at scale, we’re thrilled to be recognized as the market leader for this newly defined category of Flash Storage,” said Thad Omura, EVP marketing, ScaleFlux. “The performance and efficiency benefits of bringing compute to data is being realized on production workloads worldwide. We’re excited to be frontline innovators in this disruptive field as adoption of Computation Storage by cloud and on-prem data centers ramps up.”

Dell EMC
All Flash iSCSI Array
Making it five years in a row, Dell EMC swept All Flash iSCSI Array awards for Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. NetApp and Pure Storage followed, accordingly, as Market Leaders.

All Flash Unified SAN/NAS Array
For the second straight year, Dell EMC bumped NetApp to the number two seat for Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation in All Flash Unified SAN/NAS Array. HPE was once again the third Market Leader.

Hybrid HDD/SSD Array
Dell EMC secured a sixth Market title as well as Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation, staying in front of second and third Market finishers NetApp and HPE for Hybrid HDD/SSD Array.

All Flash NVMe-oF Storage
Dell EMC earned Market, Price, Performance, Reliability and Service & Support for All Flash NVMe-oF Storage, but IT professionals decided on Pure Storage as the Innovation Leader (and Market runner-up, before NetApp).

NetApp
All Flash NAS Array
NetApp extended its All Flash NAS Array streak to five consecutive years as the Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation champion. Dell EMC, chosen as Price Leader, came in ahead of HPE.

Nutanix
All Flash Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

Nutanix continued as both HCI Market and Innovation leader for a third time, in as many surveys, combining it with a 2018 Performance title. Dell EMC (second pick Market Leader, in front of VMware) captured Price, and Service & Support, with VMware taking Reliability.

VMware
Flash Cache Software
VMware proved to be the 2018 victor for Flash Cache Software brand leadership, walking away with Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Intel posted into the second Market slot; IBM was third.

Global IT Pro respondents to recent surveys include:  
20th Century Fox – Advocate Health Care – Allergan – Allstate – American Airlines – ARRIS – AT&T – Bank of America  – Berkshire Hathaway – BC Hydro –  Blue Cross – Boeing – Boral – BorgWarner – Bosch – Boston Scientific – Boston University – British Columbia Lottery – Brown Bros Harriman & Co –  CA Dept. Of Insurance – Caesars Entertainment – Cognizant – CUNA Mutual – Celanese Corp – Chubb – Colgate Palmolive – Coty, Inc. –  Daiwa Capital Markets – DaVita – Delta Airlines – Delta Dental – Department of Defense – DLL Group  – Dot Foods – DTE Energy – Encore Capital Group – Ensco – ExxonMobil – Ernst & Young – Fed Ex – First Midwest Bancorp – Foley & Lardner – Franklin Templeton – General Electric – General Dynamics – HCP, Inc. – Hubbell Incorporated – Hess Corp – JBS USA – Kaspersky Lab – Komer?ní Banka – Kingston Technology – Legrand – Loblaw – Lockheed Martin – LRZ – Macy’s – Medtronic – Mohawk Industries – MSC Industrial – MTA – Mutual Bank – NASA Ames Research Center – NAVNETWARCOM – National Institute of Health – NBC/Universal/Comcast – NCR – Novelis – Ogilvy & Mather  – Omnicom Media Group – Optum – Parker Hannifin  – Phillips 66 company – Polycom – Porsche Cars NA – PPG Industries – Quad/Graphics – Raytheon – Reliance Steel & Aluminum – Ryobi – Sandia National Labs – ScanSource – Schindler Group – Siemens – Sony– Steelcase – Spectrum Brands -Sprint – Sysco – TD Ameritrade – TE Connectivity – Teva Pharmaceuticals – Time Warner – Torchmark – T-Mobile – UBS – United Airlines – U.S. Dept. of Labor – US Bank – Walgreens Boots Alliance.