IT Pros Vote 2016 Networking & Scale-out Storage Brand Leaders

Cisco tops three product categories, EMC wins two; Dell, Citrix, Cumulus, HPE, IBM/Cleversafe, Intel, Riverbed, and SolarWinds also named Market Leaders. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) April 15, 2016 - IT Brand Pulse, a trusted source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, today announced the results of the recent IT brand leader surveys covering thirteen Networking & Scale-out Storage products.

IT Pros from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored survey in March 2016, and were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in the following categories: Ethernet Network Monitoring, Embedded Blade Server Networking, Enterprise Ethernet NIC, Ethernet Core Switch, Ethernet Top of Rack Switch, Enterprise File Synch & Sharing, WAN Optimization, Open Networking Switch, Bare Metal Switch OS, Scale-out File Storage, Scale-out Object Storage Appliance, Scale-out Object Storage Software, Servers for Software Defined Storage, and Contributions to Innovation in Open Server Technology (2012-2016).

"In the latest round of surveys, IT pros voted for leaders in seven traditional networking product categories, and for leaders in six emerging scale-out product categories," said Frank Berry, CEO and Sr. Analyst, IT Brand Pulse. "Large OEMs dominated the voting in both arenas which indicates they are moving aggressively into new market segments for data center infrastructure."

Survey Highlights
Cisco brought home the most wins from this group of surveys, winning Market leader awards in three product categories: Ethernet Core Switch, Ethernet Top of Rack Switch and Servers for Software Defined Storage.
· For Ethernet Core Switch, Cisco dominated as Market Leader for the sixth time (garnering more than three-quarters' voting), and took leader awards for Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. HPE finished second as Market Leader, ahead of third-place Arista.

· Cisco secured the Ethernet Top of Rack Switch leader sweep for the third straight year (Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation), with HPE as the Market Leader runner-up, in front of Brocade.
· In Servers for Software Defined Storage, interestingly, respondents chose four different leaders. IT pros picked Cisco for both Market and Performance; last year's champion Dell as Price and Service & Support leader; HPE for Reliability; and Super Micro Computer was the Innovation Leader favorite. Dell and HPE entered the number two and three Market spots, respectively.
"As the worldwide leader in IT, Cisco is pleased to be recognized as an IT Brand Pulse 2016 Brand Leader in the categories of Ethernet Core Switch, Ethernet Top of Rack Switch and Servers for Software Defined Storage," said Dhritiman Dasgupta, vice president of product marketing for Cisco Data Center solutions. "With Cisco's leadership in data center switching and servers, we are fully committed to delivering customers best in class, open data center solutions. "

HPE continued to top Embedded Blade Server Networking by being voted Market Leader for the fourth time, as well as taking home a special Open Server innovation technology honor.
· For Embedded Blade Server Networking, the 2016 leader results were identical to 2015 as HPE again took Market, Performance and Innovation honors; Cisco was recognized as Reliability and Service & Support leader; and Dell walked away as the Price Leader.
· In addition to deciding on brand leaders in thirteen product categories, respondents to the 2016 Networking & Scale-out Storage surveys answered one "bonus" question relating to outstanding achievement. IT pros were asked, "Who contributed most to innovation in Open Server technology over the last five years (2012 - 2016)?", and results showed HPE as the choice for this special Innovation Leader award, with IBM as runner-up and Dell, third.

"Thank you, IT pros, for recognizing HPE as the embedded blade server networking market, performance, and innovation leader for the fourth year," said Paul Miller, HPE VP of Marketing for Converged Data Center Infrastructure. "HPE proudly advanced embedded blade server networking with innovative technology like HPE Virtual Connect for BladeSystem, the simplest way to connect servers to networks and storage, simplifying infrastructure, lowering costs, and saving time for network administrators. HPE Virtual Connect and switching modules are managed by HPE OneView, delivering a powerful solution to help customers jump onto the path to a Composable Infrastructure for a broad range of applications and workloads."

In another mirror-image of last year's results, Citrix captured Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation titles for Enterprise File Synchronization & Sharing. Price Leader again went to Google, who placed second as Market Leader.
"Citrix ShareFile continues to gain momentum by helping customers securely access and share their data anywhere and from any device, regardless of whether that data lives on-premises or in the cloud," said Chanel Chambers, director of product marketing, Citrix. "As a leader in enterprise file sync and share market, Citrix is dedicated to delivering next-generation mobility and collaboration capabilities along with data security that exceeds the requirements of the enterprise."

End user voters decided, once more, on Dell to head all six leader categories for Open Networking Switches (Bare Metal Switches): Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. For 2016, however, there were new runners-up, with HPE and Accton/Edge-Core holding on to number two and three in voting for Market Leader.

"The future of the data center is Open and Dell is a leader in Open Networking," said Adnan Bhutta, director of Global Open Networking Strategy, Dell Networking. "As customers evolve their network as part of a software-defined data center, Dell will continue to provide the critical innovation required to give customers choice and flexibility."

Intel held onto the title of Enterprise Ethernet NIC Market Leader for the fifth year in a row, and repeated 2015 in sweeping all six categories: Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Broadcom/Emulex was second and QLogic third, overall.

"Intel has been delivering leading-edge Ethernet solutions for over 30 years," said Steve Schultz, Director of Marketing for Intel's Networking Division. "Intel is honored to be recognized by our IT customers who value the focus on quality and extensive validation that we invest in our Ethernet adapters."

In one of the most crowded competitions-Scale-out Object Storage Software-a new Market Leader emerged, IBM/Cleversafe. IBM/Cleversafe also received Performance, Reliability, and Innovation awards, but Market leader second-place finisher Red Hat, interrupted a clean sweep and was awarded both Price and Service & Support leader. VMware placed third as Market Leader.

"IBM is proud to have Cleversafe recognized as the Market Leader for Scale-out Object Storage Software by the IT industry," said Tim Kounadis, Director of Marketing, Cleversafe, an IBM Company. "Some of the world's largest data repositories rely on our technology to deliver enterprise-grade security, reliability and capacity portability. Receiving the Market Leader Award, as well as the Performance, Reliability and Innovation awards in the Scale-out Object Storage Software category, further demonstrates our commitment to helping our customers effectively manage, access and secure data as it grows."

Perennial winner SolarWinds held on to a four-year reign as Market, Price, and Reliability leader for Ethernet Network Monitoring, however this time around, IT professionals split up their votes and gave Cisco the Performance, Service & Support, and Innovation awards. Cisco was also next in line for Market Leader, followed by IBM.

"SolarWinds is committed to focusing exclusively on IT Pros, and delivers products that are easy to find, try, buy, use, and maintain, while scaling to the largest hybrid IT infrastructures," said Christoph Pfister, EVP of Products, SolarWinds. "We're honored to be recognized for the fourth year in a row as the IT Brand Pulse leader in Market, Price and Reliability for Ethernet Network Monitoring. It's a welcome acknowledgement from the IT pro community that not only are we delivering on our promise to provide the most comprehensive, affordable and easy-to-use IT management product portfolio delivered on-premises and through SaaS, but that we are also succeeding at continually innovating on these products to meet the evolving needs of our users."

EMC was first again in the minds in IT pros as they were voted Market leader for both Scale-out Object Storage Appliance and Scale-out File Storage.
· For Scale-out Object Storage Appliance, EMC, for the third year in a row was selected across the board as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. DataDirect Networks (DDN) found its way for the first time onto the brand leader board as the number two in every category; NetApp placed third as Market leader.
· EMC was chosen in Scale-out File Storage Systems for the second straight year as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation leader, leaving the title of Service & Support leader to Red Hat. HPE and Red Hat closed out the voting for Market leader in second and third place.

For the third straight year, Riverbed swept WAN Optimization as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader. The responses again mirrored the results of the 2015 survey, with Cisco finishing second and Citrix third, in voting for Market Leader.

Cumulus Networks won big for the second time in as many surveys for Bare Metal Switch OS. Cumulus Linux was the IT pro selection for Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. Arista EOS and HPE OpenSwitch were picked second and third.

IT Brand Leader Surveys
IT Brand Pulse awards are the symbols for brand leadership. Winners are voted by global IT pros in surveys that are independent, non-sponsored research. The surveys are designed to measure the pulse of brand leadership in specific product categories. Within each product category, respondents choose the overall market leader, as well as the leader in price, performance, reliability, service and support, and innovation. Respondents are provided with a category description at the start of each product section, a randomized choice of vendor answers, and the ability to write-in a vendor, if not listed.

Global IT Pro respondents to recent surveys include:
20th Century Fox - Aetna - American Airlines - American Express - Apple - AT&T - Bank of America - British Columbia Lottery - Blue Cross-Blue Shield (BCBSA) - Boeing - Booz Allen Hamilton - Caterpillar - Cineca - Citigroup - City of L.A. - Columbia Univ Medical Center - ComEd - Cox Communications - C.R. BARD - Delta Airlines - Duke University - EPA - Ernst & Young - Expedia - ExxonMobil - FAA - FedEx - Fermilab - Ford Motor Co. - GE - General Dynamics - General Motors - Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab - JP Morgan - Lockheed Martin - Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) - Lowe's - LRZ - Mattel Inc. - Macys - MIT - Morgan Stanley - NASA - NY Life - NYC Transportation - NIH -Northrop Grumman - Oppenheimer - PepsiCo - Pitney Bowes - Porsche Cars N.A. - Prudential - REI - SEC - Shell - Social Security Administration (SSA) - Sony Pictures - Stanford - Staples - Target - The University of Chicago - Thomson Reuters - T-Mobile - Transamerica - UBS - UPS - UNFCU - United Airlines - Universal Parks and Resorts - USC - Verizon - Walmart - Yale...& many more.

About IT Brand Pulse
IT Brand Pulse is a trusted source of research, data and analysis about private, public and hybrid cloud IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, networking and operating platforms. Learn more at www.itbrandpulse.com.

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