IT Pros Vote 2014 Storage Brand Leaders

Dell, NetApp, EMC, Brocade Win Market Leader for Fourth Year; QLogic, Fifth Year in a Row
Other Winners: Seagate, IBM, Quantum, and LoadDynamiX

San Diego, CA – June 26, 2014– IT Brand Pulse, a trusted source of research, data and analysis about IT infrastructure, today announced the results of brand leader surveys (conducted May, 2014) covering Storage. Survey respondents were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in fifteen product categories: 16Gb Fibre Channel Disk Arrays, 16Gb Fibre Channel Switches, Deduplication, Disk-to-Disk Backup, Enterprise HDDs, InfiniBand Disk Arrays, iSCSI Disk Arrays, Mid-Range Tape Drives, NAS Disk Arrays, Storage Performance Validation Appliances, Tape Libraries, Tiered Storage System, Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays, and Virtual Tape Library.

Our latest storage brand leader surveys were dominated by five incumbents who won for at least the fourth time in a row,” said Frank Berry, CEO and Senior Analyst at IT Brand Pulse. “Brocade, Dell, EMC, NetApp and QLogic continue to be perceived as market leaders for Fibre Channel Switches, iSCSI Disk Arrays, Fibre Channel Disk Arrays, NAS Disk Arrays and Fibre Channel HBAs, respectively.

Survey Highlights

  • For the fourth straight year, NetApp commanded NAS Disk Arrays by being voted Market Leader, and for the first time, swept the entire category (Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation). EMC secured the second place Market award, ahead of HP. IT professionals also selected NetApp as the Market, Price Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation Leader for Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays. NetApp took over the Market Leader title from two-time winner EMC, who finished second, with IBM, third. In the 2014 Storage brand surveys, respondents gave NetApp a third Market Leader award—this one for InfiniBand Disk Arrays—along with the Price Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation titles. Oracle finished in second place across the board, followed by Silicon Graphics (SGI).
    “It’s an honor for NetApp to be distinguished by IT professionals as the Market Leader in three prominent categories, which further validates our team’s leadership in bringing customers value, service and reliability through our innovative offerings,” said Mark Welke, senior director product marketing at NetApp Inc.“Most recently we introduced a complete new line-up of FAS2500 and FAS8000 series systems and Data ONTAP software portfolio to provide the flexibility and choice required for current and future enterprise application environments. Our FAS products drive the performance-intensive SAN and NAS workloads at the largest scale.”
  • Dell/EqualLogic was another winner for the fourth year, chosen by IT pros as the Market Leader for iSCSI Disk Arrays, and securing all remaining categories: Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Second and third place Market Leaders were NetApp and EMC, accordingly.
    “The Dell Storage strategy is fully predicated on a customer-centric design point, so recognition such as this validates that our products offer enterprise performance with excellent customer value,”     said Travis Vigil, executive director, product management, Dell Storage.“In the past few months, we’ve begun shipping our latest generation Dell EqualLogic PS6210 arrays and host software, offering customers up to three-times the performance improvement and industry leading flash utilization as Dell continues to redefine the economics of enterprise storage. Dell will continue to integrate storage technology across our portfolio and accelerate the delivery of innovations to keep Dell a leader in the minds and data centers of our customers.” dcig
  • For 16Gb Fibre Channel HBAs, QLogic displayed its leadership yet again in an IT Brand Pulse survey as it captured Market Leader for the fifth straight time (the only vendor in the Storage survey to win five years). QLogic also continued its control of all other leader titles (Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation). Respondents voted Emulex as the number two Market Leader, with ATTO in the third slot.
    “Sweeping all six categories for 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel host bus adapters and being the only storage vendor to win five consecutive years demonstrates the overall quality and value delivered by QLogic Fibre Channel solutions,” said Vikram Karvat, vice president marketing, QLogic.“With Gen 5 Fibre Channel deployments steadily ramping in the marketplace, we’re pleased to see that IT professionals continue to regard QLogic as their most preferred vendor.”
  • Seagate turned in a repeat showing for Enterprise HDDs by, once again, claiming the Market, Price, Performance, Service & Support and Innovation Leader awards. For 2014, Seagate earned back the Reliability title it lost in 2012 and 2013. WD received the next highest votes overall in this product category, followed by Toshiba.
    “We are extremely pleased to once again be recognized by IT Brand Pulse as the reliability leader in the Enterprise HDD space. It is a true honor to be viewed by IT professionals and peers alike as having the most reliable storage solutions in the industry,”     said Scott Horn, Seagate vice president of marketing.“This coupled with being awarded this year’s Innovation award is clearly in line with Seagate’s mission statement of delivering the most cutting-edge, reliable storage systems in the industry.”
  • Also for the fourth consecutive time, storage giant EMC was chosen as a Fibre Channel disk array leader: this year being named Market Leader for the new 16Gb FC Disk Array product category (and Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation Leader). Price went to Dell. Market Leader runners-up were NetApp and HP, respectively. In addition, EMC earned the Market Leader title in Deduplication (repeat victory), and scored inaugural wins in Disk-to-Disk Backup and Tiered Storage System. In a field crowded with 16 vendor answer choices, EMC captured its secondMarket Leader victory (in as many surveys) for Deduplication, and took Performance, Reliability, and Innovation. EMC gave up both Price and Service & Support Leader to NetApp (who was the second-place Market Leader with IBM in third). EMC’s strong presence in the 2014 Storage surveys continued by sweeping the Disk-to-Disk Backup category as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation Leader. CommVault finished in the number two Market spot, followed by HP. For Tiered Storage System, EMC was picked as the Market favorite(NetApp, second/IBM, third) and was handed four of the five remaining leader titles (Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation).Dell took Price.
  • LoadDynamiX swept the first IT Brand Pulse survey conducted for Storage Performance Validation Appliances taking the Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation titles. SANBlaze was the runner-up across the board, followed by Ixia.
    “The storage industry is going through one of the biggest transitions in decades, with flash and hybrid storage systems driving significant disruption to the status quo. Fully understanding the performance impact and ROI of these technologies is becoming essential to IT architects,” said Len Rosenthal, vice president of marketing at Load DynamiX.“We’re pleased to see IT Brand Pulse add this important category to their annual Brand Leader Survey, but even more pleased to see that Load DynamiX has become the industry leader in such a short time.”
  • IT perceptions resulted in another multiple victor in this year’s Storage surveys: Quantum, with Market Leader wins in both Mid-Range Tape Driveand Virtual Tape Library. Quantum led the pack of five companies in the Mid-Range Tape Drive space by claiming Market Leader (for the third year, in as many surveys) and picking up all remaining category wins: Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation.HP and IBMrounded out the second and third Market Leader positions. For Virtual Tape Library, Quantum beat out two-time winner EMC/Data Domain (second in Market Leader), and IBM was third. Quantum also swept this category by taking Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation Leader.
  • Repeating last year’s number one position for 16Gb Fibre Channel Switches (as well as the 2011 and 2012 champion), Brocade reigns as the favorite among end users for Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation.Cisco came in the backup position as Market Leader (and in all other leader awards in this category), with QLogic filling in the third Market slot.
  • IBM secured the prime honor in Tape Libraries, as well as seized three of the five remaining leader titles. IT professionals voted IBM for the Market, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation awards, while giving Service & Support to HP (who finished second as Market Leader). Price Leader went to Quantum, who rounded out the Market Leader top three.

About the Brand Leader Surveys

IT Brand Pulse awards are the symbols for brand leadership. Winners are voted by IT pros and the surveys 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.

Respondents to our surveys have included (select list): AT&T – Server Administrator/Architect; Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) – Storage Administrator/Architect; Boeing – Data Center Manager; Booz Allen Hamilton – Network Security Architect; CalPERS, State of CA – Network Administrator/Architect; Caterpillar – Server Administrator/Architect; Citigroup – Network Administrator/Architect; City of Los Angeles – IT Manager/Director; Delta Airlines – Server Administrator/Architect; Duke University – IT Manager/Director; EarthLink – Server Administrator/Architect; Environmental Protection Agency – Network Administrator/Architect; ExxonMobil – Network Administrator/Architect; Fermilab – Network Administrator/Architect; Ford Motor Company – Network Administrator/Architect; GE – IT Manager/Director; General Dynamics – Network Administrator/Architect; General Motors – Server Administrator/Architect; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab – IT Manager/Director; JP Morgan – IT Manager/Director; Lockheed Martin – IT Manager/Director; Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) – Network Administrator/Architect; Lowe’s – Storage Administrator/Architect; Mattel Inc.- IT Manager/Director; Morgan Stanley – Network Administrator/Architect; NASA – IT Manager/Director; National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) – Network Administrator/Architect; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – IT Manager/Director; Northrop Grumman – Network Administrator/Architect; Oppenheimer – Executive/Management; PepsiCo – Storage Administrator/Architect; Porsche Cars North America – Network Administrator/Architect; REI – Server Administrator/Architect; Sandia National Labs – Network Administrator/Architect; Shell – Storage Administrator/Architect; Social Security Administration (SSA) – Server Administrator/Architect; Stanford University – Network Administrator/Architect; Staples – Network Administrator/Architect; Target – IT Manager/Director; The University of Chicago – Server Administrator/Architect; ThomsonReuters -Server Administrator/Architect; T-Mobile – Data Center Manager; Transamerica – Storage Administrator/Architect; UBS – Executive/Management; UCLA – IT Manager/Director; United Airlines – Network Administrator/Architect; Universal Parks and Resort – IT Manager/Director; University Of Michigan- Data Center Manager; University of Michigan Medical School – IT Manager/Director; University of Notre Dame – Storage Administrator/Architect; USC – Network Administrator/Architect; Verizon – Network Administrator/Architect; Yale University – IT Manager/Director…among many others…

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.