IT Pros Vote 2015 Ethernet Networking SDN Innovation Ldrs – Awards Presented at ETS

Santa Clara, CA – April 14, 2015 – IT Brand Pulse, a trusted source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, will be honoring 2015 Innovation Leaders—as voted by IT pros in twelve product categories—at Ethernet Technology Summit on Wednesday, April 15, at the Santa Clara Convention Center. In addition, annual survey respondents chose Cumulus Networks and VMware for special innovation achievement awards.

The 2015 Innovation Leader awards presentation will take place in two parts:

  • 2015 Special Achievement Awards – Contributions to Innovation, 2 p.m., Great America Ballroom
  • 2015 Innovation Leader Awards (12 product categories), 6 p.m., IT Brand Pulse Stage (Exhibit Hall)

“This year’s Innovation surveys marked increased awareness by IT pros of software vendors,” said Frank Berry, CEO and Senior Analyst at IT Brand Pulse. “The results include strong showings by Cisco and VMware in the SDN and NFV categories, plus the emergence of Cumulus Networks for Bare Metal Switch OS.”

Survey Highlights

IT professionals selected two companies for special achievement honors for their Contributions to Innovation:

  • Cumulus Networks was the IT professionals’ choice for its Contributions to Innovation in Enterprise Bare Metal Switches over the past five years (2010-2015). Cumulus Networks will also be accepting the 2015 Innovation Leader award for Bare Metal Switch OS at ETS.

“These first-place awards, based on survey results collected by IT Brand Pulse from world-class companies, reflect the trend of expanded open networking adoption by both enterprises and service providers,” said Reza Malekzadeh, VP Business, Cumulus Networks. “Data center managers recognize initial cost savings with high-performance bare metal switching, and with Cumulus Linux, the operating system for open networking, they secure even larger OpEx savings via automation for faster and more accurate service delivery, affordable capacity as they scale, use of the same Linux tools on both servers and switches, and the ability to innovate with this true Linux networking OS as their platform.”

  • VMware took home the Contributions to Innovation in Enterprise NFV (2010-2015) title to earn the other special achievement award of the survey. VMware also captured the winner’s share of the 2015 Innovation voting by being named the leader for Layer 4-7 NFV Services Platform.

The other companies that stood out in the minds of global IT pros for innovation in the 2015 categories covering a variety of enterprise Ethernet, networking and SDN products include:

  • Cisco: 2015 Innovation Leader for Ethernet Core Switches, Ethernet Top of Rack Switches, SDN Enabled Switches and SDN Platform
  • Dell: 2015 Innovation Leader, Open Networking Switches
  • SolarWinds: 2015 Innovation Leader, Ethernet Network Monitoring
  • Microsoft: 2015 Innovation Leader, SDN Monitoring
  • HP: 2015 Innovation Leader, Embedded Blade Server Networking
  • Intel: 2015 Innovation Leader, Enterprise Ethernet NICs
  • Brocade: 2015 Innovation Leader, FCoE Switches

IT Brand Leader Surveys

IT Brand Pulse awards are the symbols for brand leadership. Winners are voted by IT pros in surveys that are independent, nonsponsored 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 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; Thomson Reuters -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.