IT Pros Vote 2019 Networking Brand Leaders
Cisco named Market Leader in three product categories; F5 tops two; Mellanox, Broadcom/Emulex, Broadcom/Brocade, SolarWinds, Dell EMC, Big Switch, Riverbed, and VMware also take Market titles
SAN CLEMENTE, CA—March 6, 2019— IT Brand Pulse, a trusted source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, today announced the 2019 Networking Brand Leaders, voted by IT professionals from around the world. The independent, non-sponsored annual survey asked which vendors are perceived to be the market, price, performance, reliability, service and support, and innovation leader for thirteen product categories—including coverage of 400Gb Ethernet Switches and Network Virtualization for the first time.
“This round of surveys was highlighted by some changing of the guard” said Frank Berry, CEO and Sr. Analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “Ethernet pioneer Broadcom is now the brand leader for both Fibre Channel HBAs and switches, F5 unseated Citrix as the brand leader for ADCs, and Big Switch displaced Cumulus as the market leader for Open Switch Operating Systems.”
Cisco
100-400Gb Ethernet Switches
In this newly-added category, IT pros cast their votes for Cisco as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. Juniper filled in the number two Market leader slot, followed by Arista and Mellanox tied for third.
25-100Gb Ethernet Switches
Cisco—for the second time in as many surveys—pulled off a clean sweep in 25-100Gb Ethernet Switches, as the Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. Dell came in second for Market leader, followed closely by Juniper.
Multi-Protocol (Ethernet/FC) Storage Switches
Another new survey category, Cisco was the clear winner in all segments for Multi-Protocol (Ethernet/FC) Storage Switches, as IT professionals chose the company for leadership in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Dell EMC finished second as Market leader, followed by Extreme Networks/Avaya/Broadcom, in third.
“Cisco’s commitment to providing customers best in class, intent-based, open data center networking solutions is exemplified in this year’s IT Pulse 2019 Brand Leader survey findings,” said Dhritiman Dasgupta, vice president of product marketing for Cisco Data Center solutions. “We are especially pleased to be voted as Brand Leader in the new category of 100-400Gb Ethernet Switches, as well as continued leadership in the 25-100Gb Ethernet Switch and Multi-Protocol (Ethernet/FC) Storage Switch categories.”
Mellanox
25-100Gb Ethernet Adapters
For the second year in a row, Mellanox gained the titles for Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader. However, Broadcom unseated Mellanox for this year’s Price leader, as well as tying with Intel for second place Market leader.
“Mellanox’s remains committed to providing our customers with the most efficient and innovative data delivery and acceleration offload technologies for network adapters” said Rob Davis, VP of Storage Technology, Mellanox Technologies. “As server workloads continue to experience exponential growth, in addition to the needs for higher bandwidth and tighter security, customers continue to select Mellanox as the innovation and market leader to enhance their modern data center infrastructure. We are gratified that customers recognize the value of our superior features, performance scalability, reliability, service and support.”
Broadcom
Fibre Channel HBA
Broadcom and their Emulex brand HBAs dominated across the board for Fibre Channel HBAs for the third year in a row; winning all six awards: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Marvell with their QLogic HBAs was the runner-up leader across the board; ATTO settled for third.
Fibre Channel Switches
In a tight race, the Brocade switches from Broadcom emerged as Market Price, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation leader. Cisco tied with Broadcom/Brocade for Service and Support leader.
F5
Hardware Application Delivery Controllers
IT Pros voted F5 as Market leader for Hardware Application Delivery Controllers dethroning former five-time leader, Citrix. F5 also gained Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader; making it a clean sweep for F5. Citrix was named the second place Market Leader, with Barracuda Networks finishing third.
Software ADC
For the first time in five years, F5 has been named the Market leader for Software ADC, as well as Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Former and long-standing champion Citrix was named the second place Market leader, with Fortinet finishing third.
SolarWinds
Network Performance Management
SolarWinds won Market leader for the second year in a row, while also claiming Price and Performance. Cisco—second place Market leader—claimed the Reliability leader award as well as tying with SolarWinds for Service and Support and Innovation. Riverbed rounded out the top three Market leader positions.
“Recognition as a leader in the latest IT Brand Pulse awards reflects our commitment to our user community, their challenges, and needs,” said Joe Kim, executive vice president of engineering and global CTO, SolarWinds. “We continue to be dedicated to providing simple, powerful, and affordable products that improve IT performance monitoring.”
Dell EMC
Open Networking Switch (Bare Metal Switch)
Dell EMC headed up all six leader categories in Open Networking Switch for the fifth time: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. HPE concluded second for Market leader followed by D-Link.
“Five years ago, Dell EMC helped lead the industry to a new networking paradigm, one based on providing choice and flexibility to achieve desired business outcomes,” said Drew Schulke, vice president, Dell EMC Networking & Solutions. “We are honored to have been chosen as a leader in Open Networking by the people whose opinions matter most — customers.”
Big Switch – Switch Light OS
Open Networking Switch OS
While the top three companies of Open Networking Switch OS were close in all categories, Big Switch came out on top as the Market leader, also claiming Price, Reliability, and Innovation leader. Arista snagged Performance while both Arista and Big Switch tied for Service and Support. Cumulus came in third respectively.
Riverbed SteelCentral NPM
Packet Capture Appliances
In this new survey category, Riverbed surpassed NetScout as the overall Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader, with third-place going to Solarflare.
“We’re honored to be included in this new category and seen by our peers as a Brand Leader by IT Brand Pulse. This accolade follows Riverbed SteelCentral being named a Leader for Gartner’s 2019 Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics for a sixth consecutive year,” said Nik Koutsoukos, Vice President, Product Marketing, at Riverbed. “We believe our leadership position reflects the rich visibility we deliver into the network performance of hybrid and cloud environments, supported by time-saving troubleshooting workflows.”
VMware
SDN / Network Virtualization
First time category, VMware pulled out a complete victory as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. Followed by Cisco then Juniper.
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 & Support, and Innovation. Voters 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:
American Airlines – American Express – Adobe Systems – Advocate Health Care – Aetna – AF Group – Air Force Space Command – Allstate – AT&T – BAAQMD – Bank of America – Beckman Coulter – Boeing – Baylor College of Medicine – Bosch – Boston Scientific – Brinker International – CA Department of Insurance – Capital Group – Caesars Entertainment – Celanese Corporation – Citibank – City of Los Angeles – Combined Insurance – Coca-Cola – Colliers – Comcast – Cox Enterprises – CPS Energy – Daiwa Capital Markets – Dana Foundation – Daybreak Game Co. – Disney – DLL Group – Dow Corning Corp – Duke University – Edmunds – Encore Capital Group – EnerCare – Ensco – Exelon Corp. – ExxonMobil – EY – FedEx – First Acceptance Corp. – Four Seasons – Franklin Templeton – General Electric – General Motors – Great-West Life – GWDG – HCSC – Kaiser Permanente – Kingston – LANL – Library of Congress – Lockheed Martin – LRZ – Michael Kors – MIT IS&T – Morgan Stanley – NASA Ames Research Center – NIH – NBC/Universal/Comcast – NCR – Optum – Orbital ATK – Polycom, Inc. – Quicken Loans – Raytheon – Ricoh – Ryanair – Schindler Elevator Corp. Shaw Industries – Siemens Corp. – Snyder’s-Lance – Spectrum Brands – Stanford University – Staples – Starbucks – States of AL CT, LA and MT – Time Warner – TMZ – Torchmark – Tiger Corporation – T-Mobile – UCLA – United Health Group – U.S. Dept. of Labor – U.S. Navy – UPS – Veolia – Verizon – Walmart – Weizmann Institute of Science – West Pharmaceutical Services – Yale – Yazaki…and 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 itbrandpulse.com.
CONTACT:
Samantha Griffin
Manager, Brand Leader Research
IT Brand Pulse
949-713-2313