FlexPod/HP Brand Leaders in Converged System, Emulex in CNA, Cisco in FCoE Switch

IT Brand Pulse, a source of data and analysis about IT infrastructure, announced the results of brand leader surveys conducted in January 2014 covering Servers, Converged Systems and Converged Networking.

Survey respondents were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in thirteen product categories: Enterprise Server LOM, Server Virtualization, Enterprise Blade Servers, Industry Standard Servers, Microservers, Enterprise Server OSs, Enterprise Server Processors, Enterprise Server Management, Enterprise Rackmount Servers, Embedded Blade Server Networking, Converged Systems, Converged Network Adapters, and FCoE Switches.
 
According to Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse, “The server used to be ‘the system,’ supported by storage and networking peripherals. Today, measuring server brand leadership extends to converged systems and converged networks where the three technologies are blended together.“
 

Survey Highlights

Dominant network supplier Cisco took over the Embedded Blade Server Networking Market spot for the first time in several years, and IT pro perceptions also showed Cisco as the Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader. HP kept Cisco from sweeping the entire product category with its selection as the Price Leader (coming in second in all other categories). In the number three spot for Market Leader, was IBM.

Along with server-related products in the January 2014 surveys, were two converged network categories. 

For FCoE Switches, Cisco established brand leadership for the fifth consecutive year with an all-encompassing win in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation.  Brocade was the runner-up followed by Juniper.

“Cisco is dedicated to providing customer choice and flexibility through exceptional products and solutions spanning the data center and cloud infrastructure,” said Shashi Kiran, senior director of data center and cloud networking solutions. “With nearly two dozen products supporting converged LAN and SAN deployments, Cisco is a leader in providing both choice and value for server and storage connectivity.”
 
For Converged Network Adapters, Emulex was selected as the leader across the board; replaying its Market Leader victory in every year this survey has been conducted (four). As the Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader, Emulex overcame competition from QLogic, which earned a second-place Market Leader title just ahead of Cisco.

“The new Emulex OneConnect OCe14000 Ethernet and Converged Network Adapters are built on Emulex’s field proven Ethernet and storage technology and offer an RDMA over Converged Ethernet ready architecture as well as storage offloads for FCoE and iSCSI, making them ideal for customers’ current data center infrastructures, and future proofed for their Overlay Networking, cloud, and virtualized investments,” said Emulex’s Shaun Walsh, SVP marketing and corporate development. “Being selected as a leader for the fourth year in a row by IT Brand Pulse is a testament to our partnership with global IT organizations, web providers and OEMs.”
 
HP stood out in the server-based surveys, emerging as a repeat Market Leader in three product categories. For Enterprise Blade Servers, HP took the top honor for the fourth consecutive year; captured the Microservers Market Leader award two years in a row; and scored a three-peat for Enterprise Rackmount Servers. In Enterprise Blade Servers, IT professionals named several different winners: HP as the Market, Reliability and Service & Support leader, Cisco for Innovation, and second-place Market Leader, IBM, took the Performance category. Microserver and Enterprise Rackmount Server awards all went to HP, with the exception of the Price Leader titles to Dell, who came in the number two Market Leader spot in both.

“IT Brand Pulse’s recognition of HP as the Enterprise Blade Servers leader for the fourth consecutive year confirms the power of our industry-leading innovations, and ability to deliver workload-optimized platforms that drive business results for HP customers,” said Jim Ganthier, VP, global marketing, HP servers group, HP. “Our differentiated compute and solutions portfolio, from our MicroServer Gen8 to HP BladeSystem to our new HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8, deliver accelerated performance and simplified operations in less time and at lower costs.”

Another multiple category winner, Microsoft, was the favorite as Market Leader for Enterprise Server OSs and Enterprise Server Management. While securing all the leader categories for Enterprise Server Management, Microsoft gave up Performance and Price awards to Red Hat in Enterprise Server OSs (Red Hat was the backup in the Market division). HP turned in a second place Market Leader result in Enterprise Server Management, with IBM rounding out third in both product categories.

“We’re pleased to see IT professionals recognize Microsoft’s leadership in enterprise computing,” said Mike Schutz, GM of Windows Server and management product marketing, Microsoft.”Companies around the world count on Windows Server, System Center and our portfolio of enterprise solutions to build private and hybrid cloud infrastructure for their most important business applications, to boost the productivity of their employees and deliver innovation for their business.”

Market share leader NetApp/Cisco FlexPod extended its reach into the brand awards by being tapped as the Converged System Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation champion. HP’s Converged Systems was the Price Leader pick and came in second in all remaining categories. VCE’s Vblock captured a third-place Market award.

“IT organizations deploy integrated infrastructure solutions to dramatically speed and simplify the steps to getting infrastructure and applications up and running,” says Jim McHugh, VP of Cisco UCS and solution marketing, Cisco. “Customers have adopted FlexPod because it is based on validated designs utilizing industry leading components from Cisco and NetApp, delivering a fast and low-risk way to implement cloud infrastructure.”

The respondents’ choices for Industry Standard Server honors gave Dell its second straight Market, Price, and Service & Support titles and, in this year’s survey, added Innovation leadership. HP continued to prove to voters its prominence in the Performance and Reliability categories for the second time too, and finished in the runner-up seat again for Market leader. IBM was third.

Intel swept the Enterprise Server LOM  category and nearly accomplished that feat for Enterprise Server Processors. Intel picked up six leader awards (Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation) for LOM, with Broadcom coming in second across the board. In Server Processors, Intel led the way in all categories, except Price (won by AMD). Runner-up Market Leader IBM finished behind Intel for the remaining awards.

IT pros chose virtualization giant VMware as Server Virtualization Market Leader for the fourth time in a row and handed them the Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation titles as well. Oracle and Citrix placed second and third, respectively in the Market category. Microsoft took Price Leader.

About the Brand Surveys
IT Brand Pulse awards are the symbols for brand leadership because they are voted on by IT pros, and because the surveys are not vendor-sponsored. 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 vendors answer, and the ability to write-in a vendor if not listed.

Respondents to brand surveys have included: 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.