IT Pros Vote 2015 Data Center Infrastructure Brand Leaders – IT Brand Pulse

IT Brand Pulse, a source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, announced the results of its September 2015 IT brand leader survey ($1,995 per product category) covering twelve Data Center Infrastructure products.

IT Pros from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored surveys, and were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in the following categories: Application Delivery Controllers, Application Firewalls, Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), Enterprise Backup Software and Appliances, Enterprise Mobility Management, FC Network Monitoring, IB Host Channel Adapters, IB Switches, Information and Email Archiving, Network Performance Monitoring, Storage Performance Validation, and WLAN Controllers and Access Points.

“In our most recent data center infrastructure surveys, the Cisco, Citrix and Mellanox brands shined with IT pros selecting the companies as market leaders in seven of the twelve categories surveyed,” said Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “And, as data center infrastructure management software emerges as an important new product category, Schneider Electric has established early incumbency as the brand leader.“

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Survey Highlights

Cisco led the Data Center Infrastructure surveys by sweeping three product categories: FC Network Monitoring, Network Performance Monitoring, and WLAN Controllers and Access Points. For FC Network Monitoring, Cisco regained the Market title from 2013, and secured Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation awards. Last year’s winner, Brocade, came in second followed by QLogic. In the WLAN Controller category, Cisco scored a three-peat (2013, 2014, 2015) as leader in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. HP/Aruba and Juniper were distant number two and three, respectively. Cisco was also named the new Market Leader for NPM, ahead of both Fluke Networks (second) and Riverbed (third) and took the remaining five leadership awards: Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation.
 
“As the worldwide leader in IT, Cisco is proud to be recognized as an IT Brand Pulse 2015 Data Center Infrastructure Brand Leader in the categories of FC Network Monitoring; Network Performance Monitoring; and WLAN Controllers and Access Points,” said Craig Huitema, director of marketing, Cisco data center solutions. “Effectively monitoring the performance of FC and LAN traffic maximizes datacenter and enterprise network availability for customers, and Cisco’s monitoring solutions continuously track performance and utilization trends to reduce downtime. Cisco’s wireless LAN family provides always-on mobile environments and is ushering in a new era of Internet of Things applications and productivity.“

Citrix emerged as another multiple Market Leader title-holder in the minds of IT professionals. For the third year in a row, Citrix became the Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation Leader for Application Delivery Controllers, and topped a new survey category – Enterprise Mobility Management – with wins as Market, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation Leader. Repeating last year’s results for ADCs, F5 and Brocade/Riverbed posted second and third Market Leader spots (in that order). In Enterprise Mobility Management, respondents picked VMware as Price Leader and Microsoft, Service and Support, as well as selecting the two behind Citrix in the Market segment.

“It is an honor to be recognized by IT Brand Pulse and the IT professionals that voted for Citrix and NetScaler as the outright leader for the third year in a row in the application delivery controller category across market, price, performance, reliability, service, support and innovation,” said Graham Melville, senior director, product marketing, delivery networks, Citrix. “It is also a welcome addition to be recognized as the leader in enterprise mobility management with XenMobile’s achievement in market, performance, reliability and innovation. With these solutions, Citrix is providing customers with secure access to apps and data on any device.”

Mellanox Technologies also turned in a double Market Leader victory in both IB Host Channel Adapters and IB Switches. Mellanox carried over its brand leadership from the last time both these products were surveyed in 2013 – coming in again as the Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation front-runner-ahead of the only other competitor, Intel.

“We are happy to be named as the distinguished leader in high-performance interconnect solutions. Mellanox understands the challenges today’s high-performance computing, cloud, web 2.0 and storage markets face with exponentially expanding data sets and the need to do more with less,” said Tom Thirer, senior director of product marketing, Mellanox. “IT professionals need solutions that reduce the data center footprint, while maintaining high performance, scalability, and efficiency, and we have designed our EDR 100Gb/s IB solutions with these challenges in mind.”

SolarWinds outpaced its rivals for Market leadership in Storage Performance Validation and, along with it, was handed Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation Leader honors. Last year’s champion, Load Dynamix (SwiftTest) followed in the second Market Leader slot, with Ixia, as number three.

“Our highest priority at SolarWinds is to ensure that IT pros have the right tools they need to efficiently monitor and manage their IT assets, regardless if those assets are located on premise or in the cloud,” said Nikki Jennings, group VP, product strategy, SolarWinds. “We are honored to be recognized as the IT Brand Pulse all-around leader in Storage Performance Validation for the first time. It is welcome acknowledgement from the IT pro community that our multi-vendor storage monitoring solution not only enables them to isolate storage performance hotspots, but also plays a critical role in helping IT pros gain total control of the entire storage environment.“

EMC strengthened its presence in the backup industry, capturing all leader titles for Enterprise Backup Software and Appliances: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. IT respondents tapped EMC over second-place Symantec, with Commvault, third.

Leaders of Enterprise backup software and appliance
 

F5 came out on top as Market Leader for Application Firewalls, heading a field crowded with seventeen OEM voting choices. Barracuda Networks, who was the runner-up, took Price Leader, while Citrix (number three Market finisher) captured Service and Support. F5 received the Performance, Reliability, and Innovation awards.

Microsoft swept Information and Email Archiving by being selected as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service and Support, and Innovation Leader (respondents were again faced with a large list of vendor options; this time at 20). Symantec and Google were second and third across-the-board, respectively, with the exception of Innovation Leader, where Google edged up and finished behind Microsoft.

Schneider Electric caught the attention of IT pros in Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), becoming a first-time IT Brand Pulse brand leader survey winner. Schneider Electric beat out the competition to surface as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation Leader; ahead of CA Technologies and Emerson Network Power, who were all-around, in that order.