IT Pros Vote 2016 Networked Storage Brand Leaders

IT Brand Pulse, a source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, announced the results of the recent IT brand leader surveys covering twelve networked storage products.

IT Pros from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored survey in January 2016, and were asked which vendors they perceive as the leader in the following categories:

Converged Network Adapters
Deduplication Backup Target Appliances
Enterprise HDDs
FCoE Switches
FC Disk Arrays
FC HBAs
FC Switches
iSCSI Disk Arrays
Mid-Range Tape Drives
NAS Disk Arrays
Tape Libraries
Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays

“This round of brand leader surveys represents data center storage systems at the core of every enterprise data center, as well as customer spending exceeding $10 billion this year,” said Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “Underscoring the maturity of this market, in seven of the twelve product categories surveyed, one entrenched leader swept all six awards.”

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Survey Highlights
Cisco reigned over FCoE Switches as the market leader for the seventh year in a row, and was the voters’ choice for Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. With the exception of earning the Price Leader title, Brocade took the number two all-around slot, in front of Juniper.

For the first time in six years of Converged Network Adapter surveys, the 2016 results showed a new market leader on top-Cisco. IT professionals edged out perennial champion Avago/Emulex (who finished in second in the market category, ahead of QLogic), and handed Cisco a category leader sweep: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation.

“Cisco is excited to be recognized for leadership and innovation in FCoE Switches for the seventh year in a row, along with the first time market leadership award for Converged Network Adapters,” said Craig Huitema, senior director, Cisco data center and cloud networking. “FCoE continues to be one of the core components of the Cisco data center portfolio, which helps to enable converged architectures through Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco Nexus platforms, and Cisco MDS platforms“.

Dell Storage continued its strong hold on iSCSI Disk Arrays, securing a sixth straight market leader honor, along with all remaining leader titles (Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation). Like last year, EMC and NetApp, respectively, filled in the runner-up and third market leader positions.

“It’s always an honor when IT leaders recognize a company for their efforts. At Dell, we continue to redefine the economics of enterprise storage, offering customers of all sizes world-class solutions that remove complexity, lower cost and deliver impressive long-term value,” said Travis Vigil, executive director, Dell Storage. “Overall, our future-ready solutions offer customers innovative technologies to efficiently improve and simplify storage with both current and new IT approaches.”

Seagate, another multiple-year (four) leader who outperformed the survey competition, was named Enterprise HDD Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation champ. WD received the next highest market leader votes in this product category, followed by its acquisition, HGST.

“Seagate is pleased to be recognized for the past four years running as the top Enterprise HDD leader from this prestigious group of IT professionals from around the world. It’s in our DNA to engineer, build and deliver innovative and reliable high performing, dense HDDs to meet the growing needs of on-premise and cloud data centers worldwide“, said Barbara Craig, senior product marketing manager, Seagate Technology.

NetApp emerged as one of three dual-category market leader winners in the 2016 Networked Storage survey, capturing NAS Disk Arrays (sixth year in a row) and Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays (a repeat of 2014 and 2015). For NAS Disk Arrays, voters also selected NetApp as Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader. Runner-up market leader, EMC, ended up ahead of Dell.

For the third straight year in Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays, NetApp nabbed Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation leadership; giving up only the Service & Support title to EMC. NetApp again held back two-time market leader EMC, who finished second, in front of IBM.

EMC proved its lock on market leader ownership of FC Disk Arrays (now seven straight years), will not be challenged. EMC far outpaced number two and three market rivals, NetApp and IBM (in that order … a flip of last year’s survey). Respondents also chose EMC as the Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader, but decided Dell should win the price award.

Nearly copying the victory margin in FC Arrays, EMC picked up all leader honors for Deduplication Backup Target Appliances: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation for the second time in as many surveys. NetApp followed in the next market position with IBM, third.

QLogic, voted market leader for FC HBAs for an impressive seven years in a row (2010-2016), continued its dominance of this product category by also heading up Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Avago/Emulex held off ATTO for the number two market leader title.

Brocade claimed six-time championship status with this year’s market leader achievement for FC Switches. Brocade-tops in Price, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation-was close to an across-the-board sweep, if not for second-place Cisco receiving the Service & Support Leader award. QLogic maintained the overall third spot.

IBM was first in the minds of IT pros for the third time in Tape Libraries, with the 2016 results mirroring that of 2015. IBM led the way in five of the six award categories: Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation, while Quantum (who was runner-up Market Leader, before HPE) again was chosen Price Leader.

Quantum-for the fifth time in as many surveys-scaled the Mid-Range Tape Drive leadership board, cleaning up awards for Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. IBM and HPE rounded out the top three market leaders, respectively.

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 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.

Global IT Pro respondents to recent surveys include:
20th Century Fox – American Airlines – American Express – Apple – AT&T – Bank of America – BARD – Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBSA) – Boeing – Booz Allen Hamilton – Caterpillar – Cineca – Citigroup – City of Los Angeles – ComEd – Cox Communications – Delta Airlines – Duke University – EPA – Ernst & Young – Expedia – ExxonMobil – FAA – FedEx – Fermilab – Ford Motor company – GE – General Dynamics – General Motors – Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab – JP Morgan – Lockheed Martin – Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) – Lowe’s – LRZ – Mattel Inc. – Macys – MIT – Morgan Stanley – NASA – New York Life – NYC Transportation – NIH -Northrop Grumman – Oppenheimer – PepsiCo – Pitney Bowes – Porsche Cars N.A. – Prudential – REI – Shell – Social Security Administration (SSA) – Sony Pictures – Stanford University – Staples – Target – The University of Chicago – Thomson Reuters – T-Mobile – Transamerica – UBS – UPS – UCLA – UNFCU – United Airlines – U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission – Universal Parks and Resort – USC – Verizon – Yale University.