IT Pros Vote 2018 Brand Leaders for Networking and Endpoint Security – IT Brand Pulse

IT Brand Pulse, a source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, announced the results of its IT brand leader survey covering Networking & Endpoint Security products. 

IT professionals from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored annual survey in January 2018, asking which vendors they perceive to be leaders in these fourteen categories: 
• 25-100GbE Adapters
• 25-100GbE Switches
• 32Gb FC FC HBAs
• 32Gb FC FC Switches
• Always-On Network Recording Appliances
• Application Delivery Controllers
• FC Network Monitoring
• Network Performance Monitoring
• Storage Performance Validation Software & Appliances
• Compromise Assessment/Incident Response
• Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
• Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
• Next Gen AI-Based Endpoint Protection
• Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)

“This year’s networking and security surveys brought a slew of new brand leaders,” said Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “Cisco, Schneider Electric and SolarWinds unseated incumbent networking leaders; Cisco and Mellanox led in new 25-100GbE product categories; while Mandiant and Symantec established incumbency in two new security product categories.”

Cisco
32Gb FC Switches
Cisco secured its first Market Leader title for 32Gb FC FC Switches in the eight years of these brand leader surveys, and picked up the 2018 Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation honors. Former and long-standing champion Broadcom/Brocade broke up the sweep by being chosen Price Leader.

25-100GbE Switches 
In this newly-added category to the annual survey, IT pros cast their votes for Cisco as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. Brocade filled in the number two Market slot, followed by Juniper.

FC Network Monitoring
For the fourth time since 2013, Cisco captured Market leadership, as well as Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Runner-up Broadcom/Emulex/Brocade (finishing ahead of third-place IBM) took Price Leader.

“Cisco’s commitment to providing customers best in class, intent-based, open data center networking solutions is reflected in this year’s findings in the IT Pulse 2018 Brand Leader survey,” said Dhritiman Dasgupta, VP of product marketing, Cisco data center solutions. “We are pleased to be voted as Brand Leader in the categories of 25-100GbE Switches, 32Gb FC Switches, FC Network Monitoring and Network Performance Monitoring, with Cisco’s 25-100Gbe Nexus 9000 Switches recognized in all six categories and the MDS 9000 switches leading in five.”
 
SolarWinds
Network Performance Monitoring
In this 2018 brand survey, SolarWinds pushed two-time, reigning winner Cisco down to the second Market Leader spot, while nabbing Price and Innovation honors. Cisco, however, did pick up Performance, Reliability and Service & Support. NetScout Systems rounded out the top three Market Leader positions.

Storage Performance Validation Software & Appliances
SolarWinds – by garnering over 50% of the votes – recouped the all-around leadership lost in 2016: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Virtual Instruments/LoadDynamiX and Ixia came in as the number two and three Market Leaders, respectively.

“Recognition as a leader in the latest IT Brand Pulse awards is the another clear reflection of the tremendous value we create for our customers by providing simple, powerful, and affordable products that enable effective IT performance monitoring,” said Christoph Pfister, EVP of products, SolarWinds. “It reflects our commitment to deeply understanding our customers’ challenges and needs, and then offering the best technology to help them assure optimal IT performance and availability.”

Citrix
Application Delivery Controllers
Citrix – for the fifth year in as many surveys-gained the Market Leader title, as well as Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. As in 2017, F5 was named the second place Market Leader, with Barracuda Networks finishing third.

“It is an honor to be recognized by IT Brand Pulse and the IT professionals that voted for Citrix and its networking solution, NetScaler, as a leader for the fifth year in a row in the application delivery controller category across market, price, performance, reliability, service and support as well as innovation,” said Manoj Raisinghani, VP of secure digital perimeter, Citrix. “With the innovative networking solutions, Citrix is providing customers with secure access to all types of apps and data on any device and across hybrid and multi-cloud networks.”
 
Mellanox
25-100GbE Adapters
Mellanox pulled out a complete victory in 25-100GbE Adapters, as IT professionals chose the company for leadership in Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Intel finished second as Market Leader, followed by Broadcom, in third.

“As the performance, efficiency, and market share leader in high performance NICs, Mellanox is honored to sweep all six award categories with its ConnectX family of 25-100GE adapters,” said Kevin Deierling, VP marketing, Mellanox Technologies. “Faster storage needs faster networks and this is driving the data center transformation from 10GbE to 25GbE. That, along with more powerful CPUs, is accelerating the adoption of 25GbE-100GbE adapters, to future proof data center networking. We are pleased that the IT Design Pros have recognized the value of our ConnectX accelerators to boost the efficiency of cloud, artificial intelligence, big data, storage, and NFV workloads.”
 
Cylance
Next Gen AI-Based Endpoint Protection
In a near mirror-image of last year, Cylance again emerged as Market, Performance and Innovation Leader, while Sophos took home Reliability, and Service & Support; the difference this time around was in the Price category, which saw a new winner: Malwarebytes. Sophos received the number two Market designation, ahead of Palo Alto Networks.

“We are grateful for our customers that took the time to recognize Cylance as a leader in Next-Generation AI-Based Endpoint Protection for the second year running,” said Shaun Walsh, SVP marketing, Cylance. “Cylance was founded on the principle that prevention is possible and security should be proactive versus reactive, and we will continue to challenge the status quo to reduce layers, complexity, cost and confusion in providing true prevention to our customers.”
 
Symantec
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
Global respondents favored Symantec for a second straight year-delivering the security giant all available awards: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation.  McAfee was next in line as Market Leader, in front of Palo Alto Networks.

Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
Another new 2018 survey segment, EDR, saw Symantec besting McAfee as the overall Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation leader, with third-place going to Cylance. 
 
Mandiant (FireEye)
Compromise Assessment/Incident Response
As a first-time survey product category over the ten year history of the IT Brand Pulse leader program, 2018 brought a benchmark winner, Mandiant (FireEye), for all six awards: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Cylance and Secure Works were the next highest Market Leader vote-getters, in that order.
 
Broadcom/Emulex
32Gb FC FC HBAs
Posting one of the largest first and second place results margin in the entire 2018 Networking & Endpoint Security collection of surveys, Broadcom/Emulex easily scored a repeat sweep of last year’s FC HBAs (Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation). Cavium/QLogic was the runner-up leader across the board; ATTO settled for third.

 
Riverbed
Always-On Network Recording Appliances
Riverbed NetShark claimed Market Leader (for the second time in as many surveys), and along with it came Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. NetScout Infinistream was cast in the number two across-the-board leader role, leaving third to Solarflare SolarCapture.
 
Schneider Electric
Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
For DCIM, Schneider Electric surged from 2016’s second-place showing to top this year’s Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation charts. Rackwise pushed into second as the Market Leader challenger; Panduit grabbed third.