IT Pros Vote 2018 Brand Leaders for Storage

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

IT professionals from around the world responded to the independent, non-sponsored annual survey in February 2018, asking which vendors they perceive to be leaders in these thirteen categories: 
• 32Gb FC FC Disk Arrays
• Ageless Storage
• Compliance Archive Storage (CAS)
• Deduplication Backup Target Appliances
• Distributed Database Backup & Recovery
• Enterprise Backup Software & Appliances
• Enterprise HDDs
• iSCSI Disk Arrays
• Mid-Range Tape Drives
• NAS Disk Arrays
• On-Premises Enterprise Storage as a Service
• Tape Libraries
• Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays

“In this round of storage surveys, Dell EMC stands out by being selected as market leader in 5 of the 13 product categories,” said Frank Berry, CEO and senior analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “In our first ever survey covering Ageless Storage, Pure Storage who pioneered this category was voted market leader.“

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Survey Highlights

NetApp
NAS Disk Arrays
For the eighth year in a row, NetApp captured Market Leader for NAS Disk Arrays. In addition, it picked up Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation – leaving Price to Dell EMC, the all-around runner-up. IBM ended up with third-place Market Leader.

Unified SAN/NAS Disk Arrays
NetApp was named Market Leader (fifth straight time), and pulled in Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. Dell EMC nabbed Price Leader and stayed in front of IBM for number two in the Market category.

“NetApp unified all-flash and hybrid storage arrays give enterprises rich data management, enterprise-grade capabilities, and easy cloud connection for scalability, flexibility, and performance,” said Octavian Tanase, SVP ONTAP software and solutions group, NetApp. “Being recognized by IT practitioners multiple years in a row reflects our commitment to delivering customers cost-effective, high-performing, and reliable storage solutions for business-critical workloads.”
 
IBM
Mid-Range Tape Drives
Breaking up the six-year Market Leader lock on Mid-Range Tape Drives, IBM pushed past perennial champion Quantum to become this year’s 2018 Market, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. Quantum held on to Price and kept HPE to an overall third.

Tape Libraries
As in the Mid-Range Tape category, IBM was the IT professionals’ 2018 choice to replace Quantum’s Market Leader hold on Tape Libraries. In addition, IBM collected Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation honors. Quantum remained Price Leader and placed second across the board, followed by HPE.

“Being recognized by this distinguished community of IT professionals and IT Brand Pulse is an honor,” said Levi Norman, director marketing, IBM systems enterprise storage. “IBM’s history with tape spans nearly 65 years. While others gave up, IBM continued to invest in innovative solutions based on tape’s resiliency. The 2018 Market Leader and other awards in both Mid-Range Tape Drives and Tape Libraries categories along with the value these solutions deliver to clients around the world reconfirms that our commitment to this space has been an impactful investment.”
 
Seagate
Enterprise HDDs
Garnering nearly half of the votes, Seagate outperformed second-place challenger, Western Digital, to acquire its sixth Market Leader award for Enterprise HDDs. In addition, Seagate accomplished a clean sweep by winning all Enterprise HDD leadership categories; taking back the Price seat from 2017 champ, Western Digital. Toshiba was the third Market Leader. 
 
“Seagate is honored to be recognized by IT Brand Pulse for the 6th year in a row as the top Enterprise HDD leader from this prestigious group of Data Center Professionals. At Seagate, we take pride in building precision-engineered solutions that deliver trusted performance, solid reliability and ironclad enterprise security to meet the unprecedented growth and efficiency needs of cloud storage centers worldwide“, said Sharmistha Mallik, product marketing manager, Seagate Technology.
 
Zadara Storage
On-Premises Enterprise Storage as a Service
Zadara Storage showed that it is still the company to beat for On-Premises Enterprise Storage as a Service, with this year making it a three-peat Market Leader distinction. It also took home awards in the remaining categories – Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation. SoftNAS was the runner-up for all leadership, ahead of Proact Storage.
 
“Zadara is proud to once again be recognized by both IT Brand Pulse and industry IT professionals as the Market Leader for On-Premises Enterprise Storage-as-a-Service,” said Kevin Liebl, VP marketing, Zadara. “This year, we swept all six categories of Reliability, Performance, Innovation, Service/Support, Price and overall Market Leadership. Since the awards are based on IT Professional’s feedback, this reinforces that the Zadara Enterprise Storage-as-a-Service solutions are aligned perfectly with the market requirements. IT Brand Pulse research has shown, that by 2020 storage-as-a-service will be 50% of overall industry storage spending. As the market continues to transition from older CapEx acquisition models to OpEx as-a-service models, Zadara Storage will pave the way with industry – leading cloud, on-premises and hybrid solutions.”
 
Dell EMC
iSCSI Disk Arrays
Dell EMC once again held back the competition, claiming iSCSI Market Leader for the eighth year in a row, as well as all remaining awards (Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation). NetApp repeated its spot as Market Leader runner-up for the second year in a row, with IBM next in line. 

32Gb FC FC Disk Arrays
Proving its powerhouse status in FC Disk Arrays, Dell EMC brought home its eighth straight victory as Market Leader (although it is the first in this more specific 32Gb FC category). IT Pros also chose Dell EMC for Price, Performance, Reliability, and Service & Support, while NetApp (second-place Market Leader) prevented a sweep by earning the Innovation honor.

Deduplication Backup Target Appliances
Dell EMC continued its dominance in Deduplication Backup Target Appliances by collecting all six leader titles-Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, Innovation (the fourth time in as many surveys). IBM took the number two Market post, ahead of Veritas.
 
Enterprise Backup Software & Appliances
Dell EMC unseated the reigning Market Leader, Veritas (which came in second), for Enterprise Backup Software Appliance and went on to win Price, Performance, Reliability, and Service & Support leader. Veeam interrupted the run on this product category by repeating Innovation Leader.

Compliance Archive Storage (CAS)
With the debut of Compliance Archive Storage as a brand leader survey category, Dell EMC was voted by end users as Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation leader. IBM bested HDS to round out the number two and three Market achievements, respectively.
 
Datos IO
Distributed Database Backup & Recovery
In the second IT Brand Pulse survey for this product category, Datos IO again came out on top for the leader sweep (Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support, and Innovation). Trilio Data and Talena finished two and three Market Leader, in that order.
 
Pure Storage
Ageless Storage
In the first IT Brand Pulse survey conducted for Ageless Storage, Pure Storage emerged as Market, Performance, Reliability, and Innovation leader. Dell EMC was selected for the Price title (and number two Market, in front of IBM). Service & Support Leader went to IBM. 

 
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:  
Adobe – Alliant Energy – Allergan – American Financial Group – Barclays – Beckman Coulter – Bentley Systems – Big Lots Stores – Bloomberg – Boeing –  Boral – BorgWarner  – Bosch – Boston Scientific – Brigham Young University – Brinker International – British Airways – Capital Group – CBRE – Celanese Corp – Chanel – Charter Communications – Chubb – Coca-Cola  –  CPS Energy – Daiwa Capital Markets – Dana Foundation – DaVita – Daybreak Game Co.  – Delta Dental – Disney – Dish Network – Dole Food – Duke University – Eaton Vance – Encore Capital Group – Ensco – ExxonMobil – EY – Federal-Mogul – Flagstar Bank – First Bank – Fox Studios – General Electric – General Motors – H. B. Fuller company – Herman Miller – Hess Corp – Intuit – Kiewit Corporation – Kingston Technology – Komastu – Konica Minolta Business Solutions – Korn Ferry – Legrand – Loblaw Companies – Lockheed Martin – Maritz Holdings Inc. – McCarthy Holdings, Inc. – MGM Resorts International – Mohawk Industries – MSC Industrial Direct – MTA – M&T Bank – Murphy Oil Corporation – Mutual Bank – NASA Ames Research Center – NYU Medical Center – NBC/Universal/Comcast – NCR – Ogilvy & Mather – Optum – Orlando Utilities Commission – Oxford Industries – Parker Hannifin – Paychex – Philadelphia Gas Works – Physicians Mutual Insurance company – PPG Industries – Qorvo – Raytheon – Ryder – Ryobi – Schindler Elevator Corp. – Sears – Shaw Industries – Siemens Corp. – Steelcase Inc. – Spectrum Brands – Sysco – TD Ameritrade – Thomson Reuters – Time Warner – TMZ – Torchmark – T-Mobile – UMass Memorial Health Care – USC – U.S. Dept. of Labor – UPS – Veolia – Verizon – Wegmans Food Markets – Western & Southern Financial Group – Williams-Sonoma – World Vision International – Yale University.