This document is a mini-report from a 2017 survey of IT professionals on brand leaders in networking and scale-out storage. It provides the methodology of the survey and charts showing the market leader voted for each of 12 product categories by the survey respondents. Categories included bare metal switch OS, embedded blade server networking, Ethernet NICs, file synchronization and sharing, Ethernet switches, open networking switches, scale-out file storage, scale-out object storage appliances and software, servers for software-defined storage, and WAN optimization.

1. Networking &
Scale-out Storage
2017 Brand Leader Survey
Mini-Report

2. Brand Leader Survey Mini-Report
This IT Brand Pulse mini-report includes only market leader data
from the independent, non-sponsored survey covering six
categories of brand leadership–Market, Price, Performance,
Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation–for twelve
Networking & Scale-out Storage products.
Complete survey data for each product category is available.
Please contact us at info@itbrandpulse.com for information and
pricing.
2
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

3. Table of Contents
Networking & Scale-Out Storage Brand Leader Survey Mini-Report, 2017
Brand Leader Survey Methodology Page 4
Brand Leader Voting Definitions Page 5
2017 Networking & Scale-out Storage Brand Leader Survey Winners Chart Page 6
Respondent Title/Job Description Page 8
Respondent Data Center Environment Page 9
2017 Bare Metal Switch OS Market Leader Chart Page 11
2017 Embedded Blade Server Networking Market Leader Chart Page 12
2017 Enterprise Ethernet NICs Market Leader Chart Page 13
2017 Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing Market Leader Chart Page 14
2017 Ethernet Core Switches Market Leader Chart Page 15
2017 Ethernet Top of Rack Switches Market Leader Chart Page 17
2017 Open Networking (Bare Metal) Switch Market Leader Chart Page 18
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Market Leader Chart Page 19
2017 Scale-Out Object Storage Appliance Market Leader Chart Page 20
2017 Scale-Out Object Storage Software Market Leader Chart Page 21
2017 Servers for Software-Defined Storage Market Leader Chart Page 22
2017 WAN Optimization Market Leader Chart Page 23
3

4. Networking & Scale-out Storage
Brand Leader Survey Methodology
• Brand Leader Reports are designed to measure the pulse of brand leadership in specific product
categories using independent, non-sponsored surveys with at least 200 respondents.
• The Networking & Scale-out Storage brand leader survey was conducted in March, 2017.
– Respondents were solicited from over 1,000,000 members of 100+ online IT groups, and from the IT Brand
Pulse IT professional database.
– Two hundred and eleven IT Pros responded to this survey.
– Responses were collected using an online survey engine.
• In each part, respondents were provided with a product category description, randomly-listed vendor
choices (plus an “Other” answer choice to add a vendor, if applicable), and were asked six questions:
1. Who do you perceive as the <product category> market leader?
2. Who do you perceive as the <product category> price leader?
3. Who do you perceive as the <product category> performance leader?
4. Who do you perceive as the <product category> reliability leader?
5. Who do you perceive as the <product category> service & support leader?
6. Who do you perceive as the <product category> innovation leader?
4

5. 5
Brand Leader Definitions

6. 2017 Networking &
Scale-Out Storage
Brand Leaders
Voted by IT Pros
Survey conducted March, 2017
Bare Metal Switch OS Arista - EOS Arista - EOS Arista - EOS Arista - EOS Arista - EOS Arista - EOS
Embedded Blade Server Networking HPE Dell EMC HPE Cisco Cisco HPE
Enterprise Ethernet NICs Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel Intel
Enterprise File Sync and Sharing Citrix Google Citrix Citrix Microsoft Citrix
Ethernet Core Switches Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco
Ethernet Top of Rack Switches Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco
Open Networking (Bare Metal) Switch Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC
Scale-Out File Storage NetApp ONTAP NetApp ONTAP NetApp ONTAP NetApp ONTAP NetApp ONTAP NetApp ONTAP
Scale-Out Object Storage Appliance Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC Dell EMC
Scale-Out Object Storage Software Red Hat Red Hat IBM/Cleversafe Red Hat IBM/Cleversafe Red Hat
Servers for Software-Defined Storage Cisco UCS Dell Cisco UCS Cisco UCS Cisco UCS Cisco UCS
WAN Optimization Cisco Riverbed Cisco Cisco Cisco Cisco

7. Respondent Profiles

8. Respondent Title/Job Description:
VAR/OEM
Other
Executive/Management
Server Administrator/Architect
Network Administrator/Architect
Storage Administrator/Architect
Data Center Manager
IT Manager/Director
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
8

9. Your environment is best described as:
Other
Product Development
Public Cloud/Data Center Provider
Small-medium business data center
High performance computing data center
Enterprise data center
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
9

10. Market Leaders

11. 2017 Market Leader
Bare Metal Switch OS
Arista - EOS Big Switch - Switch
Light OS
Cumulus - Cumulus
Linux
Pica8 - PicOS Other
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive as
the market leader for
Bare Metal Switch OS?
11

12. 2017 Market Leader
Embedded Blade Server Networking
Cisco Dell EMC Fujitsu HPE Huawei Lenovo Oracle Supermicro Other
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Embedded Blade
Server Networking?
12

13. 2017 Market Leader
Enterprise Ethernet NICs
Broadcom Cavium/QLogic Chelsio Intel Mellanox Solarflare Other
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Enterprise
Ethernet NICs?
13

14. 2017 Market Leader
Enterprise File Sync and Sharing
Accellion Box Citrix Dropbox Egnyte Google Huddle Intralinks Microsoft Thru Varonis WatchDox/
BlackBerry
Other
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Enterprise File
Sync and Sharing?
14

15. 2017 Market Leader
Ethernet Core Switch
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Ethernet Core
Switch?
15

16. 2017 Market Leader
Ethernet Top of Rack Switch
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Ethernet Top of
Rack Switch?
16

17. 2017 Market Leader
Open Networking (Bare Metal) Switch
Accton/
Edgecore
Alpha
Networks
Dell EMC Delta
Networks
Inc.
HPE Interface
Masters
Penguin
Computing
Quanta QCT Other
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Open Networking
(Bare Metal) Switch?
17

18. 2017 Market Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
OceanStor
9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Scale-Out File
Storage?
18
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

19. 2017 Market Leader
Scale-Out Object Storage Appliance
Cloudian Coho Data DDN Dell EMC Exablox HDS Huawei NEC NetApp Promise
Technology
Quantum Other
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Scale-Out Object
Storage Appliance?
19

20. 2017 Market Leader
Scale-Out Object Storage Software
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive
as the market leader
for Scale-Out Object
Storage Software?
20

21. 2017 Market Leader
Servers for Software Defined Storage
Cisco UCS Dell HPE Huawei Inspur Lenovo Quanta Super micro Other
Who do you perceive as
the market leader for
Servers for Software
Defined Storage?
21
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

22. 2017 Market Leader
WAN Optimization
Who do you
perceive as the
market leader for
WAN Optimization?
22
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey