IT Brand Pulse Presenting Innovation Awards at Open Server Summit on Nov. 12

San Diego, CA, November 10, 2014 (Newswire.com) - IT Brand Pulse, a trusted source for research, data and analysis about data center infrastructure, will be honoring 2014 Innovation Leaders—as voted by IT pros in thirteen product categories—at Open Server Summit on Wednesday, November 12, at the Santa Clara Convention Center. 

In addition, one special achievement award will be presented to Microsoft and its SMB Direct, chosen by IT Pros for contributing most to innovation in scale-out computing for the masses.

“Scale-out Object Storage and Open-Source Hardware are two technologies attempting to leap from hyperscale to Enterprise environments,” said Frank Berry, CEO and Sr. Analyst with IT Brand Pulse.  “The companies establishing incumbency as brand leaders are EMC and Red Hat for object storage, as well as Quanta and Penguin Computing for OCP servers and storage.”

Survey Highlights 

IT professionals chose one company for special achievement in Scale-Out Computing for the Masses:

• In a year that low latency networking protocols and software platforms for distributed computing are being integrated into standard data center infrastructure, IT professionals were asked to select who contributed most to Innovation in Scale-Out Computing for the Masses, 2012-2014.  Microsoft/SMB Direct won the popular vote, followed by HP/Moonshot and Red Hat Storage Server.

“Microsoft is thrilled to be recognized by IT professionals for our leadership and innovations in scale-out computing," said Mike Schutz, General Manager, Microsoft Cloud Platform. “Because we build and operate some of the world’s largest public cloud services at global scale, we are able to bring scale-out innovation from our cloud to our customers so they can achieve breakthrough performance and efficiency.” 

The other companies that stood out in the minds of global IT pros for innovation in the 2014 categories covering a variety of enterprise server, storage, networking and software products include:

• EMC came out on top in the IT Brand Pulse leader survey by securing the Innovation Leader category for Scale-out Object Storage Systems. 

• Quanta dominated OCP Servers, capping it off with an Innovation Leader title.

• Penguin Computing was the respondents’ choice for Innovation Leader, OCP Storage.

• Red Hat was selected by IT end users for the Innovation Leader award for Scale-out Object Storage Software.

• Intel flexed its brand muscle for the second year in a row and walked away with an Innovation Leader win for OCP Server Processor.

• Oracle/Exadata captured Innovation Leader in the first-time brand survey for Converged Systems for Databases. 

• HP, one of two multi-category Innovation brand leadership champions this month, was the pick for both Dense Low-Power Microservers (HP/Moonshot) and Converged Systems for Virtualization.

• Cisco, the network powerhouse, also swept two Innovation Leader product categories: Low-Latency Ethernet Switch and WLAN Controllers & Access Points, and did so for the second straight year.

• Citrix proved to be another repeat Innovation Leader for Application Delivery Controllers.  

• Mellanox topped the Innovation Leader board for the second time in as many surveys for Low-Latency Ethernet Adapters. 

IT Brand Leader Surveys

IT Brand Pulse awards are the symbols for brand leadership. Winners are voted by 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. 

Respondents to our surveys included (select list): AT&T - Server Administrator/Architect; Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) - Storage Administrator/Architect; Boeing - Data Center Manager; Booz Allen Hamilton - Network Security Architect; CalPERS, State of CA - Network Administrator/Architect; Caterpillar - Server Administrator/Architect; Citigroup - Network Administrator/Architect; City of Los Angeles - IT Manager/Director; Delta Airlines - Server Administrator/Architect; Duke University - IT Manager/Director; EarthLink - Server Administrator/Architect; Environmental Protection Agency - Network Administrator/Architect; ExxonMobil - Network Administrator/Architect; Fermilab - Network Administrator/Architect; Ford Motor Company - Network Administrator/Architect; GE - IT Manager/Director; General Dynamics - Network Administrator/Architect; General Motors - Server Administrator/Architect; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab - IT Manager/Director; JP Morgan - IT Manager/Director; Lockheed Martin - IT Manager/Director; Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) - Network Administrator/Architect; Lowe's - Storage Administrator/Architect; Mattel Inc.- IT Manager/Director; Morgan Stanley - Network Administrator/Architect; NASA - IT Manager/Director; National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) - Network Administrator/Architect; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - IT Manager/Director; Northrop Grumman - Network Administrator/Architect; Oppenheimer - Executive/Management; PepsiCo - Storage Administrator/Architect; Porsche Cars North America - Network Administrator/Architect; REI - Server Administrator/Architect; Sandia National Labs - Network Administrator/Architect; Shell - Storage Administrator/Architect; Social Security Administration (SSA) - Server Administrator/Architect; Stanford University - Network Administrator/Architect; Staples - Network Administrator/Architect; Target - IT Manager/Director; The University of Chicago - Server Administrator/Architect; Thomson Reuters -Server Administrator/Architect; T-Mobile - Data Center Manager; Transamerica - Storage Administrator/Architect; UBS - Executive/Management; UCLA - IT Manager/Director; United Airlines - Network Administrator/Architect; Universal Parks and Resort - IT Manager/Director; University Of Michigan- Data Center Manager; University of Michigan Medical School - IT Manager/Director; University of Notre Dame - Storage Administrator/Architect; USC - Network Administrator/Architect; Verizon - Network Administrator/Architect; Yale University - IT Manager/Director…among many others.

About IT Brand Pulse

IT Brand Pulse is a trusted source of research, data and analysis about private, public and hybrid cloud IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, networking and operating platforms. Learn more at www.itbrandpulse.com.