The 2023 Tech Innovator Awards

From among more than 250 applicants, CRN staff evaluated and selected products spanning the IT industry – including cloud, IT infrastructure, networking security, storage and software categories – that offer ground-breaking functionality and partner opportunities.

Tech Innovators 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic wrought many changes in how the world operates and the uncertain global economy is keeping many business leaders guessing—and second-guessing—about short-term and long-term business decisions. But all this hasn’t slowed the pace of innovation in the IT industry: If the furious pace of development around AI in the past six months is any indication, it has only accelerated.

From well-established IT giants to startups with breakthrough ideas, IT vendors have continued to develop products that meet the rapidly evolving needs of their customers amid such megatrends as digital transformation and business automation, cloud computing, hybrid work practices, the incorporation of AI into business decision-making, and the growing wave of sophisticated cyberattacks.

So which new and updated products are creating the biggest opportunities for solution providers who work on the front lines with customers?

To help the channel identify products that are truly innovative and offer value for their customers, the 2023 CRN Tech Innovator Awards showcase IT vendor offerings that can provide game-changing advances in IT—and partner growth opportunities—across a broad range of technology categories including application development, cloud management, hyperconverged infrastructure, data management and storage, networking and SD-WAN, and security (organized into a number of subcategories).

The awards spotlight innovative products across 37 technology categories (including 10 security subcategories). The winners and finalists were chosen by CRN staff from among 254 applications.

Application Development And DevOps

Winner: Sonatype Lifecycle

Sonatype’s software composition analysis (SCA) product, Sonatype Lifecycle, enables developers, engineering teams and their organizations to control open-source risk across the software development life cycle without incurring any trade-offs in quality or security. The stages of design, coding, testing and deployment all pose unique challenges that impact developer efficiency. Sonatype Lifecycle’s tools and features offer visibility into application security posture while addressing these challenges, enabling secure, productive and efficient development workflows. Through contextual SCA, intelligent risk management and automated open-source governance, Sonatype Lifecycle continuously identifies risk, enforces policies and remediates vulnerabilities across every phase of the software development life cycle.

Finalists:

Applitools Execution Cloud

GitLab Security and Governance Solution

SolarWinds Observability

Veracode Container Security

Business Applications

Winner: Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform

The Gong Revenue Intelligence Platform provides an accurate understanding of customer interactions to increase business efficiency, improve decision-making and accelerate revenue growth. The platform uses proprietary AI technology to enable teams to capture, understand and act on all customer interactions in a single, integrated platform. This insight enables teams to improve prospecting and sequencing, assisted selling, forecasting and coaching. Key differentiators include omnichannel interaction capture across video calls, phone calls, emails and more; AI-based understanding of conversations via Smart Trackers (concepts versus keywords); enhanced transcription and support for 70-plus languages with 85 percent to 90 percent accuracy; and more than 120 technology integrations including LinkedIn, Gainsight, Slack, Zoom and Snowflake.

Finalist:

Syspro 8 2022

Business Intelligence And Data Analytics

Winner: Kyvos Cloud

The Kyvos Analytics Acceleration Platform provides three key value propositions: query performance, universal semantic layer and data mesh. It’s designed to simplify and accelerate analytics by eliminating the complexity of raw data and exposing business-oriented semantic models to end users. Businesses can analyze hundreds of billions of rows and years of historical data instantly using the business intelligence tool of choice like Power BI, Excel, Tableau or MicroStrategy. Kyvos Cloud is latest version of Kyvos available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, enabling Kyvos deployment with pay-as-you-go billing and enabling solution providers to procure and deploy Kyvos for their customers using budgets allocated for Azure Marketplace.

Finalists:

Dataiku 11

Domino Enterprise

Cloud Tools And Management

Winner: NetApp BlueXP

NetApp BlueXP is a unified control plane delivering a simple hybrid multi-cloud experience for storage and data services across on-premises and cloud environments. NetApp BlueXP allows users to manage their broader hybrid multi-cloud data estate, including on-premises unified storage and first-party native storage with the leading public cloud providers. Offering a simple, yet powerful experience driven by AIOps, BlueXP delivers integrated, broad data service capabilities to deploy, automate, discover, manage, protect, govern and optimize data, infrastructure and the business processes that support them. It is the preferred method to manage NetApp OnTap, NetApp’s data management software, both in the cloud and on-premises.

Finalists:

Alkira Cloud Network as a Service

Cisco Secure Equipment Access Plus

Dynatrace Grail

Nerdio Manager for MSP v4

New Relic OpenAI GPT Observability Integration

Data And Information Management

Winner: Komprise Hypertransfer for Elastic Data Migration

Hypertransfer for Elastic Data Migration migrates unstructured data using dedicated virtual channels across the WAN to accelerate cloud data migrations, particularly for datasets with large file counts, small files or those using protocols like SMB (Server Message Block). SMB workloads such as user data, electronic design automation (EDA) and other multimedia workloads contain a lot of small files and are a particular challenge since the protocol requires many back-and-forth handshakes that increase administrative network traffic. Komprise Hypertransfer minimizes WAN roundtrips, mitigating SMB protocol chattiness and accelerating data transfer. Komprise tests using a dataset dominated by small files show migration times 25 times faster than alternatives.

Finalists:

BuildDB

CockroachDB Serverless

Redis Enterprise

YugabyteDB Voyager

Data Protection, Backup And Recovery Software

Winner: Titaniam Data Security Platform

Titaniam is a cutting-edge data security platform that utilizes high-performance, encryption-in-use plus 10 private data formats to keep sensitive data secure and private. Customers boast NIST-certified security, simplified compliance, efficient privacy enforcement and, most importantly, immunity to all data-focused cyberattacks including ransomware. Within the product’s initial launch year, Titaniam has been adopted by publicly traded companies, featured by leading analysts such as Gartner, and has received over 15 industry awards and certifications.

Finalists:

Cohesity FortKnox

Veeam Data Platform

Displays

Winner: ViewSonic LDP216-121 Direct View LED Display

The ViewSonic LDP216-121, 4K UHD, All-in-One Direct View LED Display offers the latest developments in LED packaging technology. The display has a 35mm slim bezel and is lined with a 5mm frameless edge making it ideal for environments such as corporate lobbies, boardrooms, retail spaces, lecture halls and auditoriums. It features an ultra-pixel pitch, 120 percent Rec.709 color gamut, a fast 3,840Hz refresh rate and detachable system control box. The LDP216-121 comes with Harman Kardon speakers, 4K/HDR/HLG support and PIP/PBP display modes. Installation can be in portrait or landscape mode or two displays installed side by side to form an ultrawide 32:9 video wall.

Edge Computing And IoT

Winner: Scale Computing SC//Fleet Manager

Available as part of the Scale Computing Platform, SC//Fleet Manager consolidates real-time conditions for cluster fleets, including storage and compute resources, for edge computing deployments and MSPs. It quickly identifies concerns using a single pane of glass, scaling from one to over 50,000 clusters. In February 2023, Scale Computing unveiled a zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) feature, simplifying the task of centrally configuring clusters of edge computing infrastructure in SC//Fleet Manager prior to nodes arriving on-premises and decreasing installation time by 90 percent or more. Nodes and clusters no longer require manual initialization with ZTP and can be easily installed with non-IT resources.

Finalists:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 for Edge Computing

Senet Location Estimator

Spectro Cloud Palette Edge

Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure

Winner: Oracle Alloy

Oracle Alloy is a complete cloud infrastructure platform that enables service providers, integrators, ISVs and other organizations to become cloud providers and roll out new cloud services to their customers using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). With Alloy, channel organizations can offer a full set of cloud services, tailor the experience and package additional value-added features for their customers. Partners can build applications and services to meet the demand of specific industries, markets and regulatory requirements, and also provide access to over 100 OCI infrastructure and platform services. Alloy can be independently operated in a partner’s own data center to fulfill regulatory requirements.

Finalists:

Cisco Bright ZR+

Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2)

SoftIron HyperCloud

Hyperconverged Infrastructure

Winner: Dell Technologies Dell VxRail VD-4000

The Dell VxRail VD-4000 is a rugged platform with a smaller, purpose-built form factor that extends the operational efficiencies of VxRail to locations with unfavorable conditions such as low bandwidth and footprint restrictions. It can withstand some of the harshest environments and is designed for flexibility with options for multiple 1U and 2U node sleds. The VD-4000 has an optional embedded vSAN witness, eliminating the need for a data center or cloud-based witness and enabling the creation of a simplified, self-contained two-node vSAN cluster in a small footprint that requires 38 percent less power than a standard three-node cluster.

Finalists:

Nutanix Starter Kit

Pure Storage AIRI//S

Industry-Standard Servers

Winner: Cisco UCS X-Fabric With PCIe Node For GPU Workloads

The Cisco UCS X-Fabric offering is a combination of two products: the Cisco UCS X9416 X-Fabric Module, which provides a PCIe Gen 4 fabric, and the Cisco UCS X440p PCIe Node, which hosts GPUs. This new offering adds GPUs to UCS X-Series modular servers to address many applications, including artificial intelligence and machine learning applications, that need specialized infrastructure to make them perform at their best. The UCS X440p PCIe Node allows up to four GPUs to be added to Cisco UCS X210c and UCX X410c Compute Nodes in conjunction with the UCS X9416 X-Fabric Module.

IT Automation, Robotic Process Automation

Winner: ElectroNeek Intelligent Automation Platform

ElectroNeek is an intelligence automation platform empowering MSPs and their customers with cutting-edge technology that seamlessly automates business processes end to end. This MSP-oriented platform offers a wide range of low-code automation tools based on robotic process automation, intelligence document processing, artificial intelligence and GPT-4 (conversational and generative) technologies. ElectroNeek allows MSPs to build automation and monetize it within one single platform.

Finalists:

Appian Platform–Data Fabric

Auditoria SmartBots

NetBrain Release 11

IT Infrastructure Monitoring And Management

Winner: Cisco ThousandEyes WAN Insights

IT departments require new ways to navigate today’s internet-centric realities where visibility into cloud and internet networks is critical. ThousandEyes WAN Insights, a new product within the ThousandEyes Platform, is a pivotal first step toward delivering on the Cisco Predictive Networks vision, starting with customers’ SD-WAN environment. ThousandEyes WAN Insights enables enterprises to move from reactive to preventative when providing automated, self-optimizing networks and services. WAN Insights enables IT to improve operational efficiency and assurance of application experience by continuously analyzing performance data and applying predictive models to forecast conditions and recommend actions, enabling IT teams to proactively avoid experience degradation.

Finalists:

GoTo Resolve

Riverbed Alluvio IQ

Virtana IPM CloudMonitor

Laptops And Mobile Devices

Winner: Lenovo ThinkPad Z16

Lenovo calls the ThinkPad Z16, one of the company’s premiere AMD-based laptop offerings, the very definition of progressive performance. The sophisticated 16-inch laptop is powered by the AMD Ryzen Pro 6000H series with AMD Radeon RX6500M graphics and SmartShift technology. The laptop exceeds the demands of today’s work-from-anywhere workforce, according to Lenovo, and is geared for performance users. Its chassis is built with recycled aluminum for environmental diligence and its modern design is focused on broadening the appeal of the ThinkPad line.

Finalists:

Acer Chromebook R841LT

MSP Platforms And Tools

Winner: GlassHive

GlassHive is a cloud-based WorkOS for MSPs that the company says makes sales and marketing simple and fun. Its intuitive design and unique channel ecosystem framework leverage big data, artificial intelligence, rich-media communications and automation to empower MSPs and address the sales and marketing needs of the channel. GlassHive offers CRM, marketing automation, content creation, email marketing, SMS marketing, social media marketing, quoting/contract/proposal building with digital signing, drag-and-drop workflow automation and rich media communication capabilities.

Finalists:

ConnectWise RMM AI Integration

CrushBank AI Engine

Mission Cloud Mission Control

TeamViewer Remote

Yagna IQ Yagna Channel Ecosystem Platform

Multifunction Printers

Winner: HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 5000/6000, X500/X600

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise 5000/6000 and X500/X600 are built for the reimagined office and deliver the productivity and efficiency of an A3 copier at the cost of an A4 printer. With this lineup customers can customize without sacrificing power, productivity or security. HP Color LaserJet series printers are powered by HP’s next-generation sustainable toner, which delivers up to 27 percent reduced energy use and up to 78 percent less plastic in the packaging. HP’s high-performance printing offerings are built to help growing businesses maximize productivity and minimize disruptions for today’s hybrid workstyles.

Finalists:

Brother Workhorse MFC-L9670CDN Color Laser All-In-One Printer

Epson WorkForce Enterprise AM Series

Networking: Enterprise

Winner: Fortinet FortiGate 1000F

FortiGate 1000F delivers converged networking and security, highly scalable protection, and reduced power, cooling and space requirements for today’s enterprise data centers. Like all FortiGate NGFWs, the FortiGate 100F is powered by the FortiOS operating system, which provides unified security and management frameworks across all form factors and edges, supporting hybrid environments in a consistent and coordinated way. It includes a suite of FortiGuard AI-powered Security Services, powered by FortiGuard Labs, for advanced, real-time protection against known and unknown threats. FortiGate NGFWs are also available for campus and branch locations and leverage purpose-built ASIC technology.

Finalists:

F5 Distributed Cloud Network Connect

Prosimo Cloud-Native Networking Suite

Networking: SMB

Winner: TP-Link USA ER8411—Omada Multi-Gigabit VPN Router With 10G SFP+ Ports

The ER8411 is an affordable, enterprise-grade VPN router providing a 10G uplink/downlink experience, multi-WAN load balance and link failover, LTE failover, dual-power redundancy and secure VPN connectivity. It’s compatible with the intuitive Omada SDN platform and network monitoring dashboard that shows network usage, traffic distribution, network condition logs, abnormal event warnings, and network topology at a glance. The ER8411 is targeted at networks that require 10G throughput and enterprise-level redundancy, such as in hospitality, education and business environments. TP-Link USA says it’s also ideal for use in midsize networks, optimized for 1,000-plus endpoints, and can service multiple smaller networks with its 10 interchangeable WAN/LAN ports.

Finalists:

Check Point Infinity Spark

Networking: Wireless

Winner: Cradlepoint NetCloud Private Networks

Adoption of private cellular networking has traditionally lagged in many sectors due to high cost of ownership, wireless planning challenges, and the complexity of deploying and managing disparate hardware and software. NetCloud Private Networks is designed for state and local government, K-12 and higher education, light manufacturing, logistics, large retail, venues and hospitality. The offering is a complete subscription package with cloud-native operations and scalability, plug- and-play deployment, zero trust access, and single-pane-of-glass management through NetCloud Manager. In addition to inherent SIM-based authentication, NCPN is built using zero trust principles and is based on a granular and dynamic policy framework that is core to the architecture.

Finalists:

Extreme Networks AP5050

Power Protection And Management

Winner: Schneider Electric APC Smart-UPS Modular Ultra

Smart-UPS Modular Ultra is the most sustainable UPS of its kind, Schneider Electric says, providing highly scalable power in a small footprint and freeing up space for critical IT or other equipment while maximizing uptime and lowering total cost of ownership. Its lithium-ion batteries offer up to three times the battery life of VRLA UPS, helping companies save time and money on maintenance and battery replacement. Designed for local edge environments and row data centers, the Smart-UPS Modular Ultra provides consistent and reliable connectivity even in remote locations. Smart-UPS Modular Ultra is compatible with EcoStruxure, Schneider Electric’s IT platform for cloud-based or on-premises monitoring and management.

Finalists:

Eaton G3 Universal Input Rack PDU

Processors

Winner: 4th Gen AMD EPYC processors

Designed with up to 96 cores and the Zen 4 architecture, 4th Gen AMD EPYC Genoa processors provide the optimized compute performance that businesses need in their data centers to power business-critical applications and consumer-facing services. The processors provide needed performance for data center workloads while being more energy efficient, helping customers meet their business and sustainability goals. Efficiency is especially important as data center space is scarce, and the increasing amount of compute demand means companies must quickly scale to meet the needs of their technology stacks and customers.

Finalists:

Intel vPro Platform with 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1370P

SD-WAN

Winner: Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN

Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN is autonomous, integrated and secure, delivering an ROI of up to 243 percent. Legacy SD-WAN products are extremely complex to deploy and manage, leave security gaps unattended, and lack native integration to SASE and other branch services. Prisma SD-WAN leverages AIOps and machine learning to automate network operations while ensuring best-in-class security and networking capabilities. Prisma SD-WAN has been instrumental in delivering digital transformation across all industries including financial services, retail, manufacturing, health care and industrial while securing applications and users with its security natively integrated with Prisma Access to deliver a comprehensive SASE offering—Prisma SASE.

Finalists:

Aryaka Unified SASE With SD-WAN

HPE Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN EC-10104 Platform

Security: Cloud

Winner: Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud

Prisma Cloud is a complete cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that secures applications from code to cloud across multi-cloud environments. The platform delivers comprehensive security with continuous visibility and proactive threat prevention throughout the application life cycle. Prisma Cloud enables security and DevOps teams to effectively collaborate to accelerate secure cloud-native application development and deployment. It includes cloud security coverage for applications, infrastructure, workloads, data, networks, web applications, APIs and identities. Prisma Cloud has over 1,900 customers globally, across all industries and of all sizes.

Finalists:

The Aqua Platform

Lacework Polygraph Data Platform

Orca Cloud Security Platform

Zscaler Posture Control

Security: Data

Winner: Rubrik Security Cloud

Rubrik Security Cloud helps businesses remain operationally resilient in the event of cyber incidents. Powered by machine learning, it secures data across enterprise, cloud and SaaS applications, helping customers maintain data integrity, deliver data availability that withstands adverse conditions, continuously monitor threats, and restore business operations with data when infrastructure is attacked. Rubrik Security Cloud’s capabilities include data resilience to secure customer data from insider threats or ransomware with air-gapped, immutable, access-controlled backups; data observability to continuously monitor data risks like sensitive data exposure and detect cyberthreats such as ransomware; and data remediation to surgically and rapidly recover applications, files and users while avoiding malware reinfection.

Finalists:

ForcepointOne With Data Security Everywhere

Laminar DSPM Platform

OpenText Voltage File Analysis Suite V3.9

Zscaler Data Protection

Security: Email

Winner: Abnormal–Email Security Posture Management

While inbound email security remains top of mind for most organizations, attackers are increasingly targeting cloud email platforms by exploiting misconfigurations across integrated apps, privileged users and mail tenants. Security teams struggle to get a centralized view of risky configurations across their cloud email environment, leading to gaps in visibility and time-consuming manual efforts to address those risks. Email Security Posture Management from Abnormal improves the risk posture of the entire cloud email environment by helping security teams understand and take action on configuration gaps and drifts—including privilege escalations, new third-party app integrations and conditional access policy exceptions.

Finalists:

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense

SlashNext Cloud Email Security

Vade For M365

Security: Endpoint Protection

Winner: Sophos Intercept X

Sophos Intercept X protects more than 300,000 organizations against advanced cyberthreats with multiple layers of security including its malware detection engine and advanced anti-ransomware and anti-exploit technology. In March 2023, Sophos expanded Intercept X with Adaptive Active Adversary Protection, a core part of Sophos’ “shields up” design methodology, that immediately enables heightened defenses when detecting a “hands-on-keyboard” endpoint intrusion, disrupting and containing attacks by minimizing the attack surface and providing insight for complete threat remediation. Also new are a health check overview with a one-click “fix automatically” option that fixes security misconfigurations and policy settings and an integrated zero trust network access agent for Windows and macOS devices.

Finalists:

Halcyon Anti-Ransomware And Cyber Resilience Platform

Illumio Endpoint

ThreatLocker Network Control

Watchguard EPDR

Security: Enterprise Network Security

Winner: Fortinet FortiNDR

FortiNDR enables full-life-cycle network protection, detection and response. It leverages AI, ML, behavioral and human analysis to analyze network traffic so security teams can spot attacker behavior and remediate threats. FortiNDR provides network-traffic and file-based analysis, root-cause identification, scope of incidents, and tools to remediate incidents quickly. FortiNDR natively leverages Fortinet Security Fabric offerings, working with FortiOS for inline blocking of previously unknown cyberattacks, and FortiNAC and FortiSwitch to quarantine at Layer 2 to contain threats from a network breach. Organizations can achieve advanced threat correlation, centralized management and orchestration, and coordinated response to any threat anywhere across their distributed network.

Finalists:

Accedian Skylight Interceptor

Aryaka Unified SASE With SD-WAN

Palo Alto Networks AIOps for NGFW

Security: Identity And Access Management

Winner: CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection

Delivered from the CrowdStrike Falcon platform, CrowdStrike Falcon Identity Protection is a cloud-native offering that unifies endpoint protection with identity protection with a single, lightweight agent. This unified approach enables the orchestration of automated policy-based responses in real time across endpoints and identities that are hard to achieve through stand-alone tools and provides flexibility to enforce at either the endpoint or identity level to quickly stop an attack. A key capability is the auto-classification of every type of identity (human and service accounts, on-premises or cloud, regular or privileged users) and baseline user behavior and risk scores using behavioral analytics.

Finalists:

Beyond Identity Secure Workforce: Zero Trust Authentication

Forest Druid Powered By Semperis

Okta Identity Governance

PingOne DaVinci

Security: Managed Detection And Response

Winner: Deepwatch Managed Detection And Response

Deepwatch Managed Detection and Response provides comprehensive threat detection, response and remediation capabilities. It is a fully managed service that combines advanced security technologies with human expertise to provide continuous monitoring of an organization’s IT environment. Deepwatch MDR deploys advanced endpoint detection and response, network traffic analysis, and security information and event management technologies, which collect data from across an organization’s IT environment and analyze it using machine learning and other advanced techniques to identify potential threats. Deepwatch MDR also includes a team of experienced security analysts who serve as an extension of an organization’s security operations to detect and respond to threats in real time.

Finalists:

Barracuda XDR

SentinelOne Security DataLake

Sophos Managed Detection and Response

VMware Carbon Black XDR

Security: Management

Winner: Arctic Wolf Incident Response JumpStart

Organizations proactively plan for, and rapidly respond to, cyber incidents without losing valuable time to remediation and the high up-front costs of traditional incident response retainers. In the wake of an incident, organizations waste valuable time on remediation looking for reliable partners to help them investigate and recover their operational continuity. Arctic Wolf’s IR JumpStart addresses accessibility challenges for by embracing a low-cost subscription-based pricing model that doesn’t require pre-purchase of incident response hours. With Arctic Wolf IR JumpStart, organizations unlock a quick response service-level agreement and gain access to proactive incident response tools and planning support from Arctic Wolf’s security experts.

Finalists:

Exabeam New-Scale SIEM Product Portfolio

Expel Workbench

Qualys Vulnerability Management, Detection And Response

Tenable One

Security: Security Service Edge

Winner: Zscaler For Users, Powered By AI

Zscaler now offers an AI-powered Security Service Edge platform purpose-built for zero trust and cloud. Harnessing the power of AI and fueled by 300-plus trillion signals per day, organizations can gain superior detection, prevention and segmentation capabilities with drastically simplified management. The product’s autonomous, risk-based policy capabilities dynamically adapt security and zero trust access controls in real time to stop sophisticated attacks. Organizations can uncover and stop hidden threats with AI-driven threat hunting and expert response from an MDR service built for a zero trust architecture, bolstered by context-rich threat intelligence from the company’s security cloud.

Finalists:

Fortinet FortiSASE

Island Self-Protecting Browser

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access

Skyhigh Security Service Edge

Security: SMB Network Security

Winner: WatchGuard Firebox T25, T45, T85

Powered by WatchGuard’s Unified Security Platform architecture to deliver comprehensive security and simplified management through WatchGuard Cloud, the new Firebox T25, T45 and T85 appliances are engineered to deliver stand-alone or centrally managed enterprise-level security for SMBs. They offer the performance that remote and distributed business environments need to boost visibility into network activity and security events and provide better protection against network security threats. With more memory and faster processing speeds for enhanced throughput, these Fireboxes enable WatchGuard partners, MSPs and IT administrators to secure branch offices, office equipment, remote users and devices, and retail point-of-sale terminals against complex and emerging threats while minimizing network configuration and management requirements.

Finalists:

Barracuda Networks CloudGen Access

Cytracom ControlOne

Storage: Cloud

Winner: Cirrus Migrate Cloud

Cirrus Migrate Cloud now includes the Cloud Recommendation Wizard to provide a better, simpler way for organizations to get the right cloud storage capacity. It is a new cutting-edge capability designed to streamline block-level cloud migrations by automatically recommending the most suitable storage options with Microsoft Azure. The solution automatically recommends a volume type, size and performance parameters based on the real performance of source volume. Cirrus Migrate Cloud simplifies the decision-making process, ensures optimal performance, minimizes business disruption and reduces cloud storage costs. Cirrus Data plans to add this capability to the AWS and Oracle Cloud public clouds.

Finalists:

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform 7.5

Lightbits

Wasabi Surveillance Cloud

Storage: Enterprise

Winner: Quantum Myriad

Quantum Myriad is an all-flash, scale-out file and object storage software platform built for the enterprise. With Myriad, enterprises can replace legacy disk-based storage systems with a software-defined, all-flash platform that provides faster performance, greater scale and a more sustainable and green solution that is both power- and real estate-efficient. The software is an expansion of Quantum’s portfolio of solutions for unstructured data and is ideally suited for emerging, high-growth use cases that require more performance and more scale. AI, machine learning, modern data lakes, VFX and animation are specific use cases driving the growth for scale-out file and object storage such as Myriad.

Finalists:

Infinidat InfiniBox

Vast Data Universal Storage (v.4.6/4.7)

Unified Communications And Collaboration Hardware

Winner: Cisco Devices For Microsoft Teams Rooms

As people and organizations adopt hybrid work, many are using various meeting platforms and tools, resulting in frustrating, disjointed workflows that negatively impact productivity and the employee experience. Under a partnership with Microsoft, Cisco is extending the interoperability of Cisco’s hardware and software portfolios and will become a certified Microsoft Teams Rooms devices partner so Microsoft and Webex customers will benefit from the option of running Microsoft Teams or Webex meetings natively on Cisco devices. Customers of Microsoft and Webex by Cisco can join fully featured Webex meetings on the same device—with no reboot or reconfiguration required.

Finalist:

Owl Bar By Owl Labs

Unified Communications And Collaboration Software

Winner: Cisco Webex Connect

The Webex Connect cloud communications platform integrates communication channels and back-end business systems to enable the orchestration and automation of customer and employee interactions. With Webex Connect, enterprises can rapidly launch and centrally manage customer journeys across 16-plus communications channels, effortlessly integrate with multiple enterprise systems, and utilize Webex’s in-house AI functionality and ChatGPT for scalable conversational automation. Webex Connect now offers robust generative AI capabilities that allow for scalable conversational automation, either using native bot capabilities or through integrations to third-party engines. Webex Connect powers more than 2 billion communication flow executions annually.

Finalists:

Intermedia Unite

Zoom Virtual Agent

Virtualization And Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Winner: IGEL Cosmos

IGEL Cosmos is a new endpoint platform to simplify, reduce the cost and secure the delivery of digital workspaces from any cloud. Consisting of a new modular operating system, a robust and intuitive management platform, and several value-added cloud services, IGEL Cosmos enables organizations to garner the full power of current and future cloud-delivered digital workspaces with extensive control, while supporting today’s hybrid work. IGEL OS runs on nearly any x86-64 device and is so lean and efficient that it commonly extends device life by up to four-plus years, thereby extending IT budgets, sharply reducing capital expenses, reducing carbon footprints and minimizing e-waste.

Finalists:

Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform

Nutanix AHV 8