The 50 Hottest Software-Defined Data Center Vendors Of 2020
From industry titans Cisco Systems and VMware to startups IP Infusion and TidalScale, CRN breaks down the most important software-defined data center vendors in 2020 who are transforming the industry.
The 50 Software-Defined Data Center Leaders
Next-generation software-defined storage, serverless computing, automation and Kubernetes innovation are enabling data centers to become more adaptable and efficient.
The need to reduce complexity and increase ROI is leading to revolutionary data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software, software-defined networking (SDN) and open-source management of containerized applications, all of which are changing the way enterprises manage their IT infrastructure.
Markets like hyper-converged infrastructure are exploding through the need to consolidate data center complexity through software, which is leading to serious market consolidation. Large vendors are gobbling up software-focused data center standouts such as SDN innovators Avi Networks, Big Switch Networks, Cumulus Networks and CloudGenix. Although some businesses are shifting their IT budgets toward cloud infrastructure services as an alternative to data center hardware and software, the need for software-defined data centers is key for many enterprises.
Here is CRN’s list of the 50 vendors who are leading the software-defined data center industry in 2020.
128 Technology
Top Executive: Andy Ory, CEO
Headquarters: Burlington, Mass.
The networking software startup is striving to reinvent the network based on a new model for virtual networking with Session Smart, which enables the creation of a service-centric fabric that drives better ROI and performance. 128 Technology recently captured $30 million in new funding and boosted its SD-Branch, remote work and 5G capabilities.
APC By Schneider Electric
Top Executive: Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and CEO
Headquarters: West Kingston, R.I.
APC by Schneider Electric has been innovating on the software and services front, including cloud-enabled UPS with Connected Smart-UPS that offers remote monitoring and the SaaS-based data center management platform EcoStruxure IT Expert. The company is simplifying management of edge computing sites for partners with its new remote monitoring and dispatch services.
Apstra
Top Executive: David Cheriton, CEO and Co-Founder
Headquarters: Menlo Park, Calif.
The pioneer for intent-based networking, Apstra automates the design, build, deployment and operations of data center networks through its distributed system architecture and vendor-agnostic overlay. Apstra recently nabbed Extreme Networks co-founder Herb Schneider to lead all engineering efforts and launched its first formal channel partner program in March to help scale up its data center networking solutions.
Arista Networks
Top Executive: Jayshree Ullal, CEO and President
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The longtime data center networking powerhouse made its biggest acquisition in years with the purchase of Big Switch Networks in February, known for its next-generation data center switching Big Cloud Fabric. Arista Networks generated $2.4 billion in sales in fiscal year 2019 with plans to leverage Big Switch to boost its analytics, visibility and automation technology capabilities.
Arrcus
Top Executive: Devesh Garg, CEO and Co-Founder
Headquarters: San Jose, Calf.
Arrcus’ mission is to democratize networking by providing best-in-class software and a flexible consumption model to enable open integration of hardware, silicon and software. The startup’s flagship 64-bit network operating system, ArcOS, is fully programmable and modular software that allows customers to cost-effectively design, deploy and manage data center infrastructure.
Broadcom
Top Executive: Hock Tan, CEO and President
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Broadcom’s massive software suite covers infrastructure monitoring and management, continuous testing, automation and API lifecycle management as well as software-defined and open-source networking for data centers. In November Broadcom acquired software security leader Symantec’s enterprise business for a whopping $10.7 billion.
Cato Networks
Top Executive: Shlomo Kramer, CEO and Co-Founder
Headquarters: Alpharetta, Ga.
Cato Networks connects remote offices, mobile users, data centers and cloud resources into a secure and optimized global, managed, software-defined WAN. In April the fast growing startup raised $77 million in funding to fuel sales and marketing efforts as well as develop remote working and cloud-based security capabilities.
Cisco
Top Executive: Chuck Robbins, CEO and Chairman
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The $52 billion worldwide data center network leader provides a slew of software around networking, applications, SD-WAN, data fabrics, IoT, hyper-converged infrastructure and data center optimization -- from Cisco AppDynamics and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) to DNA Software and Cisco Kinetic. Cisco’s SD-WAN won CRN’s 2019 Product of the Year Award.
Citrix
Top Executive: David Henshall, CEO and President
Headquarters: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Citrix offers an array of data center solutions including SD-WAN, traffic management, application delivery management and analytics to boost performance and its own hypervisor. Citrix’s solutions are used by more than 400,000 organizations. The company recently hired former SAP executive Bronwyn Hastings to lead its worldwide channel sales and ecosystem.
Clumio
Top Executive: Poojan Kumar, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
Clumio launched out of stealth in 2019 with its flagship backup Software-as-a-Service system led by a group of veteran engineers hailing from Oracle, Nutanix and VMware. Clumio recently introduced cloud-native Amazon RDS data protection with its new Backup-as-a-Service, as well as cloud-native data protection for Microsoft 365. In November, the company raised $135 million in Series C funding.
Commvault
Top Executive: Sanjay Mirchandani, CEO
Headquarters: Tinton Falls, N.J.
Data protection and management software developer Commvault recently acquired Hedvig, a developer of a software-defined distributed storage offering combining block, file and object storage, for $225 million. Commvault provides a variety of intelligent data management software to help customers turn data into a powerful strategic asset.
Datacore
Top Executive: Dave Zabrowski, CEO
Headquarters: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The software-defined storage specialist offers advanced data storage technology to accelerate performance, increase efficiency and allow customers to achieve zero-downtime availability. DataCore provides virtualization software for block-based, hyperconverged, hybrid cloud and distributed file and object storage, while eliminating hardware and vendor lock-in.
DataDirect Networks
Top Executive: Alex Bouzari, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder
Headquarters: Chatsworth, Calif.
Twenty-two-year-old DataDirect Networks helps customers manage their data at scale with analytics and artificial intelligence software that maximizes processing and reduces application run time. Last year, DDN acquired software-defined storage specialist Nexenta in a move to build 5G infrastructure foundation software and boost its high-performance computing capabilities.
Dell Technologies
Top Executive: Michael Dell, CEO, Chairman and Founder
Headquarters: Round Rock, Texas
Dell Technologies is the largest data center server and storage provider in the world and has doubled down on software innovation across its massive product portfolio, including its OpenManage software suite for systems management. Dell’s PowerOne architecture has a built-in automation engine that can automate thousands of tasks and allow administrators to state a desired business outcome, which the system then calculates the best way to do the rest.
Device42
Top Executive: Raj Jalan, CEO and Founder
Headquarters: West Haven, Conn.
Device42’s technology can continuously discover, map and optimize infrastructure and applications across data centers and cloud, providing accurate views of a customer’s IT ecosystem. The company provides data center software around asset management, device discovery, role-base access, application mapping, integrations and software license management.
DriveNets
Top Executive: Ido Susan, CEO and Co-Founder
Headquarters: Ra’anana, Israel
Networking software startup DriveNets launched out of stealth last year with $110 million in funding with the goal to simplify and scale the rollout of 5G. The DriveNets Network Cloud applies hyper-scale cloud approaches to service providers’ networks to simplify operational models, better enable rapid service innovation and increase profitability.
Eaton
Top Executive: Craig Arnold, CEO and Chairman
Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland
The $21.4 billion data center intelligent power management specialist provides an array of power software solutions for UPS systems, backup and ePDUs, as well as remote monitoring services and a focus on enabling the Internet of Things. Eaton’s Intelligence Platform for power management works to automate, monitor, visualize and predict problems before they strike.
Extreme Networks
Top Executive: Ed Meyercord, CEO and President
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Extreme Networks’ data center portfolio provides a wide range of networking, analytics, programmable ASICs, open APIs and automation managed through a single pane of glass. Last year, the company acquired networking competitor Aerohive Networks for $210 million to strengthen its cloud management, SD-WAN and edge capabilities.
FalconStor
Top Executive: Todd Brooks, CEO
Headquarters: Melville, N.Y.
The data management software company provides a vendor-agnostic protection platform for comprehensive on-premises cloud storage and data management. FalconStor’s StoreSafe leverages software container technology that uses virtualization at the application layer versus the system layer, allowing it to disaggregate data storage from system-level components.
F5 Networks
Top Executive: Francois Locoh-Donou, CEO and President
Headquarters: Seattle, Wash.
F5 Networks recently reported a 50 percent increase in software and service sales during its fiscal 2020 first quarter as the application services specialist integrates into more cloud providers’ data centers. The company has recently bet big on acquisitions including application security star Shape Security for $1 billion and former competitor NGINX for $670 million.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Top Executive: Antonio Neri, CEO
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise owns a large software and technology portfolio for data center servers, storage, automation, security, hyper-converged systems and network switches. One key software system is HPE OneView, which enables customers to take an innovative approach to infrastructure management based on software-defined intelligence. The company’s popular GreenLake pay-as-you-go offering delivers data center software and solutions with on-demand capacity.
Hitachi Vantara
Top Executive: Toshiaki Tokunaga, CEO and Chairman
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The company’s Smart Data Center combines advanced data center analytics, artificial intelligence and automation along with storage and hyperconverged infrastructure. Earlier this year Japanese conglomerate Hitachi completed the merger of Hitachi Vantara and Hitachi Consulting, combining the consulting-led organization with Vantara’s focus on data center, data operations and digital transformation.
Huawei
Top Executive: Ren Zhengfei, CEO and Founder
Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
The China-based communications and technology powerhouse Huawei is a leader in designing and building cloud computing data centers with end-to-end solutions including software-defined networking, servers, storage, backup, disaster recovery and converged infrastructure. Huawei has been doubling down on software innovation including multi-protocol interworking and multi-level reliability.
IBM
Top Executive: Arvind Krishna, CEO
Headquarters: Armonk, N.Y.
IBM’s blockbuster $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat last year brought in a slew of enterprise open-source software around Linux, cloud, container and Kubernetes technologies. IBM provides software and services around data center design, application migration, operations management and managed services as well as Watson AI.
IP Infusion
Top Executive: Atsushi Ogata, CEO and President
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
IP Infusion enables disaggregated networking solutions for data center operators by providing software that includes virtual routers along with secure enterprise and branch connectivity. The company’s OcNOS packet optical transponder solution combines software, open networking and a data center operations model for web-scale and cost-effective data center interconnection.
Juniper Networks
Top Executive: Rami Rahim, CEO
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
Juniper Networks offers a variety of software-defined networking and network operating systems, including Junos OS, for advanced routing, switching and security – both physical and virtual. The $4.5 billion company acquired artificial intelligence-powered networking startup Mist last year to boost enterprises sales with an AI-driven network approach.
Lenovo
Top Executive: Yang Yuanqing, CEO and Chairman
Headquarters: Hong Kong
The PC giant and data center systems provider sells software-defined infrastructure, servers, storage, networking, client virtualization and other software to customers around the world. Lenovo is constantly innovating the software capabilities for its ThinkSystem Servers, such as with the XClarity management suite that’s designed to simplify and automate foundation server tasks.
LogicMonitor
Top Executive: Kevin McGibben, President and CEO
Headquarters: Santa Barbara, Calif.
LogicMonitor’s SaaS-based performance monitoring platform provides visibility to everything inside a data center while automatically correlating data to solve business concerns. The company acquired AI and machine learning specialist Unomaly to boost its DevOps capabilities and nabbed channel veteran Sanjay Gupta as its new global vice president of channel and alliances.
Lumina Networks
Top Executive: Andrew Coward, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Lumina Networks’ SDN Controller is an open-source, software-defined network controller powered by OpenDaylight aimed to automate and simplify heterogeneous networks. The startup, which last year launched its Lumina Partner Program, unifies network architectures and enables intent-based network functionality to provide a more customer-centric approach to building and delivering services.
Microsoft
Top Executive: Satya Nadella, CEO
Headquarters: Redmond, Wash.
The software giant offers its Azure SQL Database, backup, networking software, machine learning, analytics and developer tools, as well as services around applications and Kubernetes for data centers. Microsoft rolled out a variety of new offerings last month including Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare and new machine learning and AI tools.
Modius
Top Executive: Craig Compiano, President and CEO
Headquarters: San Francisco
Modius is one of the key smaller players in the data center infrastructure management and monitoring market with its flagship OpenData scalable software platform that collects unstructured big data tailored for optimizing IoT, power and energy, and data centers. Moduis CEO Compiano has been at the helm for more than 16 years.
NS1
Top Executive: Kris Beevers, CEO and Founder
Headquarters: New York
NS1 is an application traffic management and DNS (domain name server) provider that helps customers migrate and expand applications to data centers. The company recently raised $33 million in a funding round and launched its first-ever global channel program in October, aiming to onboard Cisco partners as it ties solutions to Cisco’s security portfolio.
NetApp
Top Executive: George Kurian, CEO and President
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
The storage specialist provides software-defined storage, data management and application software to data centers across the globe. NetApp’s Element automates data management at scale, while ONTAP delivers enterprise data storage services with cloud-like agility on commodity hardware. Last week NetApp unveiled its plan to buy public cloud optimization specialist Spot.
Nlyte Software
Top Executive: Doug Sabella, President and CEO
Headquarters: Edison, N.J.
The infrastructure and asset management company is focused on planning, managing and optimizing data centers. Nlyte Software enables enterprises to extend management software to include the physical layer with the logical and virtual layers of the data center through its suite of monitoring, workflow, inventory and analytics capabilities, which automates the management of hybrid infrastructure.
Nutanix
Top Executive: Dheeraj Pandey, CEO, Chairman and Co-Founder
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The hyper-converged infrastructure pioneer has transitioned into a software and subscription innovator focused on application and hybrid cloud infrastructure optimization. Nutanix provides a slew of data center software and services including Calm for app-centric lifecycle management and cloud orchestration, Prism Pro for predictive analytics, and its edge platform Xi IoT.
Nvidia
Top Executive: Jensen Huang, CEO, President and Founder
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The chipmaker is looking to “future-proof” data centers for artificial intelligence. Nvidia is investing significantly in data center technology with the bold acquisitions of long-time data center networking software standout Cumulus Networks and high speed interconnection data center giant Mellanox Technologies, the latter for a whopping $7 billion.
Oracle
Top Executive: Safra Catz, CEO
Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.
Oracle builds, operates and provides data center services worldwide with a long list of software around computing, analytics, monitoring, autonomous database, networking, storage, management and governance. Oracle is undertaking its biggest data center expansion effort in the company’s history by building 20 new centers across the globe by the end of 2020.
Palo Alto Networks
Top Executive: Nikesh Arora, CEO and Chairman
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
In April, Palo Alto Networks made a huge acquisition, buying SD-WAN star CloudGenix for $420 million. The security standout provides a range of software targeting the data center including data protection, automated threat discovery, firewalls and threat prevention and response. Last year, the company acquired serverless security startup PureSec and container security startup Twistlock.
Pivot3
Top Executive: Bill Stover, CEO
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
The hyper-converged infrastructure and surveillance provider offers software that consolidates video storage, video management and analytics workloads. Pivot3’s Acuity Datacenter series is powered by NVMe flash and optimized by Pivot3’s Intelligence Engine, which automates data and workload mobility and disaster recovery operations. Pivot3’s former chief financial officer, Bill Stover, took over the CEO reins in July.
Pluribus Networks
Top Executive: Kumar Srikantan, President and CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
Pluribus delivers programmable network monitoring and SDN fabric systems for insight, agility and security to data center infrastructure. The Pluribus Adaptive Cloud Fabric leverages next-generation SDN to create a spine and leaf network fabric that binds together a large number of switches to appear as one logical switch, whether inside a single data center or unifying dispersed centers.
Riverbed Technology
Top Executive: Rich McBee, President and CEO
Headquarters: San Francisco
Riverbed Technology is working to trim the business’s focus down to its core WAN optimization, SD-WAN and application acceleration. Riverbed’s SteelHead offers secure optimization and acceleration of on-premises, cloud and SaaS applications. In late 2019, Riverbed hired former Mitel CEO Rich McBee as its new leader.
Scale Computing
Top Executive: Jeff Ready, CEO
Headquarters: Indianapolis, Ind.
Scale Computing’s HC3 hyper-converged software eliminates the need for traditional virtualization software, disaster recovery and shared storage with a fully integrated system for running applications. The company is investing heavily in edge computing as well as in its HyperCore software, which automatically identifies, mitigates and corrects infrastructure problems in real time.
SolarWinds
Top Executive: Kevin Thompson, CEO and President
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
The end-to-end data center monitoring and management standout provides software around network performance, storage, computing, configuration and applications. In 2019 SolarWinds acquired SaaS-based database performance management company VividCortex, security management firm Passportal and cloud-based service desk software provider Samanage.
Supermicro
Top Executive: Charles Liang, CEO, Chairman, President and Founder
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Besides providing data center hardware from high density servers to chassis and power supplies, Supermicro offers system management software for deep telemetry and optimal lifecycle management. The company’s data center suite includes complete coverage where IT administrators can utilize Supermicro Server Manager, Supermicro Update Manager and Supermicro Power Manager, to name a few.
TidalScale
Top Executive: Gary Smerdon, President and CEO
Headquarters: Campbell, Calif.
The software-defined server startup brings flexibility to data centers by rightsizing on the fly to fit any data set or workload, while also delivering in-memory performance and machine learning at any scale. TidalScale's software solution aggregates the memory, cores, and I/O of multiple physical servers to create a virtual software-defined server.
Veeam
Top Executive: William Largent, CEO and Chairman
Headquarters: Baar, Switzerland
Veeam is a software leader in backup and recovery, data protection and advanced monitoring in the data center. In March Veeam was acquired by private equity firm Insight Partners in a $5 billion deal, and is preparing to move its headquarters to the U.S. In April the company’s channel chief, Kevin Rooney, won the 2020 CRN Channel Madness Tournament of Chiefs.
Vertiv
Top Executive: Rob Johnson, CEO
Headquarters: Columbus, Ohio
The $4.3 billion company provides a slew of data center hardware along with monitoring and management software to provide visibility from the core to the edge of the network. Vertiv went public in February on the New York Stock Exchange after the company’s recent merger with GS Acquisition Holdings.
VMware
Top Executive: Pat Gelsinger, CEO
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
The data center virtualization pioneer has been extending its software prowess into Kubernetes, security and hybrid cloud over the past several years, while consistently enhancing vSphere, NSX and VxRail. VMware has spent billions on acquisitions over the past 18 months including Carbon Black and Pivotal Software, and most recently Kubernetes security startup Octarine and anti-malware research pioneer Lastline.
Wasabi Technologies
Top Executive: David Friend, CEO, President and Co-Founder
Headquarters: Boston
The cloud and edge storage startup, founded by former Carbonite CEO David Friend, allows customers to store infinite amounts of data with no data egress charges or API fees. Wasabi Technologies launched its first ever partner program last year and has generated a total of $110 million in funding.
Western Digital
Top Executive: David Goeckeler, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Western Digital provides data center object storage, solid state and hard disk drives, while its OpenFlex software-defined storage enables storage, network and compute to be disaggregated into shareable resource pools. In March Western Digital nabbed Cisco’s top networking and security leader, David Goeckeler, as its new CEO.