Magic Quadrant for Enterprise LAN (Global)

Transcription

1 Research Publication Date: 8 August 2011 ID Number: G Magic Quadrant for Enterprise LAN (Global) Mark Fabbi, Tim Zimmerman Cisco still leads in global enterprise LAN, but all vendors continue to innovate and address competitive pricing. Enterprises that follow best practices for network architecture, design and procurement will be best able to take advantage of the differentiation, functionally and financially Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner's prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company, and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner's Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see "Guiding Principles on Independence and Objectivity" on its website,

2 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW This is an updated version of research last published on 10 June The vendors (see Figure 1) in this Magic Quadrant provide viable, well-supported LAN infrastructures for mainstream enterprise requirements, but are able to provide differentiation through global strategies and functionality, such as wireless LAN (WLAN) integration, industrial Ethernet and data center network innovations. Enterprises must balance requirements for largely ized feature sets with new capabilities and total cost of ownership (TCO) for the anticipated seven-plus-year life span of new switches. Major LAN purchases and upgrades should not take place without a full competitive review, with enterprises targeting capital cost reductions for enterprise LAN infrastructures of at least 30%, and a reduced TCO that incorporates capital expenditures AND additional value and reduced pricing for service and maintenance over the life of the equipment. MAGIC QUADRANT Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Enterprise LAN (Global) Source: Gartner (August 2011) Market Overview LAN switching is a longstanding and mature market, and is one of the largest network equipment expenditures for enterprises. In 2010, the market rebounded by 32% after the significant contraction of 2008 to 2009, and is now roughly the same $16 billion size it was in The market has evolved to one in which products are expected to have a useful deployment life of at Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 2 of 16

3 least seven years (see "Toolkit Tactical Guideline: New Enterprise Network Useful Life Recommendations"). During the past 12 months, the networking landscape has continued to shift. Cisco continues as the dominant vendor; however, the growing challenges from HP and Juniper Networks have put significant pressure on Cisco, and the market has clearly shifted to a buyers' market. Over the past four quarters, Cisco gained 4% in port share (up to 57%), while losing 4% in revenue share (down to 73%), indicating that Cisco had to ship more ports at a lower average selling price (ASP) in an attempt to maintain share. The new HP Networking organization now has a 13% revenue share, while achieving a 34% port share. Juniper has captured a nearly 3% revenue share, as it continues to expand its presence. Brocade held its own on the strength of its data center business, while most other vendors continued to lose ground. The net result of these changes is a more clearly delineated and tiered marketplace. HP and Juniper have become established as viable, mainstream Tier 1 vendors, with the financial resources to compete directly with Cisco across nearly all fronts. This is further supported by customers increasingly evaluating HP and Juniper as alternative vendors for their enterprise networking projects, and adding them to shortlists that historically may have only included Cisco. Brocade has strength in the data center; however, it is still on the fence as to competing more broadly with recognized Tier 1 players. As we see vendor tiering across the networking landscape, we are also seeing vendor specialization to provide differentiation in specific segments, including the emergence of datacenter-focused vendors the most obvious and successful to date has been Blade Network Technologies (BNT; evaluated in this research after its acquisition by IBM), which has expanded its portfolio to include top-of-rack (ToR) switches. At the edge of the network, we are seeing convergence of wired and wireless, as vendors such as Aruba Networks introduce an edge switch. Market Definition/Description Gartner continues to see a shift in buying practices from one that approaches the LAN as a homogeneous mass to one that is looking at three largely independent decisions. These LAN building blocks are the campus edge (increasingly in combination with WLAN access), the campus core and the data center. Each has distinct technology requirements. For campus edge, the maturity of the technology and the stabilization of business requirements mean that most enterprises should start by looking at their requirements (including new applications such as building access), and should be diligent about delivering solutions that are rightsized to meet these requirements, with a well-ized feature set that all the vendors can easily provide. WLANs continue to gain momentum at the edge of the network, growing at 30% in As enterprises look to have a single set of wired and wireless governing policies and tools, the acquisition of wireless companies by larger wired vendors continues. Vendors look to integrate network management and security into a converged user experience and a single "plane of glass." Wireless provides a new way for network vendors to differentiate, as multistream n radio technology provides shared 450 Mbps over the wireless medium to provide comparable bandwidth as 10/100 Mbps switched infrastructures. Additionally, new network services not only provide new functionality and marketing, but also a robust revenue stream as vendors look to use location information for context applications and deep-packet inspection as a method to further optimize the quality of service that looks not only at the type of data, but also to the application that is using it. Enterprises continue to look at authentication and guest access solutions for their new wireless connectivity, and are now re-evaluating wired access that has traditionally been provided by network access control (NAC) solutions. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 3 of 16

4 In the core of the network, we're also observing an evolution of requirements. Large data centers increasingly depend on the network layer. Requirements for emerging data centers can involve thousands of Gigabit Ethernet server connections and an increasing use of 10G server connections when larger servers aggressively use server virtualization technologies. The core now clearly uses a 10G interconnection between switches, and large data centers are anticipating the delivery of 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet products. Another emerging approach is to deploy a dedicated ToR switch with a 10G uplink into the core. To meet either of these high-end architectures, an individual core switch must support dense, wire speed, low-latency 10G capabilities. Data center switches need to have enough combined port density to allow a switch interconnection without seriously reducing the number of devices connected to the switch. We are finding the high-end market stratified, with vendors such as Brocade, Cisco, Juniper Networks and HP emerging as the leading players in high-capacity, scalable architectures. We are also seeing the beginning of converged data center networks using Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and Data Center Bridging (DCB). Although in their infancy, the FCoE and DCB protocols are contributing to the shift in physical and logical network architectures in the data center. We are also tracking vendors such as Arista, Big Switch, NEC and Nicira at their various stages of evolution as they innovate in scalable, low-latency solutions and software-defined networking approaches, which are demonstrating that new thinking and architectures can have a positive effect on the market. The net result is that we are seeing a new segmented market where network access, core and data center are increasingly separate decisions, with clearly defined and differentiated requirements. It is no longer valid to think of one switching market, where there is a near-total overlap between the connectivity required to support user connections and that required for connecting servers and storage in the data center. This split between aggregation and data center connectivity will become more prevalent. An important key evaluation criterion for every enterprise is delivering a cost-effective infrastructure solution. A significant portion of the market hasn't used the sophisticated features available in many vendors' products, and now faces upgrades as their installed bases age. In the overall market, vendors achieve a 60% to 65% gross margin in LAN switching, indicating that more cost-effective approaches are certainly possible, based on evaluation of usage scenarios. Organizations should focus on the life cycle costs of their infrastructures, including capital costs, warranty terms and conditions, power utilization and available services. Organizations that are upgrading infrastructures that are more than seven years old should focus on procuring a, rich feature set, but should target cost reductions for capital and maintenance costs of at least 50%. The market has options for lower-cost switches (from a range of providers), comprehensive lifetime warranties and free software upgrades to provide a more cost-effective economic model, without giving up the required level of functionality for most usage scenarios. For the access layer, there should be no hurdles to easily achieving a seven-year life span with either 10/100 Mbps or gigabit switches. For the broader market, cost should be an elemental consideration when looking at LAN infrastructures. Many enterprises overprovision their LANs, especially at the edge. Enterprises can procure 10/100 edge switches with Power Over Ethernet (PoE) for most of their user populations, or can look to vendors with significant value propositions for 10/100/1,000 options. Only functions with exceptional network requirements (such as video production engineering, medical imaging, geographic information systems, high-end computer aided design and scientific research) would justify the use of gigabit to the desktop. The adjustment to purchase 10/100 or WLANs as the connection would easily save more than 15% of overall LAN Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 4 of 16

5 procurement and maintenance costs for the enterprise. Further fine-tuning of requirements, combined with competitive bidding, would reduce these costs by an additional 15% to 50%. Because of the large discrepancy between Cisco's LAN revenue and the rest of the market, vendor viability comes up in many of our discussions. However, we see no risk with the other Tier 1 vendors we have identified, and only marginal medium- to long-term risk with any of the players in this analysis. Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity is always a possibility, though. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Vendors in this Magic Quadrant must demonstrate two clear capabilities to be included in our analysis. The first is the ability to deliver enterprise-class solutions for LAN infrastructures and to be relevant to our client base. Second, a vendor's market share needs to be at 1% revenue or port share of the broad, enterprise-focused Ethernet market, or at least 5% in a significant market segment. Vendors included in this research have the ability to provide a full campus LAN infrastructure, or have innovations in select areas to provide key and differentiated functionality. Added IBM was added due to its acquisition of BNT, a vendor focused on data center solutions for server access both integrated in blade server chassis, as well as top-of-rack switching solutions. Dropped None Evaluation Criteria Ability to Execute The following provides some insight into the criteria Gartner uses when evaluating a vendor's ability to execute. At a high level, our analysis of Ability to Execute attempts to capture how well a vendor is performing across primary functional units of the business product, sales/channels, marketing, service/support and financial. Product/Service: Evaluates vendors by looking at their overall portfolios, with a particular focus on the four attributes identified: convergence, embedded security, data center scalability and life cycle attributes. More emphasis was placed on capabilities that would apply in an open, multivendor application scenario, because many of these areas cross boundaries of the IT architecture, making proprietary protocols a problem. Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Looks at a vendor's investments in the LAN switching market, its financial investments and capabilities, and its longterm viability. Sales Execution/Pricing: Was weighted higher than others on the execution axis, because it combines an evaluation of presales and go-to-market activities, as well as an analysis of the resulting pricing and solution to the enterprise. For presales activity, the evaluation focuses on the vendor and its channel's ability to deliver comprehensive LAN infrastructure solutions especially those focused on the three technical areas of innovation: convergence, security and data center. The second aspect of this criterion includes our evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of the solutions for capital purchase and long-term maintenance. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 5 of 16

6 Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Looks at the vendors' ability to evolve their portfolios to meet changing requirements. A key portion of this criterion is the vendors' long-term track record for meeting market demands with a reasonable amount of portfolio or product churn. Marketing Execution: Focuses on how the vendor is perceived in the market, and how well its marketing programs are recognized. For LAN infrastructure, the evaluation focused on how well the vendor was able to influence the market around key messages and attributes related to the four key areas in the market. An additional indicator for this criterion is how often Gartner clients consider a vendor as a possible supplier in a shortlist evaluation. The change in momentum in this indicator is particularly important. Customer Experience: Looks at all aspects of the customer interaction, with a heavier weighting on postsales service and support activities (see Table 1). Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria Evaluation Criteria Product/Service Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization) Sales Execution/Pricing Market Responsiveness and Track Record Marketing Execution Customer Experience Operations Source: Gartner (August 2011) Weighting high no rating Completeness of Vision Evaluations for completeness of vision attempt to determine how well the vendor understands and is preparing for future market conditions, as well as shaping the future market. Market Understanding: Looks at the vendor's ability to consider the future and drive new ideas into product road maps and offerings. In this market, leadership in driving the four key areas into the product offering is a good example, and demonstrates key abilities in this area. Marketing Strategy: Evaluates the ability of the vendor to influence the market through its messaging and marketing campaigns. Vendors that have incorporated the key LAN criteria discussion points in the industry have demonstrated an ability to use their marketing strategies to their advantage. Examples are Cisco's "self-defending network" marketing campaign or Avaya's Energy Efficiency Calculator. Offering (Product) Strategy: Evaluates how the vendor invests in R&D to continue to innovate in key areas, and to ensure that future products continue to evolve. Innovation: Measures the vendor's ability to drive into new, related areas of LAN switching, and to move its own business, as well as the market. Geographic Strategy: Measures how a vendor is approaching global opportunities and takes advantage of a global marketplace. Sales Strategy and Vertical/Industry Strategy: Were not ranked, given the maturity and horizontal nature of the market (see Table 2). Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 6 of 16

7 Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria Evaluation Criteria Market Understanding Marketing Strategy Sales Strategy Offering (Product) Strategy Business Model Vertical/Industry Strategy Innovation Geographic Strategy Source: Gartner (August 2011) Leaders Weighting no rating no rating low A leader has demonstrated a sustained ability to meet the changing needs for mainstream LAN switching architectures. A leader also has an ability to shape the market and maintain strong relationships with its channels and customers, while offering solutions for the edge, core and data center. Challengers A challenger has demonstrated sustained execution in the marketplace, and has clear, long-term viability in the market, but has not shown the ability to shape and transform the market. Visionaries A visionary has demonstrated an ability to increase features in its offering, to provide a unique and differentiated approach to the market. A visionary has innovated in one or more of the key areas of campus LAN technologies, such as convergence, security, data center and operational efficiency. Niche Players A niche player has a complete or near-complete product offering, but does not have strong go-tomarket capabilities or innovation in its product offering. A niche player has a viable product offering, and, in some cases, will be an appropriate choice for large infrastructure deals. Vendor Strengths and Cautions Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) is a strong player in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, voice technologies, applications and services. The introduction of its Application Fluent Network approach ties not only the network infrastructure together from end to end, but also allows scalability in the data center with the integration of multiple pods. ALU should be considered for LAN switching when current customers are adding to an existing installed base, or are looking to leverage one stop convergence with an ALU voice solution. ALU should be on the shortlist for European infrastructure decisions, with careful consideration for other geographical areas. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 7 of 16

8 Strengths Cautions ALU continues to strengthen its Application Fluent Network strategy with the introduction of the OmniSwitch 6850E, which can be used at the edge, but also is flexible enough with 10 GbE uplink capacity and improved link utilization to be used as a ToR switch. ALU also launched the OmniSwitch 6900 platform for the core and OmniSwitch 10K for the data center to address today's high-capacity 10 GbE requirements. ALU has a strong networking strategy and is executing not only with platform development, but also with portfolio services around security and management that complement its offering. The ALU architectural vision in the data center provides a strong message regarding virtualization, identification of a pod construct and meshing communication to scale beyond the pod, as the industry has had a strong focus on the data center. Despite a good product vision, ALU is a small player in the enterprise data market, which limits its ability to influence a broader customer set. Better-known for its European presence, ALU continues to have limited exposure in North America, despite making efforts to improve visibility. ALU's access layer solution uses the Aruba WLAN technology. The lack of internal control for this important access layer capability limits ALU's ability to respond to market needs, especially if those requirements differ from the target markets Aruba is looking to penetrate. Avaya (Nortel) Avaya's introduction of its Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA) is providing the foundation for new and upgraded switching platforms. Avaya's strategic direction looks to integrate VENA services, as well as messaging, to the entire portfolio. The Virtual Services Platform (VSP) 9000, as well as the Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 8800, demonstrates Avaya's focus on the data center and virtualization. The addition of the ERS 5000 helped fill out Avaya's workgroup LAN switch offering. The Avaya Networking team has completed the Nortel transition, and has stabilized the product offering and revenue stream. Avaya is attempting to leverage the brand and traditional Avaya voice relationships to expand its networking footprint. Despite these efforts, sales lagged throughout 2010, with Avaya losing nearly 1% of market share (from 2.7% in 2009 to 2.0 in 2010). Consider Avaya for any core or data center opportunities, as well as complementary to other Avaya solutions or any Nortel network refresh projects. Strengths The introduction of the ERS 7000 ToR switch has helped to provide a solid data center offering around the VSP 9000 or the ERS 8600, while leveraging market messaging centered around VENA. Avaya offers a well-integrated wired and wireless access layer strategy for enterprises considering a converged access layer. The company has a loyal customer base in both data networking and voice; however, it is important that the sales organization use this leverage to increase mind share and wallet share in the installed base. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 8 of 16

9 Cautions Brocade Avaya is a good vendor for any solution that has voice content whether voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or voice over WLAN (VoWLAN), and we don't see the necessary linkage with a converged data networking organization to provide a larger enterprise solution. Continued brand awareness, sale channels and execution issues continue to limit Avaya's opportunities. Avaya has lacked a more integrated data center story for server/network integration and storage area network/network integration to gain market share. Avaya's WLAN growth has been slower than its competitors. A move back to an internally developed solution may help in the long term, but does little to differentiate in the current access market. Brocade has depth of expertise across all data center networking technologies, and in the past year saw the introduction of Brocade's next-generation Virtual Cluster Switching (VCS) architecture. Sales execution has been solid, with Brocade growing at roughly market rates for the year; however, for Brocade to be relevant in the long term outside the data center, it needs to advance its access layer strategy and continue to clean up and simplify its product portfolio. Consider Brocade primarily for data center infrastructures with extensions into the campus, especially as Brocade completes its campus portfolio streamlining. Strengths Cautions Cisco The VCS solution is a well-thought-out solution for next-generation data centers. It provides for well-integrated Layer 2 and 3 architectures, with simplified and largely automated operations that include self-configuring links and switches for the Layer 2 mesh architecture. It is well-positioned for next-generation virtualized data centers. A strong presence in corporate data centers and the collective assets of high-end LAN switching, Fibre Channel and FCoE technologies put Brocade in a solid technology position. Customer support remains a strength, and Brocade's greater geographic reach and service capabilities have enhanced its capabilities. Converging server and storage solutions into a unified network continues to add unique differentiation, and enhances the Brocade advanced data center vision. Channel coverage remains a challenge for Brocade, and we find that it misses out on enterprise opportunities. Brocade does not yet have a fully realized vision for next-generation campus solutions and converging the campus access layer for wired and wireless access. Cisco is the market leader and a major influence in LAN switching. There was a strong focus this year on data-center-centric solutions, and Cisco continues to provide leadership with the Nexus Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 9 of 16

10 offering, as well as revamping the Catalyst 6500 platform for extended life in some use cases. The breadth of products and feature sets allows Cisco to meet a variety of price-for-performance points based on the customer's needs for resiliency and business agility. Cisco updates across the different product families, including the launch of Prime, and product warranty changes show that it is recognizing customer needs and feedback, as well as the competitive landscape. Cisco should be on a shortlist of vendors for all mainstream requirements. Strengths Cautions Enterasys Cisco Prime for Enterprise, its next-generation management platform, will provide a much needed centralized management and policy enforcement platform for Cisco's broad portfolio of LAN switching and WLAN solutions. As the product continues to mature, enterprises should consider this platform as a consolidation point for their Cisco and non-cisco infrastructure components. With policy enforcement being part of the next wave of market differentiation that will be extended to the application, Cisco's Unified Access Point Platform provides granular per-user and per-device access policies from the edge of the network for wired and wireless access, to campus core and all the way to the data center. The introduction of the Nexus 5500 and 3000 platforms are among several announcements that show the continued investment, evolution and maturity of the Nexus product family. The extension of limited lifetime warranties across all of its workgroup access LAN switches helps make Cisco more competitive in a market area where lowering TCO should be a prime buying consideration. The Borderless Networks message needs to deliver more compelling, differentiated solutions, such as the 30+ Watt Universal PoE strategy, WLAN or media rich capabilities, to drive market acceptance of the messaging, instead of just adding pointlevel functionality to appear competitive or differentiated. The proliferation of point solutions (Nexus 3000 and FabricPath) runs counter to the trend of making data center infrastructures more homogeneous, and the lack of feature integration between Nexus and Catalyst solutions inhibits customer transitions to Nexus. Reference checks, while still strong, show that some Cisco customers are increasingly critical of Cisco's efforts in sales, engineering and support relationships. Enterasys continues to offer a solid end-to-end portfolio from the data center to the wired and wireless edge of the network, but also continues to struggle with branding and name recognition. Consider Enterasys when its flow-based, policy-driven integrated security features offer key differentiation. Strengths Enterasys Data Center Fabric Architecture addresses data center requirements for 40 GbE and DCB. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 10 of 16

11 Cautions Application-aware functionality enabled by deep-packet inspection and policy management can provide differentiation and better granular control for applications above Level 2 and 3. Customer feedback continues to highlight customer support and service as a differentiator. Enterasys continues to have a small market footprint, with 1% to 2% market share, and is somewhat limited geographically to North America and Western Europe coverage As part of the larger Siemens Enterprise Communications organization, Enterasys has potential for longer-term leverage; however, we've seen little or no benefits from the combined company to date. Enterasys continues to suffer from a lack of brand awareness, which is limiting its opportunities in a consolidating market. Extreme Networks Extreme Networks provides a converged Ethernet network infrastructure that supports data, voice and video for enterprises and service providers. The company's network solutions focus on high performance, high availability and scalable switching solutions. Consider Extreme when its XOS solutions bring specific value to campus or data center deployments. Strengths Cautions HP The ability for the Extreme BlackDiamond platform to deliver 40 GbE functionality and the structure to support 100 GbE in the data center has it poised to address enterprises in the most demanding environments. Extreme continues to invest at the edge of the network, with a vision of a converged wired and wireless access layer. XOS, through the SummitStack portfolio and in conjunction with Motorola, focused on an architecture that guarantees the quality of user experience. Extreme's OEM deal with Netgear is an opportunity for Extreme to increase sales in a market that it has not been able to directly serve in the past. Extreme has continued to struggle over the past year to demonstrate presence in the enterprise LAN marketplace, and was rarely seen on shortlists. Extreme has not been able to sufficiently differentiate XOS to provide a compelling value proposition. Security and wireless continue to fit well within the mobility marketing campaign, but Extreme is arriving late to the market with any differentiating functionality. HP Networking has established itself as the clear No. 2 player in the enterprise switching market. In 2010, HP Networking grew revenue by 40% over the combined 2009 HP ProCurve and 3Com revenue. While HP clearly kept the momentum going for the combined portfolio, it did not make as much progress in integrating the portfolio and presenting a strategic, visionary view of how HP Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 11 of 16

12 would move its solutions forward. There is still too much overlap in the portfolio, and it is not yet clear how HP will provide an integrated data center solution, combining the best of HP Networking and HP's Virtual Connect FlexFabric server capabilities. Consider HP Networking for all opportunities in LAN access, LAN core and data center. Every organization should at least consider and competitively include HP on all network evaluations. Strengths Cautions IBM HP now has a complete, end-to-end LAN switching and WLAN portfolio that can address the needs of all organizations, from small to large enterprises, from the LAN edge to the network core and into the data center. The continued integration of HP Networking into the HP Enterprise Servers Storage and Networking (ESSN) organization provides HP with a extremely large sales force/channel and complete global reach. The combination of a large, productive R&D organization based in China and HP's supply chain and design expertise offer a potentially disruptive force that could change the economics of the enterprise networking marketplace. Lifetime hardware warranties, software upgrades and business-day telephone support across all access products results in the lowest long-term maintenance costs in the industry. HP offers well-integrated wired and wireless solutions in the market. The company is well-positioned to continue its growth at the edge of the network. HP Networking has the ability to leverage the global capabilities and experience provided by Technology Services and Enterprise Services, both of which have been large partners for other major vendors. More than a year after closing the acquisition of 3Com, portfolio integration has only just started. Both portfolios were already suffering from portfolio bloat; combining them without aggressive pruning has led to further confusion. HP's enterprise sales force has helped open a lot of potential opportunities for HP Networking, but insufficient sales and support are not allowing it to leverage the situation. We have seen HP lose deals due to lack of coverage and networking expertise in the field. HP is behind with the development of its next-generation data center core switch, and does not yet have as strong a solution as other vendors for next-generation core data centers. IBM re-entered the LAN switching Magic Quadrant with its purchase of BNT in late BNT was founded to provide switch technologies for the emerging blade server market. With growing success with partners such as IBM and HP, BNT broadened the portfolio to include ToR switching for a more complete server access portfolio. An increasing amount of BNT business was with IBM, so the acquisition made sense for both parties. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 12 of 16

13 Strengths Cautions IBM has a comprehensive line of blade server switches, as well as ToR switch options running at 1/10/40G. The offering provides strong capabilities to deal with virtual environments through BNT's VMready software, which allows visibility and control down to the individual virtual machine (VM) level. IBM has extensive experience designing and operating complex data center networks. Owning part of the technical solution will allow it to expand capabilities for server access. While the BNT solution is a strong one, it only represents part of a data center networking solution. IBM has been absent from the networking hardware market for more than a decade (it sold off its hardware business to Cisco in 1999), and therefore lacked networking expertise within the IBM hardware organization. It is not completely clear what IBM's complete networking strategy is at this stage, and sorting out various IBM-owned products, OEM products from the likes of Brocade and Juniper and long-standing integration partnerships with Cisco and others will not be easy for IBM or its channels until it provides a more complete strategic direction. Juniper Networks Juniper continued to increase its presence in the LAN switching market through 2010 and emerged as the No. 3 player in the enterprise switching market. Its strong, software-based discipline results in simpler operations and consistent management. Juniper is mentioned in more than half of our inquiries when clients are looking at a shortlist of vendors for LAN purchases. Consider this vendor for all campus and data center upgrade and refresh requirements. Strengths Cautions Juniper has a strong history of technology execution, especially with Layer 3 technologies. The recently introduced QFabric solution is innovative and will significantly reduce operational costs in the data center. The company has maintained a streamlined portfolio of products, with largely singleproduct groups targeted at the LAN edge, LAN core and data center switching requirements. Juniper continued with an aggressive pricing approach to the market in competitive situations. Aggressive pricing, combined with very good service and support, keep Juniper well-positioned in the market. The company remained a strong No. 3 in client mentions during inquiries, and was mentioned in 26% of reference surveys as a vendor considered during the evaluation of new switching purchases. Channels and account coverage continue to limit Juniper's opportunities. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 13 of 16

14 The recently acquired WLAN solution from Trapeze is not as feature-rich as many in the market today, and the JUNOS integration work requires significant investment to ensure that it does not fall further behind the competition for integrated access solutions. Revenue in Juniper's LAN switching portfolio declined in 1Q11. This could be due to the anticipated QFabric solution announced at the end of the first quarter, or it could be indicative of churn in Juniper's enterprise marketing organization and the lack of a seasoned enterprise networking management team. While Juniper is still the third most mentioned vendor in our inquiries and in the customer reference survey, client inquiries have slowed over the past few months. RECOMMENDED READING Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription. "Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors Within a Market" "Toolkit Tactical Guideline: New Enterprise Network Useful Life Recommendations" Vendors Added or Dropped We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor appearing in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or a change of focus by a vendor. Evaluation Criteria Definitions Ability to Execute Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor that compete in/serve the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills, etc., whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria. Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue investing in the product, to continue offering the product and to advance the state of the art within the organization's portfolio of products. Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all pre-sales activities and the structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, pre-sales support and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel. Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's history of responsiveness. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 14 of 16

15 Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the organization's message in order to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This "mind share" can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities. Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups, service-level agreements, etc. Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure including skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis. Completeness of Vision Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance those with their added vision. Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer programs and positioning statements. Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling product that uses the appropriate network of direct and indirect sales, marketing, service and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the customer base. Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development and delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature set as they map to current and future requirements. Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business proposition. Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticals. Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes. Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that geography and market. Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 15 of 16

16 REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS Corporate Headquarters 56 Top Gallant Road Stamford, CT U.S.A European Headquarters Tamesis The Glanty Egham Surrey, TW20 9AW UNITED KINGDOM Asia/Pacific Headquarters Gartner Australasia Pty. Ltd. Level 9, 141 Walker Street North Sydney New South Wales 2060 AUSTRALIA Japan Headquarters Gartner Japan Ltd. Aobadai Hills, 6F 7-7, Aobadai, 4-chome Meguro-ku, Tokyo JAPAN Latin America Headquarters Gartner do Brazil Av. das Nações Unidas, andar World Trade Center São Paulo SP BRAZIL Publication Date: 8 August 2011/ID Number: G Page 16 of 16