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Magic Quadrant for Data Center and Cloud Networking

Published 30 June 2020 - ID G00441697 - 34 min read

By Andrew Lerner, Evan Zeng, and 1 more

Data center networks underpin cloud and cloud-inspired environments; thus, they require
stability and agility. This research helps I&O leaders determine vendors’ ability to address
current and future data center networking requirements.

Strategic Planning Assumptions

By the end of 2022, the number of enterprise network teams using a SaaS-based console to manage
data center networks will increase by more than 10 times to more than 1,500.

By 2023, more than 10% of large enterprises will be running on-premises public cloud infrastructure
(such as AWS Outposts) in their private data centers, which is an increase from less than 1% in 2019.

Customers who use management consoles from their data center networking vendors to manage
networking configurations inside public cloud network infrastructures will remain less than 1% thru
2023.

By 2023, 10% of enterprises will fully integrate data center networking activities into CI/CD pipelines,
up nearly zero in early 2020.

By 2025, 20% of data center hardware switches will be procured via an as-a-service model (i.e.,
hardware as a service), up from nearly zero in early 2020.

Market Definition/Description
This research evaluates data center and cloud networking hardware and software for enterprises that
procure and manage their own data center networking infrastructures for installation on-premises or in
colocation facilities. We also evaluate the ability to extend data center networking functionality onto
public cloud providers’ infrastructures to better manage hybrid cloud networks. That said, we are not
evaluating the internal physical networking infrastructures in public cloud providers’ networks.

Vendors covered in this research provide software and/or hardware to deliver network connectivity,
primarily within enterprise data centers. Cloud and/or cloud-inspired technologies are now heavily
used inside these enterprise data centers, including virtualization and automation. Thus, for 2020, we
renamed the title of this research from “Magic Quadrant for Data Center Networking” to “Magic
Quadrant for Data Center and Cloud Networking,” to match enterprise expectations.

Specific components that make up vendor solutions include physical switches, virtual switches,
network operating systems, Ethernet fabrics, and network overlays, and the requisite management,
programmability, automation, and orchestration of these components. Furthermore, vendors in this
market have recently begun to extend their network policy, network visibility and network management
capabilities to support workloads located in public clouds.
Historically, the data center network was just a fast, scalable LAN that connected all data center
equipment, mainly servers. Although high-speed Ethernet ports (10/25/50/100GbE) are still important,
the market extends far beyond just the hardware “speeds and feeds” affiliated with switches and
switch ports. Specifically, as many enterprises are building private clouds and/or cloud-inspired data
centers, they need improved programmability, automation, orchestration and integration with the rest
of the data center infrastructure.

Magic Quadrant
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Data Center and Cloud Networking

Source: Gartner (June 2020)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Arista Networks
Arista is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Leader. Its
offering is Universal Cloud Network (UCN), which includes 7000 series switches, Extensible Operating
System (EOS), and CloudVision management and visibility platform. Arista is based in California,
U.S., with more than 4,000 enterprise customers in this market. We expect Arista to make continued
investments focused on as-a-service delivery and security enhancements.

Strengths
Arista has deep expertise and solid products to meet the needs of large and/or advanced
enterprises, including cloud providers and financial services.

Arista’s roadmap to enable cloud-managed data center networks and to provide increasing visibility
aligns to the emerging needs of customers.

Arista has strong support capabilities, based on Gartner inquiry and confirmed via reference
surveys and peer insights. Arista is one of few vendors in this research that doesn’t outsource
technical support.

Cautions
Arista has limited channel and sales resources in the midmarket, particularly outside of North
America and Europe, which limits its ability to reach and support smaller customers in those areas.

The acquisition of Big Switch Networks and continued expansion into campus networking could
impact the vendor’s support quality and code quality, and/or constrain innovation as it focuses on
integration.

Arista is very focused on large operators, including service and cloud providers who account for
over 50% of the vendor’s revenue. This could lead Arista to prioritize hyperscale needs over
mainstream capabilities.

Cisco
Cisco is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Leader. Its
offering includes fabric management via Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) or Data
Center Network Manager (DCNM), Nexus switches, and associated tools including Network
Assurance Engine (NAE) and Network Insights. Cisco is based in California, U.S., with an estimated
45,000 enterprise customers in this market. We expect Cisco to make continued investments to
expand analytics and assurance, and enhance existing multicloud offerings.

Strengths
Cisco has solid products and a large and global installed base. The vendor’s portfolio offers feature
depth and breadth and covers nearly all usage scenarios, including advanced routing and ultra-low-
latency switching.

Cisco’s roadmap to deliver increasing levels of analytics and automation aligns with emerging
customer requirements to deliver a more autonomous and self-healing network.

Cisco’s Network Insights improves Day 2 operational activities such as troubleshooting, reporting
and bug scrubs, and integrates with both Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and DCNM
controllers.

Cautions
Gartner clients report customer experience issues with Cisco at a higher rate compared to other
vendors in this research. The issues are typically centered around product complexity, software
 quality or support timeliness.

Based on inquiry and our quantitative assessment of per-port costs, Cisco’s solutions are more
expensive than most competitors.

Clients report that Cisco’s portfolio can be confusing to purchase and challenging to deploy as it
contains several distinct components including APIC, DCNM, Tetration, NAE and Network Insights.

Cumulus Networks
Cumulus is a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Visionary.
Its flagship product is Cumulus Linux, a network operating system (NOS) supported on certified
switches, including Dell, Mellanox and others. Cumulus also offers hardware switches (Cumulus
Express) and NetQ software for visibility and troubleshooting. Cumulus is based in California, U.S.,
with more than 1,500 enterprise customers. We expect Cumulus to continue investing to expand open
networking and improve management.

NVIDIA completed the acquisition of Cumulus Networks on 16 June 2020. This acquisition was not
part of our analysis because during the period of evaluation, these entities were legally independent.
Gartner will provide additional insight and research to clients as more detail becomes available.

Strengths
Cumulus’ portfolio and expertise is very well-aligned with organizations implementing DevOps
principals and/or treating network infrastructure as code.

Cumulus has been a pioneer in open networking and is available on multiple vendors’ switches,
which increases customer choice and potential for innovation.

The vendor’s roadmap and investments in automation and open networking are aligned with the
emerging needs of enterprises.

Cautions
Cumulus is one of the smaller vendors in this research in terms of revenue and geographic
coverage, which may limit its ability to grow in the market.

Cumulus lacks several capabilities that mainstream enterprises desire including turnkey plug-ins for
vCenter, Hyper-V, and ServiceNow.

The vendor does not offer four-hour hardware replacement for its branded CX switches. All other
vendors in this research offer four-hour hardware replacement for their branded switches.

Dell EMC
Dell EMC is a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Visionary.
Its flagship product is PowerSwitch. PowerSwitch supports the vendor’s own NOS and third-party
NOSs including Cumulus and SONiC. The vendor’s fabric manager is SmartFabric Director (SFD) and
is co-engineered with VMware. Dell EMC is headquartered in Texas, U.S., with more than 20,000 data
center network customers. We expect Dell to continue investments in open networking and deep
VMware integrations.

Strengths
 Based on inquiry and confirmed via reference surveys, the vendor provides strong service and
support for customers.

The vendor’s vision and track record around open networking have driven the market, enabled
innovation, and forced competitors to respond. Based on the vendor’s roadmap, we expect this to
continue.

SmartFabric Director was designed to support multivendor NOSs, and was co-engineered with
VMware to integrates tightly with NSX-T.

Cautions
The vendor was late to market with fabric management for stand-alone switches. Further, its fabric
offering requires enterprises to buy and manage dedicated out-of-band switches, which increase
cost and complexity of the environment.

The vendor’s networking portfolio offers limited functionality for workloads in the public cloud, or
agility for an already-deployed data center environment.

The vendor’s roadmap is very tightly aligned with VMware, including NSX and vRealize Network
Insight (vRNI). This may limit depth and breadth of investments Dell will make toward other cloud
and orchestration systems.

Extreme
Extreme is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Niche
Player. The vendor’s Agile Data Center offering includes multiple fabric offerings, hardware switches
and the requisite management via Extreme Management Center. Extreme is based in California, U.S.,
with more than 6,000 enterprise data center networking customers. We expect Extreme to invest in
the area of as-a-service-based management and improve investment protection across its portfolio.

Strengths
The vendor has good enterprise expertise and a solid portfolio of switches, management and
integrations that can address most enterprise usage scenarios.

Extreme Fabric Automation (EFA) provides simplified fabric functionality and is embedded in
switches. Thus, it doesn’t require an external component to manage or purchase, which simplifies
overall management and reduces costs.

The vendor’s roadmap to apply cloud-managed networking concepts via ExtremeCloud IQ aligns
with the needs of customers.

Cautions
Extreme’s portfolio has multiple switching lines and fabric management technologies from
companies it acquired, including Avaya and Brocade. Customers and prospects report confusion
with this, and we believe it increases likelihood of suboptimal product selection and limits
investment protection.

Compared to other vendors in this research, Extreme was late to deliver several capabilities in the
market, including Ansible support, RoCEv2, 400G, a container network interface (CNI), and others.
 We assess that the vendor’s support quality declined compared to prior years. Recent data
indicates improvement over the past several months.

H3C
H3C is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Niche
Player. Its primary offering is the Application-Driven Data Center (AD-DC), which includes physical
and virtual S-series switches, Comware-based NOS software, SeerNetwork Architecture (SNA)
Center for management and control, and Seer Engine for visibility. H3C is based in Beijing and
Hangzhou, China, with more than 2,000 enterprise customers in this market. We expect H3C to invest
in applying artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to improve operations, and in 400G.

Strengths
H3C has solid products and has demonstrated the ability to support customers in Greater China,
including operators of very-large-scale networks.

H3C offers excellent pricing for switches in this market, as reported by customers and confirmed by
our market statistics.

H3C provides strong networking integration with Unicloud, an IaaS cloud provider in China.

Cautions
The vendor has limited geographic reach, including installed base, channels and support services
for companies outside of Greater China.

The vendor lacks several key capabilities including configuration rollback, high-density leaf
switches, and turnkey integrations with vCenter, Hyper-V, SaltStack, and Terraform.

The vendor’s strategy is well-suited for large network environments in China, but we assess that it
may not align with mainstream enterprise customers outside of Greater China.

HPE (Aruba)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Aruba is a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of
this research, it was a Niche Player. Its flagship product in this market is called Aruba CX, which
includes NetEdit for fabric management, automation and visibility, CX series switches, and the AOS-
CX operating system. Aruba is a subsidiary of HPE, based in California, U.S., with more than 6,000
enterprise data center networking customers. We expect Aruba to continue investments in the area of
automation and cloud management.

Strengths
Aruba’s NetEdit provides fabric management in an intuitive UI, which can help network teams take
an evolutionary path to increase automation. Further, it is one of the few management products
available natively as a mobile app.

The AOS-CX OS is used across campus and data center switches, which can simplify operations,
especially when the campus and data center use a combined core.

HPE’s current offering and roadmap are well-aligned with midmarket customers, based on the
vendor’s management suite, expertise, customer support, pricing and channels.
Cautions
AOS-CX has limited third-party automation and platform integrations compared to others in this
research. For example, the vendor lacks full support for Puppet, Salt, Terraform, vCenter and
Hyper-V; and a CNI for Kubernetes.

Customers report confusion over the vendor’s portfolio, which includes FlexFabric/Comware in
addition to AOS-CX-based switches. These offerings have different operational interfaces and are
supported on different hardware platforms, limiting investment protection for customers.

Aruba has a limited number of large-scale data center deployments (beyond more than 50
switches) based on the AOS-CX platforms.

Huawei
Huawei is a Challenger in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a
Challenger. Its primary offering in this market is CloudFabric, which includes iMaster NCE
Autonomous Network Management and Control System, and CloudEngine series switches. Huawei is
based in Shenzhen, China, with more than 7,000 enterprise customers in this market. We expect
Huawei to continue investments to drive autonomous operations and to support high-performance
workloads.

Strengths
Huawei offers extremely cost-effective switching products compared to others in this research. For
example, based on our estimates, the vendor’s average price is the lowest of any vendor profiled.

The vendor has a solid portfolio of switches and associated management to meet the needs of
most customers in this market. In particular, Huawei’s AI Fabric Intelligent and Lossless Data
Center Network is well-suited to the needs of high-performance computing, requiring zero packet
loss and low-latency networks that support RoCE, such as AI/ML and nonvolatile memory express
over fabrics (NVME-oF) workloads.

In 2019, Huawei surpassed Cisco to lead the global market in terms of combined data center port
shipments for 10 Gbps and 25 Gbps.

Cautions
The vendor lacks turnkey support for several important automation capabilities including Puppet,
Chef, Salt, Terraform, NAPALM, Nornir and images in GNS3.

Huawei has a limited installed base, sales channels and experience in North America. We estimate
that less than 1% of its existing customers are based in North America.

We assess that large-scale and/or high-performance customers are driving much of Huawei’s
roadmap. This may not align with broader mainstream enterprise requirements on a global basis.

Juniper Networks
Juniper is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Leader. Its
primary offering in this market includes the QFX5000 and QFX10000 series switches, Junos OS and
Contrail Enterprise Multicloud. Juniper is based in California, U.S., with more than 7,000 enterprise
data center networking customers. We expect Juniper to make continued investments leveraging Mist
to improve network autonomy, cloud-based management and 400 Gbps improvements.
Strengths
The vendor has a strong portfolio of hardware and software, with feature depth and excellent
automation capabilities. As a result, the vendor can meet the technical needs of nearly all use
cases in this market.

The vendor’s roadmap to apply AI to improve data center networking efficiency aligns with the
emerging needs of customers.

Juniper has recently demonstrated a renewed focus on enterprise customers as noted by making
large investments to grow its enterprise sales force.

Cautions
Based on client inquiry, Juniper customers have noted poor support experiences, including
timeliness and quality. In Gartner reference surveys and Peer Insights, Juniper scores in the
average range for support.

Customers report that the vendor’s user interface for configuration can be challenging.

The vendor has limited public cloud integrations for managing hybrid environments.

NVIDIA-Mellanox Technologies
NVIDIA is a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. Its primary offering in this market is Spectrum
Ethernet Switches, acquired via the Mellanox acquisition in 2020. The vendor offers Mellanox Onyx
NOS and supports third-party NOSs including Cumulus and SONiC, with central management via
Mellanox NEO software. NVIDIA is headquartered in California, U.S., with more than 3,000 enterprise
data center networking customers. We expect NVIDIA to target investments for large-scale
environments and high-performance workloads, including 50/200/400 Gbps and telemetry.

NVIDIA completed the acquisition of Cumulus Networks on 16 June 2020. This acquisition was not
part of our analysis because during the period of evaluation, these entities were legally independent.
Gartner will provide additional insight and research to clients as more detail becomes available.

Strengths
We assess that the vendor’s portfolio is well-suited to the needs of VXLAN deployments and high-
performance workloads. In addition to switches, NVIDIA offers network interface cards, and both
switches and interface cards can be managed via NEO.

NVIDIA is a strong proponent of open switching, with support for multiple NOSs on its Spectrum
Switches, including Cumulus, and full support for SONiC.

Mellanox What Just Happened (WJH) is built into the vendor’s switches and provides detailed
analytics and telemetry including the ability to dynamically capture packet headers, which can
improve troubleshooting and mean time to repair (MTTR) for challenging problems.

Cautions
We believe the vendor’s current strategy and roadmap are highly focused on large-scale
environments and/or high-performance workloads, which may not align with broader mainstream
enterprise data center and cloud requirements.

The vendor does not offer a modular chassis-based switch.

 The vendor has limited public integrations to manage, troubleshoot and configure networking inside
public cloud environments, compared to other vendors in this research.

VMware
VMware is a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant; in the last iteration of this research, it was a Visionary.
Its flagship offering in this market includes NSX-T, a software-based network overlay, and vRealize
Network Insight (vRNI) for management and troubleshooting. VMware is based in California, U.S.,
with more than 6,000 enterprise data center networking customers. We expect VMware to continue
investments in the areas of overlay/underlay management, security and predictive capabilities.

Strengths
NSX Data Center is compelling for customers looking to extend the agility of existing data centers,
or those who want to enable intra-data-center security.

The vendor has a strong vision to deliver an Amazon Web Services (AWS)-like experience that
includes both on-premises and cloud locations, with a high degree of embedded automation and
adjacent functionality including load balancing and security.

vRNI has strong troubleshooting capabilities and is available as a service, unlike most vendors’
management platforms.

Cautions
VMware does not offer hardware switches or an NOS, which means that customers must acquire
and operate the physical underlying network separately.

NSX Data Center is undergoing a transition from NSX-V to NSX-T, and customers report that
migrating to NSX-T is difficult.

Clients remark that NSX Data Center is very expensive, which we believe is a primary reason that
adoption has been limited to less than 10% of enterprise data center networking customers.

Vendors Added and Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as markets change. As a result of
these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant may change over time. A vendor’s
appearance in a Magic Quadrant one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have
changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore,
changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.

Added
NVIDIA was added as it acquired Mellanox Technologies.

Dropped
Big Switch was dropped as it was acquired by Arista.

Mellanox Technologies was dropped as it was acquired by NVIDIA.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Vendors must provide hardware and/or software addressing the existing and emerging enterprise data
center/cloud networking requirements outlined in the Market Definition/Description section. This
requires at least three of the following product GA and fully supported capabilities (as of 15 February
2020):

Physical switch: A physical network switch with at least 48 ports of 25 Gbps or greater, supporting
multiple L2/L3 protocols

Virtual/software switch: A virtual network switch that can run on a host, with support for multiple
L2/L3 protocols, and provides switching between virtual machines (VMs) on the host

NOS: A network operating system that can run on a physical switch or host, with support for
multiple L2/L3 network protocols

Programmable fabric: The ability to manage a collection of physical and/or virtual switches as a
single construct, with embedded automation that is accessible via API

Overlay: Network overlay software that can run on top of a data center network switching
infrastructure

Centralized management: Centralized visibility, configuration and reporting capability for the
vendor’s data center networking components

Turnkey integration with Ansible: Such as a certified Ansible module

They must produce and release enterprise data center and cloud networking products for general
availability as of 15 February 2020. All components must be publicly available, shipping and included
on the vendor’s published price list as of this date. Products shipping after this date will only have an
influence on the Completeness of Vision axis.

Vendors must provide commercial support and maintenance for their enterprise data center
networking products (24/7). This includes hardware/software support, access to software upgrades,
and troubleshooting and technical assistance.

They must show relevance to Gartner’s enterprise clients on a global basis by meeting all the
following criteria:

Demonstrate at least 150 current enterprise data center networking customers (under active
support contracts).

Must have at least 25 current enterprise data center networking customers, based in each of two
separate continents (under active support contracts).

Must have at least five badged full-time sales employees (such as account managers, sales
engineers) that are headquartered in each of two continents.

Must have global support (24/7) available in at least two languages and/or must have support
documentation available in at least two languages.

Note: These may require proof in the form of a customer list certified by an officer of the company.
Further, paid proof of concept (POC) and “try and buy” scenarios are not considered customers for
this context.
Vendors must show relevance to Gartner’s enterprise clients by meeting at least one of the following,
as of 15 February 2020:

More than 1,000 current enterprise data center networking customers (with active support
contracts).

More than $60 million of recognized product revenue (generally accepted accounting principles
[GAAP]) in the data center networking market during the past four quarters (i.e., as of February
2020).

More than $30 million of recognized product revenue (GAAP) in the data center networking market
during the past four quarters, and growth at more than 30% from the prior four quarters (as of
February 2020).

Note: These may require proof in the form of attestation by a financial officer of the company. Further,
paid POC and try-and-buy scenarios are not considered customers for this context.

Exclusion Criteria

We exclude service providers offering managed network services that do not own their data center
networking technologies, because they build their offerings with commercial vendor products as the
underpinning technology.

Evaluation Criteria
Ability to Execute
Product/Service
This capability involves core goods and services that compete in and/or serve the defined market. It
includes current product and service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills, etc. This can be offered
natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships, as defined in the Market Definition/Description
section and detailed in the subcriteria.

This evaluates vendors by looking at their data center and cloud networking portfolios. We focus
primarily on products the vendor leads with in enterprise accounts (i.e., flagship). This includes
Ethernet fabrics, network overlays, physical switches, NOSs, network automation, and the requisite
management, analytics, visibility and control of these components. Particular attention will be paid to
network automation, turnkey integration with common cloud virtualization and orchestration, as well as
automation systems used in the broader data center infrastructure, and the ability to support DevOps
practices. We evaluate the vendor’s portfolio and product architecture, including feature depth and
breadth, as it relates to the enterprise.

Overall Viability
We assess the likelihood of the vendor to continue to invest in and grow its enterprise business in this
market on a global basis. This includes an assessment of the organization’s overall financial health, as
well as the financial and practical success of the business unit. It views the likelihood of the
organization to continue to offer and invest in the product, as well as the product position in the current
portfolio. We assess multiple metrics including relative revenue and unit share, revenue/unit growth
and customer acquisition.

Sales Execution/Pricing
This involves the organization’s capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that supports
them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support and the overall
effectiveness of the sales channel.

We evaluate the capabilities and effectiveness of the vendors and their associated channels, including
the depth and breadth of their sales channel and coverage. We also evaluate how the vendors interact
with their current and potential customers, primarily in presales activities, including account
responsiveness and product positioning. The second aspect of this criterion involves our evaluation of
the cost-effectiveness and cost flexibility of the proposed solutions, including purchase and support.
We assess customer acquisition, hardware/software share, hardware/software growth and
hardware/software pricing, as well as customer feedback regarding pricing.

Market Responsiveness/Track Record

This includes the ability to respond, change direction, be flexible, and achieve competitive success as
opportunities develop, competitors act, customer needs evolve, and market dynamics change. We
assess the vendor’s track record in delivering new capabilities when the market needs them. This
means exhibiting flexibility when necessary or staying the course in the face of fickle trends, and the
ability to drive technology trends, instead of just reacting to them. This includes how well the vendor’s
offerings match enterprise functional, financial and operational requirements at the time of purchase.
We assess the timing of when new capabilities were delivered to the market, such as key product
integrations and/or new pricing models.

Marketing Execution
This includes the clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the
organization’s message to influence the market, promote the brand, increase product awareness,
drive lead generation and establish a positive identification in the minds of customers. We assess the
relevance of messages to the enterprise, consistency of message, and creativity/differentiation of
message.

This “mind share” can be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional, thought leadership, social
media, referrals and sales activities. This focuses on how the vendor is perceived in the market, and
how well its marketing programs are recognized.

We also assess the vendor’s overall visibility and awareness in the market. A key indicator for the
effectiveness of this criterion is how often potential buyers consider a vendor as a possible supplier in
a shortlist evaluation.

Customer Experience
This involves products and services and/or programs that enable customers to achieve anticipated
results with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes quality supplier/buyer interactions,
technical support or account support. It may also include ancillary tools, customer support programs,
availability of user groups, service-level agreements (SLAs), etc.

We assess multiple aspects of the customer interaction, with a heavier weighting on postsales service
and support activities. This includes customers’ experience with the vendors’ data center networking
products and services used in their environments, including initial (Day 0) deployment, as well as day-
to-day (Day 2) operation and management. This includes hardware and software quality, overall
solution stability and how existing customers describe their experiences with the vendors’ products.
We assess direct feedback from customers across multiple sources of information.

Operations
Not rated.
 Table 1: Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Product or Service High

Overall Viability High

Sales Execution/Pricing Low

Market Responsiveness/Record Low

Marketing Execution Low

Source: Gartner
Customer (June 2020)
Experience High

Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding
Operations Not Rated

This criterion involves the ability to understand enterprise customer needs and translate them into
products and services. Vendors that demonstrate clear vision of their markets listen, understand
customer needs, and can shape the market and add customer value with their added vision.

We assess the vendor’s understanding of existing and emerging enterprise and cloud data center
network requirements on a global basis. We assess how well the vendor understands its current
market positions, including its own strengths and weaknesses. We also assess how well the vendor
understands its market competitors.

Marketing Strategy
We assess whether the vendor’s marketing strategy is clear, relevant to the enterprise and
differentiated in a way that will drive business. We look at the vendor’s plans to influence the market
through its messaging and marketing campaigns. This includes clear, differentiated messaging and
thought leadership aligned with product roadmaps.

Sales Strategy
We assess the clarity and relevancy of the vendor’s enterprise sales strategies on a global basis. This
evaluates the vendor’s strategy to maintain and extend the scope and depth of its market reach. It
includes go-to-market strategies, new use cases for products, alliances and partnerships. In addition,
we assess how the vendor exploits emerging business and technology transitions, such as appealing
to new buyers/influencers and offering new pricing models.

Offering/Product Strategy
We evaluate how the vendor plans to address current and emerging enterprise challenges as
identified in the Market Definition/Description section. We primarily assess product-related roadmaps
and planned capabilities the vendor intends to deliver.

We assess the vendor’s roadmap of planned capabilities for their relevance and value to enterprise
buyers. We also assess the degree of uniqueness and creativity of planned offerings.

Business Model
Not rated.

Vertical/Industry Strategy
Not rated.

Innovation
This criterion measures the vendor’s ability to drive, shape, or transform the enterprise market by
delivering new capabilities. Innovation is not necessarily a simple check box of current and proposed
product features or services. Innovations are not just incremental improvements. Innovation can cover
multiple aspects of the vendor’s strategy. Innovations can deliver functional, financial and/or
operational benefits to enterprise cloud and data center networking customers. Innovations address
customer challenges and/or provide increasing value to customers. We look at how the vendor plans
to invest in new capabilities to move its business and the market forward, with a focus on capabilities
that are differentiated and offer high value to the enterprise buyer. This includes direct, related,
complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation,
defensive or preemptive purposes.

Geographic Strategy
This evaluates the vendor’s strategy to maintain and grow enterprise data center and cloud
networking customers on a global basis. This includes the ability to meet the specific needs of
geographies outside the “home” or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and
subsidiaries. In particular, this includes the vendor’s strategy for international sales and support, as
well as its internationalization efforts. This criterion is important to buyers that want to use a global
vendor. Geopolitical issues may also affect the overall viability of vendors in this market.

Table 2: Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Market Understanding Medium

Marketing Strategy Low

Sales Strategy Low

Offering (Product) Strategy High

 Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Business Model Not Rated

Vertical/Industry Strategy Not Rated

Source: Gartner (June 2020)

Innovation High
Quadrant Descriptions
Leaders
Geographic Strategy Low
A Leader has demonstrated sustained ability to address changing network requirements for enterprise
data centers that underpin cloud and cloud-enabled infrastructures, including a complete product
portfolio. A Leader also has high visibility in the market; the ability to drive, shape and transform the
market; and can maintain strong relationships with its channels and customers on a global basis.

Challengers
A Challenger has demonstrated sustained execution in the marketplace, and has clear, long-term
viability and visibility in the market and a solid product portfolio. However, a Challenger has not
consistently demonstrated the ability to drive, shape and transform the market.

Visionaries
A Visionary has innovated in some key areas of data center networking, such as automation, open
networking, management and/or cost reductions. Visionaries often help to transform the market by
driving new ideas for solving enterprise challenges.

Niche Players
A Niche Player has a complete or near-complete product offering, but has limitations, such as
geographic reach. A Niche Player has a viable product offering, but has not shown the ability to
transform the market or maintain sustained execution.

Context
There are approximately 100,000 data center networking customers in the market, and client interest
remains high. Gartner inquiries for data center networking increased about 10% year over year.
Interestingly, about 10% of Gartner clients express a strong desire to “close the corporate data center”
at some point in the future. However, products in this market are not exclusive to on-premises and
colocation facilities, as they now offer functionality that extends into the public cloud providers such as
AWS and Microsoft Azure.

The focus from clients has shifted from traditional hardware switching to enabling private cloud and
cloud-inspired environments, underpinned by virtualization and automation. However, network
availability is still a fundamental requirement. Outages in the data center affect the business financially
and reputationally, as 32% of reference customers indicate a one-hour network outage has a financial
impact of more than $1 million, and 34% of reference customers indicate a one-hour network outage
has a financial impact between $100,000 and $1 million.
This translates to a need for high-quality hardware and software, solid customer support combined
with strong automation and cloud integrations.

Market Overview
In this market, the primary business outcome is local network connectivity within enterprise data
centers to support cloud and cloud-inspired environments, delivered in an automated fashion with
central management. These environments are highly virtualized (typically 80%) and increasingly
containerized (often 10% and growing). Based on our interactions with clients over the past 12
months, clients’ top priorities when picking a solution include:

Core product functionality including switching, automation/agility and integrations with key third
parties

Corporate stability

Product reliability/quality and customer support

Roadmap and future vision

As it relates to roadmap and future vision, key areas of interest to our clients include support for:

Automation, including alignment with DevOps and infrastructure as code (IaC) principles

Hyperconverged infrastructure

Kubernetes and containers

Multicloud networking

Market Direction
Over the next 18 months, we expect continued incremental improvements in automation,
hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), containers, and predictive analytics. Further, we expect two
substantial shifts to occur: (1) mainstream adoption of as-a-service-based cloud management, and (2)
blurring of public/private data center networking offerings (i.e., multicloud versus distributed cloud).
Beyond 18 months, the emergence of a viable open-source NOS is a strong possibility.

Cloud-Managed Data Center Networks

Cloud-managed networks are very popular for WLAN and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) products
to simplify management. While many clients would benefit from the simplified operation associated
with cloud management, there is very limited availability and adoption of solutions in the data center
market today. In fact, we estimate fewer than 100 customers are running the available options (which
include VMware vRNI and Cumulus NetQ).

However, based on the roadmaps of vendors and the value to enterprises, we expect this number to
increase to more than 1,500 by 2023. In particular, this will be compelling in smaller midmarket data
centers where a “two-switch data center” will support 1,000 VMs.

Multicloud Networking Versus Distributed Cloud

Data center networking vendors, such as Cisco (ACI Anywhere), VMware (“NSX Everywhere”), Arista
and Extreme are extending their on-premises capabilities into public cloud infrastructures. So far,
adoption and usage of these technologies beyond basic visibility are very limited. Further, we expect
usage to remain limited and predict that the number of customers who use management consoles
from their data center networking vendors to manage networking configurations within public cloud
network infrastructure will remain less than 1% through 2023.

Meanwhile, the public cloud providers are doing the same in reverse, with offerings such as AWS
Outposts, Microsoft Azure Stack and Google Anthos. For example, AWS Outposts is a rack of
equipment that includes two network switches managed/operated by AWS. We predict rapid adoption
of these offerings. By 2023, we predict that more than 10% of large enterprises will be running on-
premises public cloud infrastructure in their private data centers, which is an increase from less than
1% in 2019. (See “How to Bring the Public Cloud On-Premises With AWS Outposts, Azure Stack and
Google Anthos.”)

SONiC as Mainstream NOS

For the first time in this market, a viable commercial ecosystem is forming around an open-source
NOS: Software for Open Networking in the Cloud (SONiC). SONiC was initially written and open-
sourced by Microsoft, and is reportedly within Microsoft Azure and several other large cloud provider
networks, service providers and even several enterprises. Commercial vendors in this market are
aggressively investing in SONiC, including supporting it on their switches, providing commercial
support, and enhancing software stability, scalability and functionality. Vendors with GA support for
SONiC today include Dell, NVIDIA-Mellanox, Apstra and Arista; and we expect other vendors to follow
suit. As a result, there is a very strong possibility that, within the next two to five years, SONiC for data
center networking will become analogous to Linux as a server OS, allowing enterprises to standardize
on an NOS that is supported across hardware vendors.

Evidence
Gartner analysts conducted more than 350 client interactions on the topic of data center networking
from February 2019 through February 2020.

Gartner reviewed public-facing materials from vendors including websites, blogs and technical spec
sheets.

All vendors submitted responses to a questionnaire regarding their current and planned capabilities.

We surveyed reference customers provided by vendors in this research (n = 81).

Analysts reviewed Gartner’s Peer Insights reviews for this market.

Automated social media listening tools were used to track user responses on social media and public
discussion forums as leading indicators for consumer sentiment, preferences and activities. The data
tracked is specific to quantifiable keywords (e.g., vendor flagship products) and phrases, as well as
qualitative assessments, and evaluations of results and use cases.

Port share for data center networking is derived from “Market Share: Enterprise Network Equipment
by Market Segment, Worldwide, 4Q19 and 2019.”

Gartner reviewed public financial statements for vendors.

“Nokia, Dell, Apstra Get SONiC With Microsoft,” SDxCentral.

Evaluation Criteria Definitions

Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the defined market. This includes
current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and so on, whether offered natively or
through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the
subcriteria.

Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the
financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that the individual business unit
will continue investing in the product, will continue offering the product and will advance the state of
the art within the organization's portfolio of products.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and the structure that
supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, and the
overall effectiveness of the sales channel.

Market Responsiveness/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.

Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliver the
organization's message 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 initiatives,
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 and so on.

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 to 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 products 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 sets 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 vertical markets.
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.