2019 Data Center 50
The Data Center 50
The data center is evolving. The rise of cloud, software-defined, cost-efficient energy solutions, hyper-scale facilities and the need for more edge computing is changing how companies build and sell data center offerings.
IT research firm Gartner is projecting that by 2025, 75 percent of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside a traditional data center or cloud. In addition, Gartner said that by next year 75 percent of organizations will have deployed a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud model.
This shift is making data center providers of infrastructure, facilities and services change the way they approach customers. CRN shines a light on 50 key vendors who are evolving and powering today’s data centers through innovative offerings such as micro data centers, consumption-based infrastructure-as-a-service, automation, moving resources closer to the edge and hyper-converged infrastructure. Here is CRN’s 2019 Data Center 50 list.
128 Technology
Andy Ory, CEO
Headquarters: Boston
The networking software startup, which is aiming to grow its channel base, takes software-defined routing to a new level with its 128T Networking Platform. It offers secure routing to simplify network architecture while providing a single control plane and a data plane that is session-aware.
APC by Schneider Electric
Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: West Kingston, R.I.
APC by Schneider Electric builds a wide variety of offerings from power and cooling hardware to software and as-a-service solutions for nearly all data center needs. The company recently developed an HCI-based micro data center in a box offering as well as a SaaS-based data center management platform, EcoStruxure IT for Partners.
Apstra
Mansour Karam, CEO
Headquarters: Menlo Park, Calif.
The network startup is a pioneer for intent-based networking with its Apstra Operating System that automates data center operations across the network regardless of customers’ vendor mix. Its API-driven software features intent-based analytics and extensible telemetry that continuously monitor and maintain the network.
Arista Networks
Jayshree Ullal, President, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The data center networking specialist has shipped more than 20 million ports worldwide with CloudVision software and its advanced network Extensible Operating System. Arista recently released containerized EOS as well as security capabilities for customers deploying cloud-native applications on private, hybrid and public clouds.
Avi Networks
Amit Pandey, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The red-hot startup makes it easy to apply load balancing, web application firewall and service mesh to any application in any data center. The Avi Vantage Planform takes a software approach to application delivery with elastic and programmable services. Avi Networks recently launched Avi SaaS for multi-cloud load balancing.
Big Switch Networks
Douglas Murray, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
Big Switch Networks’ software-defined Big Cloud Fabric enables virtual private cloud-based networking to deliver automation and visibility to data centers and hybrid cloud environments. Big Cloud Fabric gives admins a clear view into the network while enabling rapid deployment, simple upgrades and constant visibility.
Broadcom
Hock Tan, President, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The company designs an array of data center offerings including switching, network controllers, fiber optic components, storage adapters and its Broadcom Fibre Channel that delivers nonstop availability and performance for all-flash. In November, Broadcom acquired enterprise data center provider CA Technologies for nearly $19 billion.
CloudGenix
Kumar Ramachandran, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The SD-WAN star provides its CloudGenix AppFabric that allows businesses to integrate cloud and SaaS applications, create a secure application-defined fabric across any WAN transport and dramatically automate operations. AppFabric operates at the application layer, allowing IT teams to implement and enforce top-down policies that align with business goals.
Cisco Systems
Chuck Robbins, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The networking giant is becoming a stronger force in the data center through innovations in software management, servers, software-defined storage and architectures like HyperFlex, one of the world’s most popular hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. Cisco’s new “data center anywhere” vision aims to move products and resources closer to where applications live.
Cologix
Bill Fathers, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Denver
Cologix operates 28 co-location data centers across North America offering a slew of managed services and cloud-neutral interconnections. Cologix provides access to network providers and managed cloud for customers. In December, the company acquired hyper-scale data center firm Colo-D.
CoolIT Systems
Geoff Lyon, CEO, CTO
Headquarters: Calgary, Alberta
The innovative liquid cooling vendor specializes in CPU, GPU and memory liquid cooling for data center servers and high-performance computing systems. Through its modular rack-based Direct Liquid Cooling technology, Rack DCLC, CoolIT boosts rack densities, component performance and power efficiencies.
Citrix Systems
David Henshall, President, CEO
Headquarters: Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Citrix ADC powers data center infrastructure at scale by combining virtualization of application delivery controllers and servers for optimization without a heavy reliance on hardware. The global software provider offers application, desktop and server virtualization along with networking, SaaS and cloud computing offerings.
Cumulus Networks
John Leslie, CEO
Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.
Cumulus Networks provides networking software to design, run and operate data centers that are simple, open and agile. The Cumulus Linux open network operating system allows users to automate, customize and scale using web-scale principles. The company recently formed a major hyper-converged infrastructure partnership with Nutanix.
CyrusOne
Gary Wojtaszek, President, CEO
Headquarters: Dallas
One of fastest-growing data center providers in the world, CyrusOne owns more than 45 facilities in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. The carrier-neutral company provides co-location services with robust connectivity, flexibility and cloud services. CyrusOne recently said that it is constructing the largest mission-critical data center campus in Silicon Valley.
Dell EMC
Michael Dell, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Round Rock, Texas
The infrastructure giant is the largest data center provider with a massive portfolio that spans servers, storage, automation, networking, hyper-converged infrastructure and software as well as joint software-defined data center offerings with VMware. Dell EMC also provides racks, UPSes, power distribution and KVM/KMM management consoles.
Docker
Steve Singh, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: San Francisco
Container market leader Docker provides an open-source platform that builds, manages and secures applications from development to production for data centers and in the cloud. Docker’s founder and CTO, Solomon Hykes, recently left the company and was replaced by former VMware executive Kal De.
Digital Realty
William Stein, CEO
Headquarters: San Francisco
With more than 210 data centers on four continents, Digital Realty is one of the largest data center operators in the world. The co-location giant delivers virtual or physical data center connectivity and interconnection as well as hybrid cloud services. In December, the company acquired Brazil’s leading data center provider, Ascenty, for $1.8 billion.
Eaton
Craig Arnold, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland
Eaton owns a diverse portfolio of data center products and services specializing in power solutions around energy management, automation, software, power protection and structural devices. The company will acquire a controlling interest in Ulusoy Elektrik aimed at boosting its power distribution systems and manufacturing base overseas.
Equinix
Charles Meyers, CEO
Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.
Equinix continues to expand its lead as the world’s largest global interconnection and data center company. Equinix offerings such as its Cloud Exchange Fabric allows networks to streamline their access to cloud providers including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. The company named longtime tech leader Charles Meyers as its new CEO in September.
Extreme Networks
Ed Meyercord, President, CEO
Headquarters: Sam Jose, Calif.
The network specialist provides an Agile Data Center product set that delivers cross-domain automation, fabric-based networking for visibility, multi-vendor management, open APIs and flexible consumption models. Extreme Networks acquired Brocade Communications’ switching, routing and analytics data center business in 2017.
Faction
Luke Norris, CEO
Headquarters: Denver
The fast-growing managed services provider is boosting the number of data centers positioned in close proximity to hyper-scale cloud providers to reduce latency for connecting to Faction’s Cloud Control Volumes. Faction, which specializes in VMware Cloud on AWS, recently unveiled a new data center in London.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Antonio Neri, CEO
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
HPE has one of the most powerful data center infrastructure portfolios in the world, offering a wide range of big data, cloud, hyper-converged infrastructure, Internet of Things, server, storage, security and services. Last year, HPE acquired software-defined data fabric networking standout Plexxi.
Hitachi Vantara
Ryuichi Otsuki, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The innovation engine has been roaring at Hitachi Vantara as the vendor adds features to its rich data center portfolio of converged infrastructure systems, big data and analytics, data protection, storage and IoT offerings. In October, Hitachi acquired REAN Cloud to boost its big data and IoT capabilities.
Huawei
Ren Zhengfei, President
Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
One of the biggest data center infrastructure providers in Asia, Huawei has an array of data center offerings from hyper-converged infrastructure and networking hardware to compute and storage virtualization. The telecom giant’s Cloud Data Center Infrastructure portfolio includes public and distributed cloud offerings.
IBM
Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President, CEO
Headquarters: Armonk, N.Y.
IBM offers a slew of services including data center design and construction, cabling and connectivity, application migration, and operations management. After building 18 new data centers last year, the company is focused on leveraging IBM Cloud and IBM Watson as well as modular data centers.
Inspur
Peter Sun Pishu, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Jinan, China
Inspur develops server virtualization, cloud data center management and desktop virtualization software for the data center. As one of the worldwide leaders in servers, Inspur is in the midst of expanding its presence in global internet companies data centers with its JDM model.
Juniper Networks
Rami Rahim, CEO
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
Named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Data Center Networking , Juniper provides switching, cloud, software-defined networking and security offerings and services to the data center. Its Contrail Enterprise Multicloud orchestration and analytics platform is designed for any cloud and workload across multi-vendor environments.
Lenovo
Yang Yuanqing, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Morrisville, N.C.
Lenovo changed the way it sells data center offerings by launching TruScale Infrastructure Services, a consumption-based IaaS offering. Lenovo’s Data Center Group provides a broad portfolio of servers, networking, software and converged systems while also recently forming a strategic partnership with NetApp.
LogicMonitor
Kevin McGibben, President, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Barbara, Calif.
LogicMonitor offers its SaaS-based performance monitoring platform for data centers with built-in security controls and data protection that can support more than 1,200 technologies through a single pane of glass. The company recently launched its first-ever Partner Program for hybrid IT monitoring.
Microsoft
Satya Nadella, CEO
Headquarters: Redmond, Wash.
The software giant has more than 100 data centers available in 140 countries including several of the largest hyper-scale facilities in the world. As the second largest public cloud provider with Azure, Microsoft offers compute virtualization, storage and software-defined networking offerings for data centers.
NetApp
George Kurian, President, CEO
Headquarters: Sunnyvale, Calif.
NetApp provides a variety of data center infrastructure management, storage software, converged and hyper-converged systems, workload automation, and data backup and recovery offerings. NetApp Services helps customers plan, build and deploy a modern data center including building an IT-as-a-service strategy.
NTT Communications
Tetsuya Shoji, President, CEO
Headquarters: Tokyo
The global data center service provider offers co-location, hosted, managed and cloud services in over 140 geographies. NTT Communications recently created a new subsidiary to handle new data center construction, asset management and services sales in a move to boost data center investments on a global scale.
Nutanix
Dheeraj Pandey, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The hyper-converged infrastructure pioneer is an innovation leader for data center software, launching a slew of new features and offerings over the past 12 months. Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, built on its hyper-converged infrastructure technology, offers the simplicity of public cloud with the security and control of a private cloud.
Nvidia
Jensen Huang
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The artificial intelligence innovator providers GPUs that run high-performance computing data centers while offering monitoring and management tools. Nvidia recently launched a new co-location DGX-Ready Data Center program and a joint converged infrastructure appliance with IBM’s new SpectrumAI.
Oracle
Mark Hurd, Safra Catz, CEOs
Headquarters: Redwood City, Calif.
Oracle designs, builds and operates data centers with a focus on renewable energy while also offering a full integrated stack of cloud applications and platform solutions. In January, Oracle opened a new data center in Toronto to better support Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure in the region.
Palo Alto Networks
Nikesh Arora, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
Palo Alto Networks delivers a range of next-generation security offerings for the data center including firewalls, data protection, automation and its Panorama network security management. The company plans to purchase analytics and automation vendor Demisto to bolster threat prevention and response for security teams.
Pivot3
Ron Nash, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
With a multi-tier architecture powered by NVMe flash and optimized by its Intelligence Engine, Pivot3 Datacenter Series delivers predictable performance, adaptive scalability and simplified management offerings. The hyper-converged infrastructure standout has turnkey appliances or software-only hyper-converged infrastructure offerings as well as IoT products for the data center.
Red Hat
James Whitehurst, President, CEO
Headquarters: Raleigh, N.C.
The open-source data center Linux provider offers Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure that tightly integrates Red Hat technologies to build and manage a private IaaS environment. Red Hat, set to be acquired by IBM, also provides a slew of infrastructure management and hyper-converged tools.
Scale Computing
Jeff Ready, CEO
Headquarters: Indianapolis
Ready recently told CRN that his red-hot hyper-converged infrastructure company is besting the competition through simplicity and automation. Scale Computing consistently innovates its flagship HC3 product set, including the new HC3 Edge Solution that enables enterprises to deploy mini data centers at the edge of their networks.
Siemens
Joe Kaeser, President, CEO
Headquarters: Munich, Germany
Siemens provides a wide variety of data center hardware and software offerings from data center management suites and cooling products to physical security and fire safety management. The industrial giant acquired application development software provider Mendix last year for $730 million.
Stratoscale
Ariel Maislos, CEO
Headquarters: Israel
Stratoscale provides the building blocks to create modern applications faster and continuously scale. Stratoscale offers an AWS-compatible services suite, Chorus, and open-source IaaS with its Symphony family of products to transform data centers into more agile and flexible environments.
SolarWinds
Kevin Thompson, President, CEO
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
The end-to-end data center monitoring and management specialist provides unified visibility across compute, storage, network and applications. SolarWinds Backup services protect servers, workstations and data all from a single console. The company acquired Trusted Metrics to boost its cybersecurity offerings.
Supermicro
Charles Liang, Chairman, President, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
Supermicro is a large provider of data center products including motherboards, chassis, network switches, servers, storage and high-performance computing. The company’s new generation of its X11 Data Center Optimized SuperServer family is designed to deliver the best performance per watt and per dollar.
TierPoint
Jerald Kent, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: St. Louis
The data center provider offers co-location, hosting, IaaS, cloud computing, managed security and disaster recovery for its 43 facilities located across the U.S. TierPoint recently launched its Cloud Connect Express service that provides low-latency connections from all its data centers to public cloud services.
Tripp Lite
Glen Haeflinger, President
Headquarters: Chicago
Tripp Lite has over 4,000 data center offerings including UPS systems, PDUs, network switches, racks, cooling, KVMs and cables. The global manufacturer of power protection and connectivity offerings also provides PowerAlert, a software platform for enterprise-level system management and control.
Vantage Data Centers
Sureel Choksi, President, CEO
Headquarters: Santa Clara, Calif.
The wholesale data center provider recently raised a whopping $675 million to greatly expand its data center footprint, including the acquisition of Canada-based 4Degrees Colocation. Vantage Data Centers designs custom facilities, provides turnkey solutions, and offers management and migration services.
Vertiv
Rob Johnson, CEO
Headquarters: Columbus, Ohio
A leader in designing, building and servicing data center infrastructure, Vertiv provides power, thermal management, control and monitoring software, racks and enclosures, as well as services for performance optimization and maintenance. Last year, Vertiv acquired power, cooling and management provider Geist.
Versa Networks
Kelly Ahuja, CEO
Headquarters: San Jose, Calif.
The SD-WAN and software security startup simplifies data center operations with centralized provisioning, management, policy control and application visibility. Built on cloud principles, Versa Networks Cloud IP services platform integrates routing, SD-WAN and layered security functions.
VMware
Pat Gelsinger, CEO
Headquarters: Palo Alto, Calif.
The virtualization superstar provides a slew of data center offerings from hyper-converged infrastructure and software-defined networking to automation and operations management. VMware, majority-owned by Dell Technologies, owns a software-defined data center platform that brings together virtualized compute, storage and networking with cloud management.
vXchnge
Keith Olsen, Chairman, CEO
Headquarters: Tampa, Fla.
The carrier-neutral co-location data center provider has 14 edge facilities in the U.S., specializing in data center-as-a-service and interconnectivity. vXchnge’s smart system regularly checks the status of power, cooling, network performance and security.