2012 CRN Data Center 100: Part 1

The Data Center 100

Large or small, a data center requires a wide range of building blocks, brought together from a huge list of potential vendor options. Here's our list of some of the key technology players solution providers and their customers need to be aware of. The following represents a cross-section of the data center provider community, with representatives from as many different parts of the industry as possible.

For more of our list, check out part two of CRN's Data Center 100.

A10 Networks

San Jose, Calif.
Lee Chen
Founder, CEO

A10’s AX Series platforms tackle application delivery and server load balancing, IPv6 migration and virtualization, and help businesses with application availability, scalability and performance; infrastructure efficiency; and end-user performance.

Acronis

Woburn, Mass.
Alex Pinchev
CEO

Acronis develops data protection and disaster recovery technology for physical, virtual and cloud environments. Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 centralizes Windows and Linux workstation, and server backup and disaster recovery management activities.

Aerohive Networks

Sunnyvale, Calif.
David Flynn
CEO

Aerohive provides cloud-enabled Wi-Fi and routing solutions for companies, branch offices and teleworkers. Key are its cooperative control Wi-Fi architecture, public or private cloud-enabled network management, and routing and VPN solutions.

Amazon

Seattle
Jeff Bezos
Founder, CEO

Amazon has become a key alternative to purpose-built data centers by making it relatively easy for companies to move their businesses to the cloud via its Amazon Web Services, including Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon SimpleDB and more.

APC by Schneider Electric

West Kingston, R.I.
Laurent Vernerey
President, CEO

APC by Schneider Electric serves data center customers across all industries with its flagship solution, InfraStruxure, a scalable system that provides power, cooling, racks, security and infrastructure management through StruxureWare for Data Centers.

AppAssure Software

Reston, Va.
Najaf Husain
CEO, President

AppAssure provides complete server, data and application protection for physical, cloud and virtualized infrastructures, including in VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, and guarantees instant and 100 percent reliable application recovery.

AppSense

New York
Darron Antill
CEO

AppSense’s user virtualization technology can be deployed in any cloud, physical, virtual or mixed data center environment. It manages user-specific information independent of the desktop, applying it to any environment on demand.

Arista Networks

Santa Clara, Calif.
Jayshree Ullal
President, CEO

Arista develops Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches for large data center and high-performance computing environments. Its switches, which also are used to implement compute clouds, are based on its own Extensible Operating System platform.

Aryaka Networks

Milpitas, Calif.
Ajit Gupta
President, CEO

Aryaka provides scalable, reliable connectivity and visibility between enterprise locations while enabling acceleration of cloudbased applications hosted on public or private cloud infrastructures, with the WAN optimization intelligence in a secure cloud.

Avaya

Basking Ridge, N.J.
Kevin Kennedy
President, CEO

Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services to companies of all sizes around the world.

AVG Technologies

Chelmsford, Mass.
J.R. Smith
CEO

AVG is a worldwide developer of security technologies related to software development, threat detection, threat prevention, and risk analysis. It also offers realtime technology to protect customers in online, cloud and social networking environments.

Barracuda Networks

Campbell, Calif.
Dean Drako
President, CEO

Barracuda Networks offers comprehensive content security, data protection and application delivery solutions via premisesbased gateways and software, virtual appliances, cloud services and remote support.

Big Switch Networks

Palo Alto, Calif.
Guido Appenzeller
Co-Founder, CEO

Big Switch Networks supports the OpenFlow intelligent networking traffic management standard with its Big Switch Networks Controller software platform for virtualizing enterprise data center networks. The Controller is in beta testing.

Blue Coat Systems

Sunnyvale, Calif.
Gregory Clark
President, CEO

Blue Coat develops Web security technology, including gateway appliances and a cloud-based Web security service. It also provides WAN optimization technology. Blue Coat in late December was being acquired by a private equity firm.

BMC Software

Houston
Robert Beauchamp
Chairman, CEO

BMC Software's unified Business Service Management platform simplifies and automates IT processes, and orchestrates workflow across cloud, virtual, distributed and mainframe resources.

Broadcom

Irvine, Calif.
Scott McGregor
President, CEO

Broadcom is a leading provider of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, with products that enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and between businesses of any size.

Brocade

San Jose, Calif.
Michael Klayko
CEO

Brocade develops networking solutions for storage, Ethernet and converged networking environments. It has long been a storage networking leader and in 2010 expanded its IP networking portfolio with a family of Ethernet fabric switches.

CA Technologies

Islandia, N.Y.
William McCracken
CEO

CA develops IT management software and solutions across mainframe and physical to virtual and cloud environments. Products include service, product and management software, ARCserve data management/protection software and IT security solutions.

Canonical Group

Boston

Canonical produces Ubuntu. Ubuntu Server is a leading cloud infrastructure OS, underpinning most OpenStack-based clouds. Ubuntu Server is also popular as a guest OS as a foundation for big data implementations and Web infrastructure.

Certeon

Burlington, Mass.
Peter Dougherty
President, CEO

Certeon provides virtual WAN optimization appliances for VMware, Microsoft and Citrix virtualized environments. Its aCelera virtual appliance is deployed at both ends of a WAN to help overcome bandwidth limitations.

Check Point Software Tech.

Redwood City, Calif.
Gil Shwed
Chairman, CEO

Check Point secures networks, data and endpoints via a single management framework. Products include gateway, management and endpoint security solutions; most can be delivered in physical and virtual environments as an appliance or a software blade.

Cisco Systems

San Jose, Calif.
John Chambers
CEO

Cisco is the leading vendor of networking solutions, including for IP and storage networks in physical, virtual and cloud environments. It ties its server and networking technologies into a converged infrastructure called the Unified Computing System.

Citrix Systems

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Mark Templeton
President, CEO

Citrix has become a key provider of technology for building virtual server and desktop environments. Citrix also provides technology for hosting, managing and delivering cloud-based computing services and is a pioneer in online collaboration.

CommVault

Oceanport, N.J.
N. Robert Hammer
Chairman, President, CEO

CommVault develops the Simpana data and information management software suite. Simpana 9 provides a full range of modern data management functions, including backup and recovery, data snapshots, deduplication, replication and more.

Crossbeam Systems

Boxborough, Mass.
Mike Ruffolo
President, CEO

Crossbeam’s X-Series family of high-performance network security platforms allows the deployment of security applications from industry-leading partners onto a single chassis, creating a consolidated, virtualized security infrastructure.

CyberPower Systems

Shakopee, Minn.
Bob Lovett
President

CyberPower is the second-largest manufacturer of UPS systems and surge protection products based on retail sales and shipments. Its products provide data center capabilities, including UPS, surge protection, power distribution units and more.

DataCore Software

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
George Teixeira
President, CEO

DataCore's SANsymphony-V software enables IT organizations to overcome storage cost, capacity, performance and availability challenges related to desktop and server virtualization projects.

Dell

Austin, Texas
Michael Dell
Chairman, CEO

Dell is a major supplier of servers, storage and PCs to the data center and has expanded deeper into enterprise storage, professional services and networking. Dell also offers enterprise software through its Virtual Integrated System solutions.

Eaton

Cleveland
Alexander Cutler
Chairman, CEO

In the data center, Eaton is one of the largest providers of power quality and monitoring technology, including UPS systems, backup batteries, power distribution, power conditioning, surge protection, energy management and monitoring technology.

EMC

Hopkinton, Mass.
Joe Tucci
Chairman, President, CEO

EMC is a leading provider of information and virtual infrastructure technologies, solutions and services to help businesses move to the cloud and transform IT environments. EMC also focuses on Big Data to help create data-driven, predictive enterprises.

Emerson Network Power

Columbus, Ohio
Scott Barbour
EVP

Emerson Network Power is a leading supplier of data center power and cooling equipment, which it sells mainly under the Liebert brand. It also provides Avocent data center infrastructure management solutions, DC power systems, racks and more.

ESET

San Diego
Andrew Lee
CEO, ESET North America

ESET makes integrated server-to-endpoint antimalware solutions based on its ESET NOD32 technology. ESET NOD32 employs advanced heuristics to proactively detect and disable known and emerging Windows, Mac and Linux malware.

ExaGrid Systems

Westborough, Mass.
Bill Andrews
President, CEO

ExaGrid offers a disk backup appliance with deduplication purpose-built for backup that includes an architecture optimized for performance, scalability and price. ExaGrid works with backup applications and utilities from several major companies.

F5 Networks

Seattle
John McAdam
President, CEO

F5 appliances focus on application delivery networking. Products include the BIG-IP line of application delivery controllers for access control and application security, the ARX file virtualization appliances, FirePass SSL VPNs and more.

FalconStor Software

Melville, N.Y.
James McNiel
President, CEO

FalconStor's data protection solutions transform traditional backup and recovery into service-oriented data protection. Its solutions feature a common platform to help eliminate backup windows and ensure rapid data and IT service recovery.

Fedora Project

Jared K. Smith
Fedora Project leader


The Fedora Project is the developer of the Fedora distribution of the Linux operating system. It is sponsored by Red Hat, which discontinued its prior Red Hat Linux distribution when Red Hat Enterprise Linux, based on Fedora, was released.

Fortinet

Sunnyvale, Calif.
Ken Xie
President, CEO

Fortinet develops network security and unified threat management appliances to provide data centers with high-performance protection. The FortiGate security platform integrates firewall, VPN, antivirus, intrusion prevention, application control and more.

Fujitsu America

Sunnyvale, Calif.
Anthony P. Doye
President, CEO

Fujitsu's integrated offerings include systems integration, managed services, outsourcing and cloud services for infrastructure, platforms and applications; data center and field services; and server, storage, software and mobile/tablet technologies.

Fusion-io

Salt Lake City
David Flynn
Chairman, CEO

Fusion ioMemory efficiently processes large amounts of data very quickly. Combined with Fusion VSL, ioMemory acts as a storage memory tier within the enterprise server, with performance similar to DRAM, but 100 times the capacity.

Google

Mountain View, Calif.
Larry Page
CEO

Google has in the past couple of years moved into the data center with cloud-based e-mail, word processing, calendar and spreadsheet applications; cloud-based storage; the Chrome browser; and the Android mobile operating system.

Hewlett-Packard

Santa Clara, Calif.
Meg Whitman
President, CEO

HP supplies servers, storage, desktop/mobile PCs, networking, printers, information management software and more. HP is also developing converged infrastructures combining server, storage and networking resources into one data center architecture.

Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)

Santa Clara, Calif.
Jack Domme
CEO

HDS is one of the top three system-independent midrange and enterprise storage system vendors. Its Virtual Storage Platform scales in capacity and performance while virtualizing both HDS and non-HDS capacity into flexible storage pools.

Huawei

Plano, Texas
Ren Zhengfei
CEO

Huawei is a China-based global provider of commercial telecom networks and is serving 45 of the world's top 50 telecom operators. It provides wired, wireless and core networking technology; mobile and video devices; software; and services.

Huawei Symantec

Cupertino, Calif.
Jane Li
GM

Huawei Symantec was formed as a joint venture to manufacture storage servers and security equipment for midsize and enterprise data centers and in 2011 unveiled a line of networking products. Symantec sold its share off to Huawei in 2011.

IBM

Armonk, N.Y.
Ginni Rometty
President, CEO

IBM is one of the top server, storage, software and security vendors serving from SMBs to data centers. It is one of only a handful of vendors providing complete hardware and software solutions to data centers.

Infortrend

San Jose, Calif.
Tony Chu
President, Infortrend U.S.

Its SAN, NAS and DAS storage solutions are based on proprietary ASICs and include ESVA Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN arrays; EonStor DS low-cost SAN appliances; EonStor scalable SAN appliances; and EonNAS unified SAN-NAS appliances.

Intel

Santa Clara, Calif.
Paul Otellini
President, CEO

Intel produces the microprocessors, chipsets, mainboards and network controllers that power the majority of servers and PCs in the data center, as well as key components used to build storage, networking, security and other products.

Juniper Networks

Sunnyvale, Calif.
Kevin Johnson
CEO

Juniper Networks provides a broad portfolio of network innovation offerings for the data center, including routing, switching, security, application acceleration, identity policy and control, and management products.

Kaspersky Lab

Woburn, Mass.
Stephen Orenberg
Chief Sales Officer

Kaspersky specifically zeros in on antimalware protection from the desktop to the cloud, including smartphones, and provides software to protect both internal corporate communications and interactions with the outside world.

LSI

Milpitas, Calif.
Abhi Talwalkar
President, CEO

LSI provides storage and networking controllers and switches, and many of the component-level controllers used in storage and networking. It also offers a solid-state storage-based application performance card for servers.

For more of our list, check out part two of CRN's Data Center 100.