Leader: Cohesity

Ranked as a ‘Visionary’ in last year’s Magic Quadrant, Gartner has elevated Cohesity to a ‘Leader’ in 2020, ranking second for vision and among the middle of the pack for execution. Cohesity’s DataProtect backup product is part of the Cohesity DataPlatform which is a scale-out software-defined platform that consolidates application and backup management. Last year, Cohesity acquired Imanis Data to expand its capabilities to include NoSQL data protection. The company’s recently launched a new consumption-based pricing model for MSPs to help clients cut up-front data infrastructure costs, while Cohesity also closed on a $250 million funding round.

Strength: A Cohesity cluster can comprise server nodes from different OEMs – such as Dell, Cisco and HPE -- as well as Cohesity nodes.

Weakness: Gardner said Cohesity’s frequent major update cadence to DataProtect has resulted in a high number of known issues and concerns reported by customers, indicating an inadequate prerelease quality assurance testing process.