The Coldago research firm has ranked file storage suppliers in the Cloud, Enterprise and High-Performance markets, making for interesting reading alongside rankings from GigaOm.
Coldago looks at file storage overall and then divides it into three categories which allow it to evaluate 35 suppliers in total and compare them in a three-way split. This seems to us to be a more appropriate way of doing it than comparing them all in a single unstructured data category, for example.
Coldago conceives of the market as a map diagram: its take on the Gartner Magic Quadrant approach, placing suppliers in a two-dimensional space to indicate where they are in the market based on their vision and strategy on the one hand and their execution and capabilities on the other. Suppliers are ranked in a low (bottom left corner) to high (top right hand corner) fashion with closeness to the diagonal line representing a balance between the two dimensions.
Then the analysis splits the suppliers into four categories: Niches, Specialists, Challengers and Leaders as we move from left to right in the diagram. The Cloud File Storage case sees 17 suppliers evaluated, with Nasuni and CTERA leading the group being in the Leaders’ category together with third-placed Panzura:
The other suppliers in this group, in alphabetical order, are AWS, Buurst, Cohesity, Egnyte, Hammerspace, JuiceData, LucidLink, Microsoft, Morro Data, NetApp, ObjectiveFS, Peer Software, Tiger Technology and XenData.
The Enterprise file storage supplier ranking places Microsoft at the top followed by NetApp and Pure Storage. IBM, Dell and VAST Data complete the Leaders’ area list. There are no Niche or Specialist suppliers at all in this file storage map, and five Challengers: iXsystems, SUSE, Qumulo and Veritas.
Several of these vendors appear in the High Performance File Storage map:
There are no Niche players but we see NEC, Fujitsu, Quobyte and Huawei in the Specialists category. ThinkParQ, HPE, Panasas and Quantum are listed as Challengers. Qumulo just enters the Leaders’ section with a closely positioned sextet of vendors ranked higher: IBM, WEKA, VAST Data, Dell, DDN and surprise, Pure Storage leading everyone else with the best balance of execution and capabilities versus vision and strategy. That’s seven leaders overall.
Intel’s DAOS is not included in this look at high-performance file storage suppliers. We understand Intel did not respond to Coldago’s inquiries.
More details of the evaluation criteria and measurement scores are available (for a price) in Coldago’s report looking at the three categories of file storage.
