Gartner has ditched Cohesity from its latest Distributed file systems and object storage magic quadrant (MQ), saying it no longer meets “the inclusion criteria.”
The 2022 MQ was crafted in August that year and published months later in October. It was comprised of 17 suppliers, including newcomers Cohesity – with its SmartFiles product – and VAST Data. In the lastest reworking Gartner has assigned 16 suppliers, with new entrant DataCore making up for IBM acquiring RedHat.
The quadrant ranks suppliers of distributed file systems, object storage software and hardware appliances for storing, securing, and protecting unstructured data. They have network access using file and object protocols, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Network File System (NFS) and Server Message Block (SMB).
Suppliers are scored on various attributes of these two concepts and then placed in the MQ diagram according to their summed and weighted scores, with a presence towards the top right of the quadrant being desirable. That area has the highest ability to execute and completeness of vision.
A comparison on the 2022 and 2023 MQs shows the suppliers and changes:
In summary:
- Last year’s five leaders remain this year’s five leaders
- Leaders IBM and Scality each fell back
- NetApp changed from visionary to a challenger
- Quantum changed from visionary to a niche player
- Niche player Inspur became niche player IEIT Systems
- Niche player DataCore was added
- Visionary Red Hat disappears due to IBM acquisition
- Four challengers became less closely grouped
The inclusion criteria requirements are lengthy, with 18 specific points that must be met. These points have changed from the 2022 edition to this year. For example, in 2022 Gartner required vendors to have sold more than $15 million of recognized product revenue over the last four quarters, and to have at least 100 production customers each consuming more than 500TB of raw capacity through either distributed file or object storage protocols only.
This year the requirement is for revenue to be higher than $25 million, or $15 million with a 30 percent year-on-year growth rate, plus at least 150 active production customers each consuming more than 500TB of raw capacity through either distributed file or object storage protocols only.
It is unclear which of the inclusion criteria was or were not met by Cohesity – we have asked the company to reply.
Pick up your own copy of this Gartner MQ here – courtesy Scality.
