This IT Brand Pulse report includes data from the independent, non-sponsored annual survey on Scale-Out File Storage--voted on by IT professionals--covering six categories of brand leadership: Market, Price, Performance, Reliability, Service & Support and Innovation. Please contact us at info@itbrandpulse.com for information on this or other technology product brand leader surveys.

1. Scale-Out File Storage
2017 Brand Leader Survey Report

2. Table of Contents:
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Brand Leader Survey Report
Brand Leader Survey Methodology Page 3
Brand Leader Definitions Page 4
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Brand Leader Survey Results Page 5
Selected Voting Organizations Represented Page 7
Respondent Title/Job Description Page 8
Respondent Data Center Environment Page 9
About Scale-Out File Storage Page 11
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Survey Summary Analysis Page 12
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Market Leader Chart Page 14
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Price Leader Chart Page 15
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Performance Leader Chart Page 16
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Reliability Leader Chart Page 17
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Service & Support Leader Chart Page 18
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Innovation Leader Chart Page 19
2017 Scale-Out File Storage Brand Leader Survey Chart Page 21
2
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

3. Scale-Out File Storage
2017 Brand Leader Survey Methodology
• Brand Leader Reports are designed to measure the pulse of brand leadership in specific product
categories using independent, non-sponsored surveys with at least 200 respondents.
• The Scale-Out File Storage brand leader survey was conducted in March, 2017.
– Respondents were solicited from over 1,000,000 members of 100+ online IT groups, and from the IT Brand
Pulse IT professional database.
– Two hundred and eleven IT Pros responded to this survey.
– Responses were collected using an online survey engine.
• In each part, respondents were provided with a product category description, randomly-listed vendor
choices (plus an “Other” answer choice to add a vendor, if applicable), and were asked six questions:
1. Who do you perceive as the Scale-Out File Storage market leader?
2. Who do you perceive as the Scale-Out File Storage price leader?
3. Who do you perceive as the Scale-Out File Storage performance leader?
4. Who do you perceive as the Scale-Out File Storage reliability leader?
5. Who do you perceive as the Scale-Out File Storage service & support leader?
6. Who do you perceive as the Scale-Out File Storage innovation leader?
3
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

4. Brand Leader Definitions
4

5. Scale-Out File Storage
2017 Brand Leader Survey
5
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

6. Respondent Profiles
Scale-Out File Storage
2017 Brand Leader Survey

7. Selected Global Voting Organizations Represented in the Survey
CRH
CSC NASA Ames Research
Cypress Semiconductor
Daybreak Game Co.
Detroit Medical Center
DLL Group
Dominion Energy
Duke University
EnerCare
Estee Lauder
Expedia
ExxonMobil
EY
Fed Ex
Federal-Mogul
Gannett
General Electric
General Motors
Hetero Drug
JBS USA
Johns Hopkins Physics Lab
Kaiser Permanente
Kia Motors America
Kingston
Komatsu Limited
AmeriGas
American Airlines
Anthem
AXIS Capital
AT&T
Ball Aerospace
Banco Piano
Bank of America
Banner Bank
Bancolombia
BARC
Baylor College of Medicine
BC Liquor Distribution
Bosch
Boston Scientific
British Petroleum
Capital Group
Chanel
CME Group
Coach
Coca-Cola
Colliers
Continental Tire
Columbia University Med Ctr
Cox Enterprises
Kroger Co.
Leggett & Platt
Leidos
Lockheed Martin
Lowe‘s
Macys
Magellan Health
Marubeni America
McKesson Corporation
Mentor Graphics
Mimeo
Morgan Stanley
Mount Sinai Health System
NASA Ames Research Center
National Bank Of Greece
NBC/Universal/Comcast
NCR
NIH
NOAA
NYCT
Owens-Illinois
Optum
PPG Industries
Perrigo
Qorvo
Quicken Loans
Raytheon
Ricoh
Saputo
Shaw Industries
Spectra Energy
Spectrum Brands
Stanford University
Staples
Starbucks
Swagelok
TE Connectivity (Tyco)
Telus
Texans Credit Union
Tiger Corporation
T-Mobile
United Health Group
U.S. Bank
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Navy
UPS
Vantiv
Walmart
Wawanesa
Williams Companies
7
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

8. Respondent Title/Job Description:
0.0%
2.8%
5.6%
7.0%
11.3%
15.5%
28.2%
29.6%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
VAR/OEM
Other
Executive/Management
Server Administrator/Architect
Network Administrator/Architect
Storage Administrator/Architect
Data Center Manager
IT Manager/Director
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
8

9. Your environment is best described as:
1.4%
4.2%
7.0%
18.3%
21.1%
47.9%
0% 20% 40% 60%
Other
Product Development
Public Cloud/Data Center Provider
Small-medium business data center
High performance computing data center
Enterprise data center
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
9

10. Summary Analysis
Scale-Out File Storage
2017 Brand Leader Survey

11. About Scale-Out File Storage
11
Scale-out file storage is a class of products well suited to address the explosive
growth of unstructured data and distributed computing architectures deployed to
crunch the data. Scale-out file storage uses a parallel file system to cluster multiple
storage nodes together, presenting a single namespace and storage pool to provide
high bandwidth for multiple hosts at the same time.
Hyperscale cloud service providers changed the game by deploying
new file storage technology on millions of servers, which put the
“hyper” in scale. Enterprise NAS leaders were challenged with
the integration of traditional and emerging technologies. In 2016,
NetApp bridged the gap. ONTAP 9 allows massive scalability up to
20 PB in a single namespace with 400 billion files and 200
constituents, while automatically spreading performance evenly
across a cluster.
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

12. Scale-Out File Storage
2017 Survey Summary Analysis
• IT Pros Select NetApp as Scale-Out File Storage Market Leader
– Market leadership changed hands this year for Scale-Out File Storage when voters decided on NetApp—the
perennial NAS Market Leader—for the first time. IT Brand Pulse believes positive customer feedback about
ONTAP 9, released in 2016, has significantly improved IT pro perceptions of NetApp’s scale-out file storage
offering.
• NetApp Chosen in All Six Categories of Brand Leadership
– The company’s sweep of all six categories (Market, Performance, Reliability, Innovation, Price, and Service
& Support Leader) suggests the breadth of their best-in-class capabilities is shaping views of market
leadership in an ultra-competitive field.
• NetApp Dominates Voting for Innovation Leader
– The brand leader category in this survey with the biggest spread between first and second was Innovation,
with NetApp named the winner, followed by Dell EMC. This is another strong indicator that customers
believe ONTAP 9 is a breakthrough product for NetApp.
• Dell EMC and HPE Place Second and Third in Nearly Every Category
– With the exception of Innovation—where software-defined storage pioneer Scality broke into the leader
board at third place—Dell EMC and HPE finished number two and three in every category of brand
leadership.
12
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

13. 2017 Brand Leader Survey Results
Scale-Out File Storage

14. 2017 Market Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Market
Leader
19.3% 5.3% 14.0% 0.0% 5.3% 7.0% 3.5% 28.1% 1.8% 7.0% 1.8% 1.8% 3.5% 1.8%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
Who do you perceive as
the market leader for
Scale-out File Storage?
14
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

15. 2017 Price Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
15
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Price
Leader
15.3% 0.0% 13.6% 5.1% 3.4% 8.5% 1.7% 20.3% 10.2% 11.9% 0.0% 1.7% 6.8% 1.7%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
Who do you perceive as
the price leader for
Scale-Out File Storage?
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

16. Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Performance
Leader
18.6% 3.4% 17.0% 0.0% 3.4% 10.2% 0.0% 22.0% 1.7% 8.5% 5.1% 1.7% 6.8% 1.7%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
2017 Performance Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
16
Who do you perceive as
the performance leader for
Scale-Out File Storage?
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

17. 2017 Reliability Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
17
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Reliability
Leader
19.3% 1.8% 12.3% 0.0% 7.0% 10.5% 0.0% 24.6% 1.8% 8.8% 5.3% 3.5% 3.5% 1.8%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey
Who do you perceive as
the reliability leader for
Scale-Out File Storage?

18. 2017 Service and Support Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
18
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Service &
Support
Leader
17.5% 3.5% 14.0% 0.0% 7.0% 10.5% 0.0% 22.8% 1.8% 8.8% 5.3% 3.5% 3.5% 1.8%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
Who do you perceive as the
service & support leader for
Scale-Out File Storage?
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

19. 2017 Innovation Leader
Scale-Out File Storage
19
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE
StoreAll
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
StorNext
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other
Innovation
Leader
15.5% 0.0% 10.3% 0.0% 5.2% 6.9% 3.5% 25.9% 1.7% 8.6% 5.2% 12.1% 3.5% 1.7%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
20.0%
25.0%
30.0%
Who do you perceive as
the innovation leader for
Scale-Out File Storage?
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

20. 2017 Brand Leader Survey Chart
Scale-Out File Storage

21. Brand Leader Survey Data: 2017
21
Scale-Out
File Storage
Dell EMC
FluidFS/
OneFS
Hitachi
NAS
Platform
HPE Store
All
Storage
Huawei
Ocean
Stor 9000
IBM
Elastic
Storage
IBM
Spectrum
Microsoft
SOFS
NetApp
ONTAP
Quantum
Stor
Next
Red Hat
Storage
Server
Scale
Logic
Scality
SUSE
Enterprise
Storage
Other Total
Market
Leader
19.3% 5.3% 14.0% 0.0% 5.3% 7.0% 3.5% 28.1% 1.8% 7.0% 1.8% 1.8% 3.5% 1.8% 100%
Price
Leader
15.3% 0.0% 13.6% 5.1% 3.4% 8.5% 1.7% 20.3% 10.2% 11.9% 0.0% 1.7% 6.8% 1.7% 100%
Performance
Leader
18.6% 3.4% 17.0% 0.0% 3.4% 10.2% 0.0% 22.0% 1.7% 8.5% 5.1% 1.7% 6.8% 1.7% 100%
Reliability
Leader
19.3% 1.8% 12.3% 0.0% 7.0% 10.5% 0.0% 24.6% 1.8% 8.8% 5.3% 3.5% 3.5% 1.8% 100%
Service &
Support Leader
17.5% 3.5% 14.0% 0.0% 7.0% 10.5% 0.0% 22.8% 1.8% 8.8% 5.3% 3.5% 3.5% 1.8% 100%
Innovation
Leader
15.5% 0.0% 10.3% 0.0% 5.2% 6.9% 3.5% 25.9% 1.7% 8.6% 5.2% 12.1% 3.5% 1.7% 100%
March 2017 Brand Leader Survey

22. IT Brand Pulse
IT Brand Pulse, Inc. is an analyst firm and trusted source of product testing, IT Pro research, and analysis covering
data center infrastructure including servers, storage, networking, operating platforms and applications. Learn more
at ITBrandPulse.com.
Cheryl Parker, Director and Senior Analyst, End User Research
For the past seven years, Cheryl Parker has overseen the IT Pro Research practice for IT
Brand Pulse. Cheryl and her team conduct IT Brand Leader, technology adoption, and
customer satisfaction surveys, as well as focus groups and custom research. Cheryl has
spent more than 25 years in communications, research, PR, marketing and sales, and is a
former news and sports writer for the Los Angeles Times. cheryl.parker@itbrandpulse.com.
The Author