Top Data Center Switch Companies

eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

The data network was once an IT resource to which few business leaders paid attention. Most people simply considered the network to be the “plumbing” of a company and little else. That opinion has been changing, because the network has rapidly increased in importance as digital transformation has taken hold in the business world.

The building blocks of digital are cloud computing, mobility, internet of things and artificial intelligence, all of which are network-centric. This means as business becomes more digital, the network increases in strategic value. At the same time, we have seen the rise of new and emerging applications and technologies, from data analytics to virtual and augmented reality, automated vehicles and edge computing.

The growing demand for faster speeds, more bandwidth and lower latency has put the network front-and-center in the IT world. Data and applications are no longer confined to central data centers, and they need to move quickly between those data centers, the edge and multiple clouds.

The network also has undergone significant change. Networks are now increasingly virtualized, with software-defined networking (SDN), network-function virtualization (NFV) and software-defined WAN (SD-WAN). They’ve also become more intelligent—look at intent-based networking—and the decoupling of the data plane and network functions from the underlying proprietary hardware has given rise to open switches that can run third-party operating systems and software. Cisco Systems, Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and other established vendors now offer branded gear that can run software from the likes of Cumulus Networks, Big Switch Networks and Pluribus Networks; often their own software can run on hardware from other vendors.

It also has enabled original-design manufacturers (ODMs) that make unbranded white-box switches to gain ground in the highly competitive enterprise networking space.

In today’s IT world, networks are now the foundation, the key enabling of modern computing; central to networks are switches that are the “traffic cops” for data flows of all kinds.

Here’s a compilation of the top switch vendors in market share (in no particular order); this list was created with data from Gartner Research, Forrester, IDC, Dell’Oro Group and other sources.

Cisco Systems

Value proposition for potential buyers: Cisco Systems was the first company to anticipate the internet and its infrastructure needs back in the early 1990s, and as a result has put a stake in the ground that no other company has been able to eclipse. Any discussion about anything networking has to start with Cisco. The company has been at the top of the market for the past 25 years, and even throughout its ongoing transformation into less of a box-maker and more of a software and solutions provider, Cisco has continued to be the dominant player in the space. Its portfolio of switches bears that out.

Key values/differentiators:

• Highly regarded overall: The company has long been atop Gartner’s Magic Quadrant of data center networking leaders and, according to IDC, owned more than 56 percent of the Ethernet switch market in 2020 and was the leader in the highly competitive 25/50/100Gb space.
• Range of offerings: The vendor has made available an array of offerings, from its Nexus data center and cloud switches to switches for LANs, SANs, WANs, industrial Ethernet environments and small businesses. No other company has that many choices.
• Use cases: large enterprise production; military and government workloads; financial services.
• Top in marketshare:  Cisco has been the leader in the Data Center Ethernet switching market for many years, leading with its Nexus switches and NX-OS portfolio. In addition, Cisco leads the SDN segment with its flagship Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) running on top of the Nexus 9000 platform. The Cisco Nexus Dashboard helps customers manage, control and automate functions in hybrid and multicloud data-center environments. Cisco has also become the top SD-WAN infrastructure vendor, and its massive Catalyst 9000 switch portfolio is the hardware foundation of its expanding intent-based networking efforts.

Who uses it: Mostly larger enterprises; IT networking personnel

How it works: many on-premises hardware and software options, as well as virtual and cloud hosted hybrid cloud infrastructure management software solutions.

Juniper Networks

Sunnyvale, Calif.

Value proposition for potential buyers: Juniper Networks has been on an acquisition binge lately, adding Apstra, 128 Technology and Netrounds in the last six months. This follows the acquisition of Mist Systems in April 2019. While most of the mainstream network vendors have some variation of an IBN solution today, Apstra created this category and is the only one that works across multiple vendors. Apstra supports most of the mainstream network vendors, including Juniper, Arista and Cisco Systems, but it also supports some alternate vendors such as SONiC, Cumulus, NVIDIA and VMware. This lets Apstra customers enjoy the benefits of IBN without the fear of being locked into a single vendor.

By building its IBN system from the ground up for the purpose of intent-based networking, Apstra has a mature offering. In recognizing that assured operations must start with design intent, Apstra delivers on the full power of its closed-loop system with a single source of truth, continuous validation, intent-based analytics and root cause identification. In addition, Apstra has the right elements for accelerating Juniper’s goal of bringing AI-driven operations to the data center for experience-led operations, which is a key element of the company’s vision of client-to-cloud AIOps and self-driving networks.

Overall, Juniper has a switch lineup that runs from the data center, across the campus and branch and into the cloud. It’s QFX and PTX series of high performance and density systems running the Junos OS are designed for both data centers and telecommunications environments and fit into a wide array of deployments, including top-of-rack and end-of-row as well as access and leaf, lean spine, and core-and-spine. The EX platform is targeted primarily at campus and branch access environments. Juniper switches deliver high performance, reliability and scalability for deploying standards-based EVPN-VXLAN with advanced functionality from multicast to multihoming.

Key values/differentiators:

• Experience-first Operations: The Apstra Intent-based Networking System allows people to specify what they want to happen in a multivendor network and then, the software automatically configures accordingly, assures it is behaving as intended, and lets you know when and why an issue may be brewing.

• Switches support range of workloads: Juniper switches provide for access, aggregation and core networking for branch, campus, data center and service provider environments, and can support everything from 1GbE to 100GbE. The company has added 400GbE capabilities in its QFX and PTX series along with a rebuilt cloud-optimized Junos OS.
• Technology leader: the company has been a consistent leader in both the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Networking and the Forrester Wave for Open, Programmable Switches for an SDN.

Who uses it: Midrange and larger enterprises; public cloud providers and service providers; IT networking personnel

How it works: on-premises hardware and software options along with virtual systems for public clouds

Arista Networks

Santa Clara, Calif.

Value proposition for potential buyers: Arista is smaller than rival Cisco, but it has made significant gains in market share and product development during the last several years. In expanding its role beyond the data center, it has become a key player in enterprise and campus networks as well. Their latest acquisition of Awake Security (October 2020) a network detection and response (NDR) platform, combines AI with human expertise to autonomously hunt and respond to insider and external threats, while providing triage digital forensics and incident responses across campus, data center and IoT.

To bolster its capabilities in deep and real time monitoring and visibility Arista acquired Big Switch Networks earlier in 2020. This along with the company’s existing DANZ (Data ANalyZer) capabilities led to the introduction of DMF (DANZ Monitoring Fabric) a network observability software across Arista switching platforms that gives customers enterprise wide traffic visibility and contextual insights. With its core technology and these latest acquisitions Arista has transformed itself from a networking company into a data driven AI company that delivers its value through the network.

Arista’s Ethernet switch revenues jumped 27.6 percent in 2018 and its share grew from 5.6 percent a year earlier to 6.6 percent, according to IDC. Arista has put legitimate marketshare pressure on leader Cisco Systems in the tech sector during the past five years.

Arista’s Ethernet switch revenues jumped 27.6 percent in 2018 and its share grew from 5.6 percent a year earlier to 6.6 percent, according to IDC. Arista has put legitimate marketshare pressure on leader Cisco Systems in the tech sector during the past five years.

Key values/differentiators:

• Support is highly regarded by others in the industry.

• Highly respected in the industry: Arista, which sits with Cisco and Juniper in the “leader” section of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, offers a range of switches that scale from 10Gb to 100Gb and support leaf and spine architectures.

• Use cases: technology, cloud providers, media and entertainment, science, oil and gas exploration, high-end workloads of all kinds.

• Simplified architecture: Arista has developed what it calls Spline, which collapses the leaf and spine into a single tier for high-performance cloud networking across data centers, public and private clouds.
• High quality software: Known for its EOS (Extensible Operating System) software a fully programmable and advanced network operating system that spans all of its platforms from 10 to 400G.

Who uses it: Cloud providers, midrange and larger enterprises

How it works: on-premises hardware and software options

Extreme Networks

San Jose, Calif.

Value proposition for potential buyers: Extreme Networks recently announced its universal hardware platform, which untethers the underlying hardware from software features. Most network vendors typically have multiple product lines designed for different use cases. The universal hardware platform enables customers to purchase hardware and then select the software load that makes the most sense. This flexibility allows customers to reduce management complexity and potential hardware obsolesce, while also saving money. The secret sauce for Extreme is its ExtremeCloud IQ cloud management platform that brings cloud-level flexibility to networking.

Overall, Extreme Networks has a solid lineup of data center switches that can scale from 1Gb to 100Gb, giving organizations flexibility when connecting their systems. At the same time, the company also has put a growing focus on supplying switches for deployment outside the firewall, in particular in branch officers, in the cloud and out at the network edge.

Extreme remains the most undervalued network vendor. The company has faced challenges over the years, but then a new management team, led by CEO Ed Meyercord and COO Norman Rice, executed a plan to roll up other network assets, including Avaya’s networking business, Brocade’s data center business, Aerohive and the Wi-Fi business from Zebra. It took a few years to integrate all these assets into a comprehensive portfolio, but that work is now done. Extreme has since turned a corner, and offers a very compelling suite of solutions — along with industry-leading customer support — to help enterprises on their digital transformation journey.

Key values/differentiators:

• Frontline products: 5520 series is the universal edge/aggregation switch platform offering a choice of ExtremeSwitching operating systems. Additionally, key standalone switch products include the SLX 9540, which the company describes as a versatile carrier-class data center edge switch that offers high density for data center interconnect, WAN edge and internet exchange point deployments.

• • Use cases: General business with one or more data centers; government agencies; retail; healthcare; financial services; technology.

• Integrated Application Hosting (IAH): End-to-End Guest VM functionality – Monitoring and Security closer to the edge of the network. Gain network visibility with real-time network monitoring and troubleshooting

• Extreme Fabric Automation (EFA): Best in class (integrated, no addtl’ cost) automation for IP Fabrics
• What the market says: Gartner has Extreme and Huawei as the only “challengers” to Cisco, Juniper and Arista in its Magic Quadrant.

Who uses it: Midrange and larger enterprises; specialized IT networking staff only

How it works: on-premises hardware and software options

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

Santa Clara, Calif.

Value proposition for potential buyers: Aruba is helping organizations evolve their overly complex, manual-process-driven, and error-prone on-premises data centers, shifting their architectures to a “centers-of-data” model. This is more agile, automated, and uses software-defined technologies to provide servers, storage, and their associated management and operations teams with a consistent set of services, from edge to data center. It provides end-to-end visibility, streamlined operations, and application consistency for all connected enterprise resources, including branch offices and campus locations.

Key values/differentiators:

• Software-defined automation and orchestration: Aruba Fabric Composer provides orchestration so a discrete set of physical switches can be managed as a single, logical network fabric across a wide range of virtualized, hyper-converged, compute and storage systems, such as Nutanix, VMware and Aruba’s and HPE’s own products. It simplifies day-to-day operations and makes it easier to push out configuration updates, policies and other changes network-wide, and speeds up troubleshooting.
• New switch series: The Aruba CX 8360 switch series enables companies to extend cloud-managed network equipment across the entire network and is built on Aruba’s cloud native AOS-CX operating system, including an embedded Network Analytics Engine (NAE) at no cost. Aruba’s AOS-CX operating system is used across campus and data center switches, which can simplify operations, especially when the campus and data center use a combined core.
• Aruba integration into HPE and partner solutions: Pre-engineered HPE and partner solutions can greatly simplify the evolution of data centers to centers-of-data by integrating compute, storage, and networking infrastructure in order to reduce the time, risk, and cost of standing up individual IT elements. These solutions take all the tweaking and tuning complexity out of deployments for faster time to market.

Who uses it: Midrange and large enterprises, HPE customers; IT staff and admins (server, networking, virtualization, cloud).

How it works: On-premises, cloud, and edge-resident hardware and software options

Dell EMC

Round Rock, Texas

Value proposition for potential buyers: Dell Technologies has long seen itself as a one-stop shop for all things enterprise IT, and the data center networking business under Dell EMC is no different. The company offers several high-performance data center switches in its S- and Z-Series and the N-Series for its managed campus access and aggregation switches.However, networking infrastructure is not the company’s No. 1 business, because it is among the world leaders in hyperconverged and converged data center equipment other than networking.

Key values/differentiators:

• Big in open networking: Dell EMC offers a series of Open Networking switches, which carry the Dell EMC brand but can run third-party network OSes and software from vendors like Cumulus, Big Switch and Pluribus (as well as Dell EMC’s own OS9 and OS10.

• Choice of virtualization options: The Open Networking switches also offer a choice of virtualization options—VMware NSX, Midokura MidoNet and Nuage Networks—and leverages the open-source ONIE (Open Network Install Environment) to enable zero-touch installation of third-party software.

• Use cases: All over the board; Dell is strong in the midrange enterprise sector, always has been, and it’s no different in networking infrastructure. Midrange-size business with one or more data centers is a mainstay; government agencies; retail; financial services; technology.

Who uses it: Midrange and larger enterprises; mostly IT networking staff and admins.
How it works: on-premises hardware and software options

Huawei Technologies

Shenzhen, China

Value proposition for potential buyers: The massive Chinese tech company is seeing momentum in its data center networking business. Gartner has it placed solidly in the “challenger” category—edging ever close to the line that would bring it into “leader” area—and IDC noted that in the third quarter 2018, Huawei’s Ethernet switch revenue grew 21.3 percent year-over-year, and its market share hit 8.6 percent. However, lawmaker worries about the company’s possible close ties to the Chinese government—which some see as posing a national security threat—has made it difficult for Huawei to make inroads in the United States as well as some other markets. Still, Huawei offers the CloudEngine 12800 series core switches, the CloudEngine 5800, 6800, 7800 and 8800 fixed access switches and CloudEngine 1800V virtual switch. It also sells a broad range of campus switches.

ODM white-box makers

Value proposition for potential buyers: The trend toward network virtualization, with the disaggregation of the software from the underlying gear, opened a door for smaller ODMs like Quanta, Celestica, Accton, Delta, Inventec and Foxconn to gain more ground in the data center switch space, particularly among cloud providers. The rise of SDN and NFV meant that organizations could choose to buy low-cost white boxes and put whatever networking operating system they want onto them. The open networking efforts by Dell EMC, HPE and others were meant to not only give customers more options but also to fend off the growing threat of white-box makers. According to Dell’Oro Group analysts, in 2018 while the top four cloud providers opted for white boxes for their 100Gb deployments, smaller providers and enterprises kept with the brand vendors, which meant ODMs lost ground in the market.