Arista Networks, Huawei, Juniper Networks, and Nvidia stood tall as “leaders” in Forrester Research’s latest Wave ranking of programmable switch vendors. That quartet led a group that included well-heeled rivals such as Cisco, Extreme Network, and Dell EMC among the dozen of vendors included in the report.

Arista scored a top position, with Forrester noting the vendor had become one of the market’s largest switch vendors based on the flexibility of its EOS operating system.

“Tier-one cloud providers have built their networking infrastructure on this type of platform,” the report states. “Besides enabling customers to choose multiple paths of automation, Arista Networks allows them to deploy EOS on third-party hardware, cloud platforms, and inside containers.”

Arista late last year released a CloudEOS version of that platform that enables cloud networking infrastructure as code across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

The vendor was also lauded for its monitoring and integration capabilities with other tools. This includes its DANZ, LANZ, and telemetry systems, and work with hypervisor vendors. Shortly after purchasing Big Switch Networks earlier this year, Arista began adding that company’s monitoring technology to its existing DANZ platform.

Huawei’s position in the Forrester report was based on a slightly “stronger current offering” compared with Arista, but a lower ranking for its market strategy. Forrester noted that Huawei was the “fastest-growing networking vendor in our evaluation” and had a strong international presence.

“Firms looking for a vendor with wide global reach and leaning on a deep product portfolio rather than developing their configuration tools should put Huawei on their shortlists,” the report states.

Juniper Networks was listed as having one of the largest overall market presences, but was ranked as having a less competitive offering compared with Arista and Huawei. Forrester did note the vendor was a good option for companies that “want to automate the entire network with a consistent OS, from the data center to the business edge.”

Nvidia actually had a dual presence in the ranking, highlighting the increasingly competitive nature of the space. The vendor’s “leaders” ranking is tied to its Cumulus Networks operations. Forrester cited its “heritage in the server and Linux world” as providing customers with access to a “wide range of scripting and configuration tools.”

Nvidia announced in May that it was acquiring Cumulus for an undisclosed amount. That deal was based on accelerating Nvidia’s ability to integrate across the networking stack from chips and systems to software.

Nvidia was also placed in Forrester’s “contenders” category with its Mellanox business that it acquired last year for $6.9 billion. That deal boosted Nvidia’s data center business and better positioned it to compete against Intel in that space.

Similar to Nvidia, Cisco enjoyed a dual presence in the Forrester switch ranking with its IOS-XE and NX-OS platforms. The former was in the report’s “strong performers” category with the latter in the “contenders” wave. Both were gauged as having a significant market presence and when combined positioned Cisco as the largest single vendor in the space.

Dell EMC and Extreme Networks were the only other vendors that had a visual market presence, though both were placed in the “contenders” wave. Dell EMC was highlighted for a platform that supported a range of operating systems, while Extreme was complemented for providing a “low-cost programmable switching fabric.”

Others included on the list were Pluribus Networks and H3C, which were both labeled as "strong performers" though lacking significant market share, and Pica8, which was a "challenger" also with a small market share.

Forrester did note that many of the hyperscaler and internet giants continue to strike out on their own in terms of how they are constructing their networking architecture. This includes Google basing its approach on OpenFlow concepts, Microsoft using SONiC and white-box switches, and Facebook pushing FBOSS, ONIE, and also white-box switches.