Technology providers that qualify as cool vendors must think very far out of the box and provide solutions that are potential game-changers. Network professionals and enterprise architects who implement these vendors' solutions will deliver enhanced application and data center availability, as well as provide comprehensive management for mobile devices and wireless LANs (WLANs).

• Enterprises' mobile data costs are continuing to increase, moving enterprises toward corporate liability wireless plans and managing mobile-device spending. This shift can save companies from 15% to 35% in wireless costs.
• Newly designed business processes will continue to suffer from end-user performance problems, unless application-fluent network technologies are considered as part of the application deployment.
• Network architects must evaluate emerging technologies to optimize distributed data centers to improve client access and business continuity functions.

• Evaluate your expectations for video capabilities in the organization, and decide whether enterprise business requirements are best served by rooms or desks. As users get good at video, you have to get good at managing infrastructure and services — or a crisis will ensue.
• As most of these cool vendors are small, private companies, extra rigor must be applied to understanding their key financial metrics, including cash flow debt and future funding. Require each company's CFO to provide key financial viability metrics prior to signing any contract.
• When designing a network to support high availability and low latency, use a two-layer strategy, including application- and network-based acceleration solutions that address remote sites and centralized data center architecture.
• When building a business case for adopting a cool vendor technology, include triggers like performance improvement, risk mitigation and total cost of ownership in the foundation case.

This document was revised on 16 April 2010. For more information, see the Corrections page.

This research does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Enterprise network infrastructure and services continue to innovate at a rapid pace because all services, whether consumer or enterprise, are delivered over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The most severe shifts happening within the next two to three years will include wireless first access (mass adoption of Wi-Fi, line terminating equipment [LTE] and mobility for enterprise networking), hybrid cloud environments (including the blending of both on-premises and off-premises elastic infrastructure) and the use of immersive video instead of business travel. The challenge of managing user requirements versus compliance and cost management will drive most enterprise IT practitioners to choose solutions that leverage current networks and infrastructures. The most effective solutions will include optimizing current WANs, managing mobility devices and networks, and supporting real-time infrastructure in core data center locations. The innovation in these areas will not be exclusive to large networking megavendors; smaller, pure-play vendors will play a key role in enterprise adoption as well.

Santa Clara, California (www.aerohive.com)

Analysis by Tim Zimmerman

Why Cool: Aerohive delivers controller-less Wi-Fi solutions that allow enterprises to configure and implement wireless SLAs for defined groups of users or applications where minimum throughput is a required component for providing a higher-quality experience. Aerohive provides the ability to actively monitor the WLAN throughput of each individual client within each group and pro-actively make changes that boost client performance through the network configuration to assure that defined minimum client service levels are achieved.

Challenges: Aerohive is a small, private WLAN vendor whose biggest challenge has been brand awareness and its go-to-market strategy. Historically, it has been a North American and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA)-focused solution provider with a limited sales channel that today is 100% indirect. Additionally, it needs to improve its strategic relationships with switching vendors for enterprises that require an integrated wired/wireless solution across their access layer connectivity.

Who Should Care: Aerohive is an appropriate WLAN solution for distributed enterprises or enterprises where an SLA is needed for response time of mission-critical applications, dense user environments where wireless resources may be constrained or organizations looking to implement services such as voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) where minimum throughput is a component in eliminating jitter.

Ottawa, Canada (www.aforesolutions.com)

Analysis by Joe Skorupa

Why Cool: Afore's ASE3300 enables secure high-performance, data-center-to-data-center communications for storage replication, disaster recovery and remote virtual machine mobility (long-distance VMotion and Xen Live Migration). It supports Ethernet, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and native Fibre Channel network connections. The ASE3300 combines data compression, wire speed Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)-256 encryption, jumbo frame management, forward error correction, in-order delivery and Fibre Channel extension in a single device. Its incorporation of hardware acceleration technologies enables it to operate with negligible latency at gigabit speeds across multiple ports. Afore's recent focus on addressing VMware's long-distance VMotion needs has generated interest and partnerships with INX and Force10 Networks.

Challenges: Afore is a small private company with limited sales reach and market visibility. As the industry migrates to 10Gbps interfaces, Afore must maintain its technical lead in the face of mounting competition from established and emerging companies.

Who Should Care: Storage area network (SAN) and WAN architects who need to provide robust, high-performance connectivity across the WAN for their distributed data center environments should consider Afore to reduce bandwidth costs and improve performance and security. Cloud service providers, particularly storage and infrastructure-as-a-service providers, should consider adding Afore's products to extend the viable footprint for their service offerings.

Wellington, New Zealand (www.aptimize.com)

Analysis by Joe Skorupa

Why Cool: Aptimize Website Accelerator (WAX) delivers real-time optimization of browser-based applications, with particular emphasis on dynamic applications like Microsoft SharePoint. WAX can improve the performance of dynamic browser-based applications by as much as 50% when accessed across high-latency links. Today's Web development tools focus on ease of use and programmer productivity. Unfortunately, these generate very chatty, poorly structured code that consumes network bandwidth and adversely affects application performance. Gartner has long identified these common problems and approaches to solving them through proper development. Aptimize has found ways to apply many of the specific development techniques detailed in Steve Souders' High Performance Web Sites in real time as the applications execute and with no changes to the code. WAX improves initial load times and subsequent access via HTML optimization, JavaScript and style sheet merging, smart caching and other techniques.

Aptimize has found ways to apply these techniques in real time as the applications execute, and with no changes to the code. WAX improves initial load times, as well as subsequent access via HTML optimization, JavaScript and style sheet merging, smart caching and other techniques. Reference accounts include Microsoft, Google, Allergan and Raytheon. Steve Souders also advises the company.

Challenges: Aptimize is a small private company based in New Zealand with very limited market presence. While it can provide its products via download and support via phone, chat and e-mail, it will need to increase its international presence to take full advantage of the work it has done. The WAX software currently runs as a task on the Web server, consuming processing resources. A complimentary appliance-based version would increase the appeal of the WAX for many customers, particularly if the WAX were an option on an application delivery controller (ADC) from companies like F5 and Citrix. Integration into an ADC would simplify deployment and off-load servers, further improving application performance.

Who Should Care: Web application performance managers who must rapidly improve the performance of important browser-based applications should consider Aptimize.

Mountain View, California (www.mobileiron.com)

Analysis by Michael King

Why Cool: MobileIron is one of a new breed of mobile data management vendors attempting to solve the difficult issue enterprises face when they enable users to access information and applications on their mobile devices. Traditionally, enterprises secure the devices their employees carry end to end via the solutions either from the device/operating system (OS) vendors (e.g., Research In Motion and Microsoft) or from specialty device management vendors (e.g., Sybase) However, as the speed of device innovation and adoption increases, the problem of managing the device itself increases in complexity. This problem is exacerbated by users who do not carry enterprise-standard devices. Thus, the adage that what IT doesn't own it can't secure, perhaps with proper data management, no longer rings true. MobileIron addresses this problem by applying a corral model to the data that a mobile user requires. Rather than just secure the entire device (which it can do), MobileIron can secure and manage only the data that is sensitive to the enterprise, as identified by the administrator, and leaves the rest of the data (e.g., pictures, music and personal applications) to the discretion of the end user. It accomplishes this by monitoring all the data that comes in and out of the mobile device, then isolating the application data the enterprise has marked as sensitive. MobileIron also has the ability to report back on all the data it has observed within the device, including Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and dropped calls.

Challenges: MobileIron is a very new company attempting to challenge a strong group of established vendors that has been working to solve this problem for some time: carriers, telecom expense management vendors, mobile device vendors, desktop configuration vendors and traditional mobile device vendors. Additionally, the concept of mobile data management is contrary to the mind-set of many IT groups, which are used to a traditional, device-centric security model. It will take time for them to convince the enterprise of the value of the data management method and the additional value of that model.

Who Should Care: Enterprises with mobile application and data deployments, planned or implemented, enterprises that are struggling with device and OS proliferation and enterprises that are attempting to provide access to application and data on employee-owned devices should consider MobileIron.

San Bruno, California (www.qumu.com)

Analysis by Joe Skorupa

Why Cool: Qumu is an innovative startup that is addressing enterprise needs to more effectively create, distribute, manage and archive an increasingly complex corporate video/rich media environment. Qumu delivers enterprise video (live streaming, video on demand and digital signage) via software as a service (SaaS) and managed services, as well as on-premises via appliances and software, or as virtual machines. Qumu offers a full suite of capabilities from creation/capture and content management through to distribution and infrastructure management. Qumu also provides an application that supports employee-generated content — the so-called "enterprise YouTube."

Unlike other vendors, Qumu has built an open system that can incorporate equipment from many vendors, including Blue Coat Systems, Cisco, Microsoft SharePoint, Polycom and Vbrick, preserving customers' investments in capture, display and portal technologies. Qumu's edge server software is also available as a virtual appliance on Riverbed Technology Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) WAN Optimization Controller (WOC) platform.

Qumu's breadth of capabilities and delivery model have allowed it to acquire an enviable list of top tier reference customers, including Abbott, Citigroup, eBay, Microsoft and Visa. AT&T uses Qumu to provide its managed service.

Challenges: Although it is growing quickly, Qumu is still a small private company with limited sales reach and market visibility. It will experience increased competition from larger players, including Cisco, as well as from alternative approaches, such as peer-assisted delivery. To prosper, Qumu will have to fully leverage its partners.

Who Should Care: From an infrastructure perspective, Qumu can be leveraged by IT specialists (network architects and engineers) to deliver high-quality video to manage video assets. However, interest in Qumu's application space often originates in HR, corporate communications or the executive suite.