Nokia recognised by Gartner for its data centre switching

Author: Simon Rowley

Nokia has been named by Gartner as a Visionary in the 2025 Magic Quadrant for Data Centre Switching. Based on specific criteria established by the research organisation, Nokia is cited for overall ‘Completeness of Vision’ and ‘Ability to Execute’.

At a time when data centres must power new innovations such as AI in addition to their existing application workloads, these modern environments require reliability, ease of operation and energy efficiency.

The Nokia data centre switching portfolio includes the 7220 and 7250 IXR data switching platforms, Service Router (SR) Linux network operating system, and the Event-Driven Automation (EDA) management platform. Nokia also provides support for Community SONiC-based data centre switching solutions. With a design that focuses on reliability and ease-of-use, the Nokia portfolio enables seamless connectivity and high performance to support business-critical data centre workloads and applications, including AI.

Automation enables Nokia customers to make network operations simple and predictable, and adaptability ensures easy introduction into existing customer ecosystems, environments and processes. The portfolio also provides support for higher interface speeds that now push to 400 GbE, 800 GbE and beyond.

In parallel, Nokia has a 4.7/5 star rating on Gartner Peer Insights in data centre switching based on 15 overall reviews as of 2 April 2025. Based on customer experience and product capabilities, the review platform aggregates user feedback.

“They provide great solutions addressing some of the key issues such as Networking for AI workloads, Data Centre Gateway and Interconnect,” notes a Director of IT Services in response to what they like most about the product. Another reviewer on Gartner Peer Insights, a Senior Network Engineer, referenced the Nokia solution’s “Model driven CLI automation support and stability of the underlying OS” and commented, “Excellent software features available compared to other vendors using similar merchant silicon.”

Michael Bushong, Vice President of Data Center, Nokia, remarks, “The data centre market is hot right now, and it can be hard to separate hype from facts, theory from practice. We believe independent assessments such as the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Centre Switching help. Nokia is one of a few suppliers with a compelling vision of where data centre networking ought to go. And we aren’t alone in thinking this. Microsoft, Nscale, Kyndryl, Lenovo and more agree. If you need reliability and automated operations, Nokia simply has to be considered.”

Magic Quadrant reports are a culmination of rigorous, fact-based research in specific markets, providing a wide-angle view of the relative positions of providers in markets where growth is high and provider differentiation is distinct. Providers are positioned into four quadrants: Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players. The research enables companies to get the most from market analysis in alignment with their unique business and technology needs.

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