(NOTE: This story was originally posted to CRN.com May 30.)

Which Niche Providers Can Satisfy A Customer's Needs?

Cloud computing and mobile devices may be more widespread, but data centers continue to lie at the heart of many enterprise IT operations. And with the rapid pace of IT change showing no signs of slowing in 2017, finding the right experts to help build and operate data centers is crucial.

That means looking beyond the obvious names in infrastructure to find the niche startups that can satisfy a variety of customer needs, ranging from tools for monitoring system performance and managing corporate data, to system and application integration software, to advanced application development technologies.

As part of CRN's Emerging Vendors for 2017, here are 20 hot data center upstarts, all founded after 2011, that solution providers should be aware of.

(For more of CRN's Emerging Vendors across other tech segments, check out the 2017 database.)