Over half of all data center Ethernet switch shipments by 2021 will be 25 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 100GbE, according to a new report from Crehan Research that also predicts that these two technologies will be most instrumental in driving this market beyond $15B by that time.
“25GbE and 100GbE data center switch adoption is already experiencing exponential growth, with port shipments currently in the hundred-of-thousands per quarter,” said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “Volumes would likely be even higher if it weren’t for pockets of supply constraints in certain areas, such as the optical transceivers that uplink and connect many of these switches.”
Some of the factors driving the current strong ramp and expected future high volumes of 25GbE and 100GbE data center Ethernet switching include:
- Very small – and in some cases no – price premium over comparable 10GbE and 40GbE switches, resulting in very substantial bandwidth discounts.
- Higher bandwidth per lane since 25GbE currently uses the same number of lanes as 10GbE and 100GbE currently uses the same number of lanes as 40GbE.
- Compatibility with existing data center fiber cabling.
- Very strong interest, and even some pent up demand, from the largest hyper-scale cloud providers, which can drive significant early volumes and reduce costs even further. Already some of these providers have major artificial intelligence and deep machine learning initiatives. 25/100GbE network architectures, in conjunction with compute and network accelerators, will likely be instrumental in enabling the cost-effective scaling of these types of workloads.
Crehan’s latest Data Center Switch Long-Range Forecast Report further predicts that as a result of the strong adoption of 25GbE and 100GbE, SFP-based 10GbE and QSFP-based 40GbE data center switch shipments will decline in 2017. In contrast, 10GBASE-T data center switching is expected to continue growing robustly for some time.