Customer deployments of branded data center Ethernet switch bandwidth increased by more than fifty percent in 2017, according to the latest report from Crehan Research Inc.
The cost of a gigabit of bandwidth also saw its steepest decline in six years during 2017, according to the report, resulting in a significant increase in the average bandwidth per data center switch port connection: almost 17 gigabits in 2017, versus 12 gigabits in 2016. The overall market-level average price per data center Ethernet switch port remained stable, as higher bandwidth per port offset lower bandwidth cost.
Other noteworthy results from Crehan’s data center switch report include:
- 25 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) combined with 100GbE yielded an increase of close to $2 billion in 2017, with 100GbE as the major contributor.
- Branded data center switch revenue increased ten percent in 2017, the strongest annual growth in four years.
- 40GbE shipments started to decline in 2017, however, this decline was very moderate with shipments only falling five percentage points for the year.
- 10GBASE-T saw robust annual growth of 34%, comprising almost 30% of all 10GbE shipments in 2017.
- Branded data center switch bandwidth deployments in the past two years exceeded deployments in the prior eight years combined.
- In 2017, 100GbE surpassed 10GbE to become the largest single contributor to overall data center Ethernet switch network bandwidth.
The rapid adoption of 100GbE – where port shipments went from an annual run-rate of less than a hundred thousand ports to over four million ports in only two years – bodes well for the upcoming introduction of 400GbE data center switches which offer the same compelling economics against the backdrop of strong cloud demand for higher network speeds.