Shipments of total server-class Ethernet adapters increased more than thirty percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, according to a recent report from Crehan Research. This increase is the largest the market has had in over eight years – see accompanying figure – and resulted in record shipments. In correlation with these record shipments, server-class Ethernet adapter revenue also had a record quarter and posted an even higher growth rate.
“Data center operators added server networking capacity at record levels to ensure delivery of the digital-based services that have become so important as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “These services include telemedicine and food and merchandise delivery, as well as the enablement of working, schooling and entertainment from home. On top of this, data center operators had to ensure the continuity of existing bandwidth-hungry applications and initiatives in a very challenging and disrupted supply-chain environment.”
Other noteworthy results from Crehan’s Server-Class Ethernet Adapter report include:
- The strength in the server-class Ethernet adapter market was broad-based with all speeds – from one gigabit Ethernet (GbE) up to 200GbE – experiencing shipment increases. However, 25GbE, 50GbE, and 100GbE growth was particularly strong during the quarter with combined shipments more than doubling year-over-year.
- Intel accounted for the majority of total server-class Ethernet adapter shipment volumes and shipment growth.
- Nvidia (Mellanox) comprised the majority share of shipment speeds of 25GbE-and-greater and drove most of the robust growth in this segment.
- Marvell saw its 25GbE QLogic-based adapter shipments more than double year-over-year, as a result of strong blade server adoption of its FastLinQ products.
- Vendor-built SmartNIC shipments more than tripled year-over-year but still comprised a relatively small portion of total server-class Ethernet adapter volumes. Broadcom’s Stingray product drove most of this growth.
“Given the migration to higher speed server-class Ethernet adapter connections, the bandwidth increase in the quarter was even higher than the shipment increase, which further accelerated a recent inflection in server networking bandwidth growth,” Crehan said.