Sales of 16G Fibre Channel are quickly taking over the market from earlier 4G and 8G implementations, according to a new study published by Infonetics.
“With 16G Fibre Channel ramping fast, 8G is making a quick exit,” says Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., directing analyst for data center and cloud at Infonetics Research. “16G Fibre Channel solutions now make up 42% of storage area network (SAN) revenue, and we expect to see the continued acceleration of 16G at the expense of 8G and 4G, especially with 32G still two years out.”
“Most of the 16G market is inter-switch, or switch-to-storage array, and not server connections,” adds Grossner.
Some highlights:
- Globally, the SAN market (Fibre Channel switches and host bus adapters) totaled $592 million in 1Q14, down 9% from 4Q13, and down 3% from a year ago
- Brocade continues to dominate the SAN switch and adapter market, gaining 3 market share points in 1Q14
- Worldwide converged data center network adapter revenue (Ethernet switch ports-in-use for storage and converged network adapters, or CNAs), declined 4% sequentially in 1Q14, to $549 million
- CNAs continue to account for the majority of revenue, followed by iSCSI adapters and universal adapters
- Thanks to its recent acquisitions, QLogic is expected to move into the #2 spot in the converged data center network adapter market in 2Q14
- In an effort to grab market share, converged data center network adapter vendors are reaching for the cloud, software-defined networking (SDN), and network functions virtualization (NVF)
- The shift to cloud-architected data centers with automated deployment of virtual workloads is driving a long-term trend toward a converged network with storage and application traffic on Ethernet in the data center.
http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/1Q14-SAN-and-Converged-DC-Network-Equipment-Market-Highlights.asp