“A new round of data center upgrades is underway, driven by virtualization, surging amounts of data, the growing need for storage, under-investment in 2009, and renewed life in the financial sector. Even with a relatively flat third quarter and an expected down fourth quarter, the market for data center network equipment is poised to grow 67 percent in 2010 over 2009 to hit a milestone $7.6 billion worldwide,” predicts Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research.
DATA CENTER NETWORK EQUIPMENT MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
- Worldwide revenue from data center network equipment, including data center Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers (ADCs), and WAN optimization appliances, grew 2 percent in 3Q10 over 2Q10 to $1.9 billion
- Growth was led by activity in North America and EMEA
- 10G accounts for 14 percent of data center switch ports in 3Q10, much higher than in the total Ethernet switch market
- Infonetics Research predicts 10G port penetration to reach about 50 percent by 2014, aided by rapidly falling prices
- The ADC segment is getting a big boost from telecom carriers, a healthy-again financial sector, and the general trend of data center upgrades
- F5 continued to build its lead in ADC revenue share in 3Q10, and Citrix revenue jumped 25 percent, surpassing Cisco for the first time
- Riverbed’s WAN optimization appliance revenue surged 22 percent in 3Q10 and is now enjoying a double-digit lead over their nearest competitors
Infonetics’ Data Center Network Equipment report is updated quarterly and provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, forecasts, and in-depth analysis for data center Ethernet switches (general purpose, purpose-built, and blade switches), application delivery controllers (ADCs), and WAN optimization appliances. Companies tracked include ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, Arista, Avaya, Blade, Blue Coat, Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Enterasys, Expand, Extreme, F5, Force10, H3C, HP, Huawei, Ipanema, Juniper, NETGEAR, Radware, Riverbed, Silver Peak, and others.
