Report: DC Ethernet Switch Revenue Reached $2.8B In 1Q18
Programmable switch silicon gets key validation.
In 1Q18, data center Ethernet switch revenue reached $2.8B, up 12% over 1Q17; bare metal and purpose-built switch revenues grew 35% and 15% YoY, respectively. Bare metal switches are now widely available from both traditional and white box vendors. Purpose-built switches embedded with data plane programmable silicon from Broadcom, Cavium, and Barefoot Networks continue to expand. Over the past 18 months Arista, the #2 DC switching vendor, has released several switches with programmable silicon from each of the three manufacturers mentioned above.
“Bare metal switch shipments continue their long-term growth as hyper-scale and tier 2 cloud service providers (CSPs), telcos adopting NFV, and large enterprises increase their deployments worldwide,” says Devan Adams, MBA, senior analyst, Cloud and Data Center Research Practice, IHS Markit. “A mix of bare metal and purpose-built switches using programmable silicon from a handful of chip vendors continues to displace traditional switches in the market.”