Telecom Lead Asia: Brocade is leading the Fibre
Channel SAN switch market, while Cisco remains its strongest competitor.
Infonetics Research
said Brocade has maintained its leadership with 2/3 of the global revenue from
the Fibre Channel SAN switch market in 2011.
However, Cisco is the clear leader in FCoE-capable
switches, commanding 88 percent of the global market in 2011.
QLogic and Emulex hold majority share of
the SAN adapter space, both posting healthy revenue gains in 2011, though their
rivals are also making steady headway as well.
The overall Storage Area Network (SAN) switch and adapter
market is expected to grow just under $10 billion by 2016, says Infonetics
Research.
The research reveals that the global sales of SAN
switches and adapters jumped 12.5 percent in 4Q11 to $1.3 billion, marking the
overall market’s 7th consecutive quarterly gain.
Furthermore, FCoE-capable switch revenue grew 24 percent
in 4Q11 over the previous quarter. The emerging FCoE converged network adapter
(CNA) market segment doubled in global revenue between the third and fourth
quarters of 2011.
We’re forecasting the overall storage area network
equipment market to jump close to 50% in 2012 on the strength of Fibre Channel
adapters, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) converged network adapters, and
FCoE-capable switches. We expect eye-popping growth in the nascent 16G Fibre
Channel host bus adapters segment,” said Sam Barnett, directing analyst
for data center and cloud at Infonetics Research.
The firm tracked ATTO, Brocade, Chelsio, Cisco, Dell,
Emulex, Intel, LSI, Mellanox/Voltaire, Myricom, Neterion and QLogic for its
research study.
Earlier,
the research firm revealed that the global SAN equipment market grew 2 percent
in Q3 2011 over Q2 2011, to $764 million, as SAN switch sales increased while
SAN adapter sales declined.
Year-over-year, the SAN switch and adapter market grew by
12 percent worldwide mainly driven by the network convergence strategy
adopted by key players.
editor@telecomlead.com
