Infonetics: Data Center Equipment up 17% YoY; Fibre Channel Switch Market to Hit $2.7B by 2016, Brocade Leads

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Market research firm Infonetics Research today released excerpts from 2 1st quarter (1Q12) vendor market share and forecast reports: SAN Equipment and Data Center Network Equipment.

“We see steady growth ahead for SAN switches and adapters, pushed by social networking, video sharing, data center innovations, and the eventual shift to cloud computing models. Fiber Channel continues to be the real star, with revenue from 16G Fiber Channel products growing at an astounding 52% compound annual growth rate from 2011 to 2016,” expects Sam Barnett, directing analyst for data center and cloud at Infonetics Research.

Barnett adds: “The data center equipment market was down sequentially, but is up nicely from the year-ago first quarter. For the remainder of 2012 and into 2013, we expect growth to be choppy as service providers and data center operators are at different stages in their data center upgrades and some are beginning to wind down their current investment cycle.”…

SAN EQUIPMENT MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

The global storage networking market totaled $1.3 billion in 1Q12, flat from 4Q11
FCoE converged network adapters (CNAs) were a bright spot in the market in 1Q12, up 22% sequentially
In the Fibre Channel SAN switch space, Brocade continues to be the #1 player, with 70% revenue market share
Potential economic difficulties in North America and EMEA remain a concern in relation to service provider capex, as these regions together accounted for slightly over 70% of the global SAN equipment market

SAN EQUIPMENT REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics’ quarterly SAN Equipment report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, forecasts, and analysis for Fibre Channel host bus adapters (FC HBAs), iSCSI host bus adapters (iSCSI HBAs), FCoE converged network adapters (CNAs), and chassis and fixed Fibre Channel and all FCoE-capable switches that are purpose-built for the data center (10G FCoE, FC 2G, FC 4G, FC 8G, FC 16G, iSCSI). Companies tracked: Brocade, Chelsio, Cisco, Dell, Emulex, IBM (BNT), Juniper, Mellanox, QLogic, and others. To buy the report, contact Infonetics Sales: http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp.

DATA CENTER NETWORK EQUIPMENT MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

Global revenue for data center network equipment—data center Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers, and WAN optimization appliances—fell to $2.2 billion in 1Q12, down 6% from 4Q11, but up a strong 17% year over year
WAN optimization appliances saw the steepest revenue decline, down 20% from the previous quarter
Cisco maintains a commanding lead in the overall data center network equipment market, followed by ADC leader F5 and HP, who remain in a neck-and-neck battle for 2nd
Asia Pacific posted the strongest sequential gain in 1Q12 for overall data center network equipment revenue, while North America still accounts for nearly half the market
Renewed fears of an economic meltdown in the EU community are pressuring investments; EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) was down 10% quarter over quarter and had the worst year-over-year showing of all regions

DATA CENTER EQUIPMENT REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics’ quarterly Data Center Network Equipment report provides worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts and analysis for data center Ethernet switches (general purpose, purpose-built, and blade switches), ADCs, and WAN optimization appliances. Companies tracked include Alcatel-Lucent, Blue Coat, Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, F5, HP, IBM (BNT), Juniper, Radware, Riverbed, and others. To buy the report, contact Infonetics Sales: http://www.infonetics.com/contact.asp.