Originally posted on Data Center POST
By Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., senior research director, data center, cloud and SDN, IHS Technology
Analysis
The global data center network equipment market, including data center Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers (ADCs) and WAN optimization appliances (WOAs), grew 6 percent in 2015 from 2014, to $11.8 billion.
White box bare metal switch port shipment growth has stalled for the moment as the large cloud service providers (CSPs) transition to Tomahawk-based units supporting 25GE and 100GE, which just started shipping in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2015.
The trend towards purpose-built switches continued in 2015. However, longer term bare metal switching is expected to erode demand for purpose-built switches as the new generation of now-shipping Broadcom switching silicon, which adds 25/50GE to the mix of port speeds in the data center, becomes available from traditional network vendors in the form of branded Ethernet and bare metal switches. This will give data center operators the option to deploy open networks using bare metal switching with comparable risk.
To read the full article, view it on the Data Center POST website here.