SAN Switch and Adapter Market to Grow From $2.4 billion in 2009 to $5.9 billion in 2014

Market research firm Infonetics Research released the fourth quarter (4Q09) edition of its new Storage Network Equipment market forecast report.

"Despite a setback in 2009 spending, the storage area network (SAN) switch and adapter market will grow again, pushed by the growing crush of data and video content residing on storage and servers in data centers. The consolidation and increasing size of data centers requires the simplification and scalability offered by SANs. The introduction of 16G Fiber Channel in 2010/11 will drive the Fiber Channel segment for years, but it’s the Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) segment that will see the majority of the growth, fueled by the consolidation of LAN and SAN onto single Ethernet networks," notes Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research.

  SAN Swith and Adapter Market
  Continues to Grow Worldwide

(Infonetics Research, Storage Network Equipment Quarterly Market Share, Size and Forecasts, March 2010)

Storage Network Equipment Market Highlights

• The combined SAN switch and adapter market is forecast by Infonetics to grow from $2.4 billion in 2009 to $5.9 billion in 2014
• SAN adapters and Fiber Channel and Fiber Channel over Ethernet SAN switches all saw a healthy bump up in revenue in 4Q09
• In 2009, Brocade retained its perennial #1 SAN switch market share position, even as #2 Cisco gained share
• QLogic continues to lead the SAN adapter market, followed by Emulex
• Almost half of the world’s SAN switch and adapter revenue is generated by North American vendors

Infonetics’ Storage Network Equipment report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, forecasts through 2014, and analysis for Fiber Channel (FC) and Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) SAN switches, and 3 segments of storage networking adapters: Fiber Channel host bus adapters (FC HBAs), iSCSI HBAs, and Fiber Channel over Ethernet converged network adapters (FCoE CNAs). Switches are tracked by chassis (director) vs. fixed (fabric), and all ports are tracked by type.

The report tracks Arista, ATTO, BLADE, Brocade, Chelsio, Cisco, Emulex, Intel, LSI, Mellanox, Myricom, Neterion, QLogic, Voltaire, and others.