Brocade #1 , Cisco #2 in 1Q10 SAN Switch Market

Market research firm Infonetics Research released its first quarter of 2010 Storage Network Equipment market share and forecast report, which tracks storage area network (SAN) switches and adapters.

SAN Switch and Adapter Market WW Revenue Forecast

Source: Storage Network Equipment Quarterly Market Share (June 2010)

"In the first quarter of 2010, Fiber Channel and Fiber Channel over Ethernet SAN switch sales were unseasonably up, thanks mainly to Cisco, while SAN adapter sales were seasonally down, creating a flat sequential quarter for the overall storage network equipment market. However, the market is up 24% from this quarter a year ago, and, with data and video being created at unprecedented levels and concentrated in data centers, companies will continue to invest in SAN switches to reduce complexity on the data center floor, driving strong annual growth in the overall SAN equipment market through at least 2014, when it will reach $6.5 billion," notes Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier and data center networks at Infonetics Research.

Highlights:

• In 1Q10, Brocade easily maintains its #1 SAN switch market share position, although #2 Cisco continued to gain share with another strong quarter
• QLogic and Emulex together make up 87% of the world’s SAN adapter revenue
• Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) SAN switch sales jumped 41% in 1Q10 over the previous quarter
• The SAN adapter segment is expected to experience double-digit annual growth through at least 2014, spurred by demand for FCoE converged network adapters (CNAs)
• The introduction of 16G Fiber Channel equipment in 2011 will help keep the Fiber Channel market growing for years
• North America, home to some of the world’s largest data center operators, media companies, and content providers, represents the largest SAN equipment market, with nearly half of the worldwide SAN equipment revenue in 1Q10

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 FCoE converged network adapters (CNAs). Switches are tracked by chassis (director) vs. fixed (fabric), and all ports are tracked by type (10G FCoE, FC 2G, FC 4G, FC 8G, FC 16G, iSCSI). The report tracks ATTO, Blade, Brocade, Chelsio, Cisco, Emulex, Intel, LSI, Mellanox, Myricom, Neterion, QLogic, Voltaire, and others.