Infonetics expects data center equipment market to grow 67% this year, SANs to double by 2014
A new round of data center upgrades, driven by virtualization, growing amounts of data and a greater need for storage, pumped life into the data center equipment market in 2010, according to Infonetics Research. Even with a flat third quarter and an expected down fourth quarter, the market will grow about 67% this year over last.
That’s because there was under-investment in data center equipment in 2009 due to the hangover from the Great Recession. Infonetics expects the worldwide market – which includes sales of data center Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers and WAN optimization appliances — to hit $7.6 billion this year and $10.5 billion in 2014.
In Q3, it was $1.9 billion, up 2% from Q2. Growth was led by North America and Europe/Middle East/Africa, and 10G Ethernet ports were 14% of data center switch port penetration in the quarter.
Infonetics expects that to reach 50% in 2014, helped by dramatic price reductions.
Application delivery controller revenue is being driven by carriers, a revived financial sector and data center upgrades in general. F5 built on its revenue share lead, and Citrix saw a 25% hike in revenue in Q3, surpassing Cisco for the first time, Infonetics found.
Riverbed’s WAN optimization appliance revenue jumped 22% in Q3. The company now has a double-digit lead over its nearest competitors, including Cisco.
Another piece of the data center puzzle is SANs. Infonetics expects that market to more than double in 2014, driven by video and data content in global data centers – much of which is consumer-generated.
SAN switch and SAN adapter revenue grew to $683 million worldwide in Q3, up 7% from Q2 and 16% over last year. North America accounted for 45% of the worldwide SAN revenue in Q3.
Cisco maintained its No. 2 position behind Brocade in SAN switching, but gained share thanks to consecutive quarters of growth throughout the year.
Infonetics expects the worldwide SAN equipment market to reach $6.6 billion in 2014.
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