FCoE fuels SAN market growth

BANGA.ORE, INDIA: 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.

Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst for carrier and data centre networks at Infonetics Research, said: “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 centres."

Also Read: FCoE to drive network adapter market

SAN adapters and fiber channel and fiber channel over Ethernet SAN switches all saw a healthy bump up in revenue in 4Q09.

"The consolidation and increasing size of data centres 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 Howard.

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.