SAN equipment poised for 50 pc growth in 2012

CAMPBELL, USA: Global sales of SAN switches and adapters jumped 12.5 per cent in 4Q11 to $1.3 billion, marking the overall market's seventh consecutive quarterly gain. Moreover, FCoE-capable switch revenue grew 24 per cent in 4Q11 over the previous quarter, as market research firm Infonetics Research.

Infonetics forecasts the overall SAN switch and adapter market to grow to just under $10 billion by 2016.

In its fourth quarter (4Q11) SAN Equipment market share and forecast report, the research firm also finds that the emerging FCoE converged network adapter (CNA) market segment doubled in global revenue between the third and fourth quarters of 2011.

"We're forecasting the overall storage area network equipment market to jump close to 50 per cent in 2012 on the strength of fibre channel adapters, fibre channel over Ethernet (FCoE) converged network adapters, and FCoE-capable switches. We expect eye-popping growth in the nascent 16G fibre channel host bus adapters segment," notes Sam Barnett, directing analyst, data center and cloud, Infonetics Research.

Brocade strengthened its commanding lead in the fibre channel SAN switch market, ending the 2011 year with 2/3 of the global revenue; Cisco remains its strongest competitor.

Cisco is the clear leader in FCoE-capable switches, commanding 88 per cent of the global market in 2011.

QLogic and Emulex still hold majority share of the SAN adapter space, both posting healthy revenue gains in 2011 once again, though their rivals are also making steady headway as well.