CALIFORNIA, USA: Ethernet switch market is forecast to return to growth in 2010 and continue to grow annually through 2014, says analyst firm Dell’Oro Group.

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This growth is expected to come in large part from sales of Ethernet switches optimized for larger data centre deployments that are being driven by virtualization, together with the improved economics of fewer, larger data centres.

Alan Weckel, director, Dell’Oro Group, said: “We believe the performance of the data centre will drive growth in the Ethernet switch market over the next five years. For the data centre, we expect above-market growth with modest port growth and significant revenue growth during the forecast period."

"While we are still very early in the migration towards 10 GE for server connectivity, we believe that we will see 10 Gigabit Ethernet as a catalyst for growth in the Ethernet switch market,” stated Weckel.

The report also shows the Fixed 10 Gigabit Ethernet revenues are projected to grow the most during the forecast period. Vendors such as 3Com/H3C, Arista, Blade, Brocade, Cisco, Extreme, Force 10, HP, and Juniper all have current Ethernet Switch offerings in this segment.