Data centre equipment market up 17 pc YoY

CAMPBELL, USA: The global storage networking market totaled $1.3 billion in 1Q12, flat from 4Q11. FCoE converged network adapters (CNAs) were a bright spot in the market in 1Q12, up 22 per cent sequentially, finds research firm Infonetics Research.

"The data centre equipment market was down sequentially, but is up nicely from the year-ago first quarter. For the remainder of 2012 and into 2013, we expect growth to be choppy as service providers and data center operators are at different stages in their data center upgrades and some are beginning to wind down their current investment cycle," Barnett adds.

In the Fibre Channel SAN switch space, Brocade continues to be the #1 player, with 70 per cent revenue market share.

"We see steady growth ahead for SAN switches and adapters, pushed by social networking, video sharing, data center innovations, and the eventual shift to cloud computing models. Fiber Channel continues to be the real star, with revenue from 16G Fiber Channel products growing at an astounding 52 per cent compound annual growth rate from 2011 to 2016," expects Sam Barnett, directing analyst, data center and cloud, Infonetics Research.

Potential economic difficulties in North America and EMEA remain a concern in relation to service provider capex, as these regions together accounted for slightly over 70 per cent of the global SAN equipment market