In the latest Ethernet Switch - Data Center 5-year Forecast Report from Dell’Oro Group, the research firm forecasts that the market for 400 Gbit/s switches will ramp strongly starting in 2019, while from 2020, 25 and 100 Gbit/s will account for more than half of the data centre switch port shipments.
Dell'Oro reports that the second half of 2016 saw the beginning of a major speed upgrade cycle in the data centre based on 25 Gigabit Ethernet SerDes technology, with shipments of 25 and 100 Gbit/s reaching hundreds of thousands of ports per quarter despite supply constraints on 100 Gigabit Ethernet optical transceivers. Adoption of 25/100 Gbit/s is predicted to accelerate in 2017 and to comprise over half of data centre switching ports within only 4 years of initial shipments.
Dell'Oro notes that the rapid growth will be driven by a low price premium over preceding 10 and 40 Gbit/s port speeds as well as switch vendors consolidating their products to provide fewer speed options.
In its separate Ethernet Switch - Layer 2+3 5-year Forecast Report, Dell'Oro forecasts that the overall Ethernet switch market will grow to exceed $28 billion in 2021, driven by factors including speed upgrades, software-defined networking and subscription-based models.
Dell'Oro expects that the Ethernet switch market will remain robust over the next 5 years, with revenue and shipment growth driven primarily by the data centre segment, while the campus switching market is forecast to continue to be soft due partly to cannibalisation from WLAN.
