Total shipments of 100 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) data center switch ports increased more than 20% during full-year 2020, according to a recent report from Crehan Research Inc. The robust increase, combined with a continuing decline in 10GbE shipments, resulted in 100GbE surpassing 10GbE to become the most widely deployed data center Ethernet switch connection speed.
Crehan’s data center Ethernet switch report further shows that this speed transition has occurred very rapidly, with 100GbE becoming a majority of shipments approximately just five years after initial 32*100GbE port (3.2Tbps) switch deployments. The hyperscale cloud service provider customer segment has been a key driver of the transition, accounting for the majority of cumulative 100GbE data center switch shipments to date.
“The data center Ethernet switch market’s transition to 100GbE as the most popular network connection speed is a reflection of the strong customer adoption of public data center networking: statistics analysis insights cloud services,” said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “100GbE has been the de facto switch port speed in some of the largest hyperscale cloud service provider data center networks for over four years. Furthermore, this rapid migration to 100GbE has brought some significant market share shifts within the data center switch supplier ecosystem, and these shares are now in play again as the transition to 200GbE and 400GbE gains traction.”
Other noteworthy results from Crehan’s data center switch report include:
- Arista accounted for close to 40% of cumulative 100GbE branded data center switch shipments.
- Cisco accounted for over 40% of cumulative 100GbE branded data center switch revenue.
- H3C, Huawei, and Juniper each shipped more than two million cumulative 100GbE data center switch ports since product introductions.
- Nvidia’s 100GbE data center switch shipments more than doubled in 2020.
- 25GbE data center switching also had very strong annual growth in 2020, with shipments increasing more than 30%.
- Although data center Ethernet switch revenues declined slightly for the full year, there was a general progression of improvement from a steep year-over-year decrease in 1Q20 to moderate year-over-year growth by 4Q20.
"The robust 2020 growth for 100GbE shipments was impressive, given that two of the largest data center switch customers – Amazon and Google – have been ramping 400GbE deployments strongly," Crehan said.
