IHS Markit: 25/100GE switch port growth surges; 200/400GE in 2019 + Optical Tranceiver Market Overview

IHS Markit: 25/100GE switch port growth surges; 200/400GE in 2019

Overview:

IHS Markit recently released its Data Center Network Equipment market tracker, which showed that worldwide data center Ethernet switch revenue grew 12% YoY in 3Q17, reaching $2.9B. Key segments driving demand were purpose-built switches which grew 13% YoY and bare metal switches which grew 47% YoY and continues to flourish as customers transition from traditional switches to white box and branded bare metal models.

Worldwide data center Ethernet switch ports shipped grew 24% YoY in 3Q17, reaching 12.5M. 25GE and 100GE experienced significant uptake, resulting in 251% and 369% YoY growths, respectively; yet the 2 port speeds combined only make up 16% of ports shipped while 10GE still leads with 61% of ports shipped in 3Q17. We forecast 25/100GE ports shipped to rise to 46% combined and 10GE to decrease to 46% by 2021, as customers migrate from 10GE to 25GE server connections and 100GE ASPs decline making them more viable options for large and small cloud service providers (CSPs) to deploy.

IHS Markit expects trials for 200/400GE to begin in 2018 with production shipments occurring in 2019 and revenue to reach approximately $1B by 2021.

We believe 200GE will be deployed first yet have a short shelf life as 400GE is expected to follow closely behind and will become the primary choice going forward. The gap in time will be solely determined by how long it takes for the higher speed to become production-ready with adequate supply. CSPs will be the main customers for 200/400GE as they transition from 100GE in an effort to satisfy increasing high-bandwidth demands,” said Cliff Grossner, Ph.D., Senior Research Director and Advisor for the Cloud and Data Center Research Practice at IHS Markit.

 

 

More Data Center Ethernet Switch Market Highlights:

·         The need for greater than 100GE speeds results in 200/400GE shipments beginning in 2019.

·         The continued adoption of 25GE between servers and ToR switches will push adopters of 25GE to upgrade to 100GE for inter-switch connectivity. This shift is now underway in the enterprise.

·         The market for 10GE/40GE has seen a shift with ASPs falling rapidly; the number of ports shipped is also slowing, with revenue growth of 10GE and 40GE port shipments following unit shipments.

·         CSPs are the earliest adopters of higher speeds and pave the way for use of higher-speed technologies; large DC cloud environments with high compute utilization requirements continually tax their networking infrastructure, requiring them to adopt high speeds at a fast rate, ultimately resulting in the lowest $/1GE ratios.

·         Vendor performance: Cisco continues to dominate and Arista is #2 in the DC Ethernet switch market; Cisco garnered 53% of DC Ethernet switch market revenue in 3Q17 with revenue up 5% YoY. Arista was #2 with 13% share and 50% YoY growth. Huawei was #3 with 7% share and 23% YoY growth.

Research Synopsis:

The IHS Markit Data Center Networks Intelligence Service and provides quarterly worldwide and regional market size, vendor market share, forecasts through 2022, analysis and trends for (1) data center Ethernet switches by category [purpose-built, bare metal, blade, and general purpose], port speed [1/10/25/40/50/100/200/400GE] and market segment [enterprise, telco and cloud service provider], (2)application delivery controllers by category [hardware-based appliance, virtual appliance],  and (3) software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) [appliances and control and management software], (4) FC SAN switches by type [chassis, fixed], and (5) FC SAN HBAs. Vendors tracked include A10, ALE, Arista, Array Networks, Aryaka, Barracuda, Broadcom, Cavium, Cisco, Citrix, CloudGenix, Dell, F5, FatPipe, HPE, Huawei, InfoVista, Juniper, KEMP, Radware, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari, TELoIP, VMware, ZTE and others.

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Global Optical Transceiver Market: Striding to 200G and 400G

Posted on February 1, 2018 by FS.COM

The demand for higher Ethernet speed, couple with the prevalence of Cloud computing, Internet of Things and virtual data center, has driven the prosperity of optical transceiver market. Optical transceivers, direct attach cables (DACs) and active optical cables (AOCs) have evolved dramatically to catch leading edge broadband network capacity. The past decades have witnessed massive adoption of optical transceivers with data rates ranging from 1G, 10/25G to 40/100G, while higher-speed 200G or even data center 400G is just on the horizon. The sales of optical components grows steadily and is expected to continue in the years to come.

10G, 25G, 40G and 100G: Seeing Broad Adoption in Data Center 

As network gets faster and virtualization gradually becomes the norm, data center is undergoing a major transformation. The trend emerges in the industry signifies a migration toward higher speed transceivers and better service. These high-bandwidth transceivers are driving revenue growth which suggests a strong market. The global optical transceiver market is anticipated to reach to $9.9 billion by 2020, driven by the widespread use of 10/25 Gbps, 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps, and with the biggest sales forecasted for 25G and 100G ports. The imminent 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps optical transceivers also poise to hold a fraction of the market share.

optical transceiver market trend forecast

10G Transceiver: Moving to the Edge

Initially offered in the early 2000s, 10 Gigabit Ethernet has matured now to become a commonplace in data center. 10G server connections reached majority of new shipments and have outpaced 1G connection in 2015. Basically the 10G Ethernet is stacked to move to 40G and 100G at the access layer, following the upgrade path of 10G-40G-100G, which, however, will quadruple the cabling complexity, power consumption and overall cost. And this will be exacerbated when aggregating into 100G (10×10G) interface.

25G Transceiver: Pave the Road for 100G

So there comes the game changer: 25G Ethernet for better economics and efficiency. 25 Gigabit Ethernet makes the road to 100G smoother with reduced cost, lower power consumption and less cabling complexity. SFP28 optical transceiver is designed for use in 25G Ethernet, delivering 2.5 times higher speed per lane at lower power. 25G SFP28 can be viewed as the enhanced version of 10G SFP+ transceiver, utilizing the same form factor but running at 25 Gb/s instead of 10 Gb/s. Besides, SFP28 25G is back compatible with SFP+ so it will work sufficiently on SFP+ ports. By the year of 2019, the price of a 25G SFP28 will be almost the same as a 10G SFP+. So you will be saving a great bunch of money if choosing to move to 25G. Some users even plan to skip 10G and directly deploy 25G Ethernet for better scaling to 50G and 100G.

Image result for IHS Markit: 25/100GE switch port growth surges; 200/400GE to begin in 2019

40G Transceiver: Affordable for Mass Deployment

Obviously, 10GbE is no longer fast enough for data centers handling large-scale applications, so 40G is designed to alleviate bottlenecks in the access layer . When firstly planning to scale to 40G, the cost is extremely high that makes the implement of 40G technology difficult. Luckily, we’ve seen significant cost reduction of 40G optics in the past 2 years: QSFP-40G-SR offered by FS.COM is $49 only. The price drop accelerates 40G transceivers adoption in aggregation links, or in access links to connect servers. For scaling to“spine-leaf” architecture, 40G switches can be used as spine switch with the 40G QSFP+ ports breaking out into 4 10G SFP+ ports to support 10G server uplinks. 40G port revenue has peaked in 2016 and will now decline in favor of 25G and 50G ports.

100G Transceiver: Ramping up in Data Center

Currently 100G are the fastest Ethernet connections in broad adoption, which is growing sustainably. And the optical transceiver market indicates that 100G QSFP28 module price will continue to drop, making the cost difference between 40G and 100G even small. For example, FS.COM offers great cost reduction on 100G transceivers: only $199 for QSFP28 100G-SR. Moreover, 100G switch port shipments will outnumber 40G switch port shipments in 2018—as 25G server and 100G switch became commonplace in most hyperscale data centers that replaces previous 10G servers and 40G switches. Vendors of 100G QSFP28 transceiver will continue to grow the product and push the limits of its versatility.

200G and 400G – New Connection Speed Hits Data Center

Another foreseeable trend in interconnect market is the phase out of low speed transceivers in the core of networks and in data centers. So here comes the major shift from 10G and under to 40/100G and higher. New developments with QSFP28 technology in 2018 also will pave the way for the 200G and 400G QSFP-DD: next-generation 200G and data center 400G Ethernet will deploy starting in 2018, and become mainstream by 2019-2020. On the whole, optical transceiver market is evolving to higher speed, more reduced power consumption and smaller form factor. Let’s take a look at these future-proofing optical transceivers.

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