WLAN market bifurcation drag on IEEE 802.11ax

According to a newly released market forecast report by Dell’ Oro Group, the Enterprise WLAN market bifurcation is expected to drag down the IEEE 802.11ax adoption rate. The report also anticipates subscription license sales to more than double by 2023.

“We see a clear segmentation unfolding in the Enterprise WLAN market,” said Ritesh Patel, Industry Analyst at Dell’ Oro Group. “One segment is a group of performance-seeking users who are willing to pay a premium for higher performance. The other, is the price-sensitive segment—a group of users who prefer to purchase older technology at a lower price. Our analysis shows that the performance-seeking segment adopts new technology at a faster rate than the price-sensitive segment. We forecast this phenomenon to impact the overall adoption rate for 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6),” added Patel.

“Another trend unfolding is the growing popularity of subscription licenses, which is adding significantly to market revenue. Performance-seeking users are purchasing licenses for applications such as predictive analytics, visibility into the network for troubleshooting, and enhanced security,” said Patel.

The WLAN 5-Year Forecast Report highlights other key trends, including:

• Enterprise WLAN market revenues to surpass $9 B by 2023.
• Access Point average prices rising in the near-term.
• 11ax access points to sustain a price premium for an extended period.

The Dell’Oro Group Wireless LAN 5-Year Forecast Report offers a complete overview of the industry, covering Enterprise Outdoor and Indoor markets, with tables containing manufacturers’ revenue, average selling prices, and unit shipments by the following wireless standards: 802.11ax, 802.11ac Wave 1 vs. Wave 2, 802.11n, and historic IEEE 802.11 standards. It includes forecasts for regions of the world and for Cloud-managed vs. Premises-managed. To purchase these reports, please contact us by email at [email protected]

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400 Gbps shipments to surpass 15M Switch Ports by 2023

Dell’Oro revealed in a separate report, that 400 Gbps switch ports are forecast to surpass 15M by 2023. The 100 Gbps ports are expected to peak in 2020 but still comprise more than 30 percent of data center switch ports in the next five years.

“The first wave of 400 Gbps switch systems based on 12.8 Tbps chips were introduced in the market in 2H 2018,”said Sameh Boujelbene, Senior Director at Dell’Oro Group. “However, we do not expect material adoption of 400 Gbps until 2020 due to the lack of high volume, low cost 400 Gbps optics. The only Cloud Service Provider (SP) that started deploying 400 Gbps was Google, which opted for special 400 Gbps optics with an earlier time-to-market. Meanwhile, we expect other Cloud SPs, for instance Amazon, Facebook or Microsoft, to keep deploying 100 Gbps, and to probably consume the 12.8 Tbps chips in the form of high–density 100 Gbps switch systems to reduce cost,” added Boujelbene.

The Ethernet Switch – Data Center 5-Year Forecast Report provides more details about the timing of 100/200/400/800 Gbps and how the use cases may vary depending on the SerDes lane and market segment driving the speed.

The Dell’Oro Group Ethernet Switch – Data Center Five Year Forecast Report provides a comprehensive overview of market trends and include tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, port shipments, and average selling price forecasts for various technologies: Modular and Fixed by Port Speed; Fixed Managed and Unmanaged by Port Speed. We forecast the following port speeds: 1000 Mbps; 10 Gbps; 25 Gbps; 40 Gbps; 50 Gbps; 100 Gbps; 200 Gbps; 400 Gbps.  To purchase these reports, please contact us by email at [email protected].

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Who else has announced or deployed 400G?

We’ve spent a lot of time searching for answers to that question but have found little.  In particular, Amazon has been very secretive in their AWS inter data center deployments which one would expect to have used 400G optics (probably 4 x 100G lanes).

Last October, Cisco announced its first set of 400G data center network switches.  Two of the switches were aimed at hyperscale cloud platforms, while the other two are for tech-savvy enterprises, and service providers. The two new Cisco Nexus 3400-S switches are for hyperscalers with high-bandwidth needs for things like video streaming, while the two new Nexus 9000 switches are for high-end enterprises taking advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning and service providers building 5G networks, Thomas Scheibe, VP of product management for Cisco Data Center Switching, told Data Center Knowledge.  Arista Networks announced plans for its first 400G switches last week, while Juniper Networks released details of its forthcoming 400GbE switches in July 2018.

“Everybody who sells to hyperscalers – whether that be Cisco, Juniper, Arista, or the white-box ODMs – will need to have 400GbE data center switches in their portfolio in 2019,” Brad Casemore, IDC’s VP for data center networks, told Data Center Knowledge. “There’s really no alternative, and that’s why you’ve seen a succession of 400GbE announcements from Juniper, Arista, and Cisco respectively. From a sales standpoint, they will all reach market at about the same time, but nobody wants to get outmaneuvered by a competitor.”

In an IEEE techblog post summarizing Facebook’s F16 Switch announcement at OCP 2019 Summit, we said that “Facebook built the F16 fabric out of 16 128-port 100G switches, achieving the same bandwidth as four 128-port 400G switches would.”  So they achieved effective 400G switch ports using 16 times as many 100G switch ports.

In its second quarter earnings call last month, Juniper Networks CEO Rami Rahim said that Juniper has started shipping its first merchant and custom silicon-based 400-gig capable products and that it plans additional 400G products throughout the course of this year and next.   Rahim said that 400G won’t really take off until 400G optics are available, which Juniper will ramp up in the first half of next year. Rahim also said the while the cloud providers will be the first big 400G customers, he expects service providers to be next in line.

Hyperscalers have been the primary drivers for 400G demand, he said. But other segments of the market, including telecommunications service providers rolling out 5G networks and high-end enterprises in verticals such as financial services, will also adopt the technology.  “Hyperscalers will be first, and they will buy in the greatest volumes, creating the sort of economies of scale that will make 400G more affordable for subsequent buyers,” Casemore said.

Here’s a good reference on Trends in 400G Optics for the Data Center.