Ethernet
Dell’Oro: Campus Ethernet Switch Revenues dropped 23% YoY in 1Q-2024
Worldwide Campus Ethernet Switch [1.] revenues plummeted by 23% YoY in the 1st quarter of 2024 to a 2-year low, according to the Dell’Oro Group.
- The only two vendors that grew campus switch revenues year over year were Santa Clara, CA based Arista Networks and Ubiquiti [2.].
- Cisco’s campus switch revenues fell more than the worldwide average.
Note 1. With higher demand from new use cases for wired connectivity such as automation, analytics, and network visibility, and the need for new access switches to aggregate Wireless LAN access points, Dell’Oro Group is offering in-depth analysis specifically on Ethernet Switches built and optimized for deployment outside the data center, for the purpose of connecting users and things to the corporate Local Area Network (LAN).
“Basically, campus switches are really the networking gear to connect users and devices and laptops,” said Sameh Boujelbene, VP with Dell’Oro Group. “Access points are probably the number one application.”
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Note 2. Although headquartered in New York, NY, Ubiquiti wrote in a 2019 SEC filing:
“We use contract manufacturers, primarily located in China, Vietnam and Taiwan, to manufacture our products. Our relationships with contract manufacturers allow us to conserve working capital, reduce manufacturing costs and minimize delivery lead times while maintaining high product quality and the ability to scale quickly to handle increased order volume. Over the long term, our contract manufacturers are not required to manufacture our products for any specific period or in any specific quantity. If necessary, we expect that it would take approximately 3 to 6 months to transition manufacturing, quality assurance and shipping services to new providers.”
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“Vendor backlogs of campus switch orders have now been completely run down, and the market is in a multi-quarter digestion cycle,” said Siân Morgan, Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. “The shipments of most port speeds declined, and the Average Sales Price (ASP) also dropped on a YoY basis.
“However, in 1Q 2024, Arista had its third sequential quarter of (market) share gain, growing Campus Switch sales to large enterprises.
On the downside, Cisco’s Campus Switch shipments contracted sharply. This reduction contrasts with their shipments in 2023, when Cisco opened the “floodgate” for Catalyst and Meraki port shipments which had been on backorder,” added Morgan.
Additional highlights from the 1Q 2024 Ethernet Switch – Campus Report:
- The contraction in campus switch sales was broad-based across all regions, with the exception of Central America-Latin America (CALA).
- Some vendors bucked the price trend and were able to grow port ASPs thanks to richer product mixes.
- 5/5.0 Gbps switch ports are expected to return to growth as shipments of Wi-Fi 7 Access Points accelerate.
The Dell’Oro Group Ethernet Switch – Campus Quarterly Report offers a detailed view of Ethernet switches built and optimized for deployment outside the data center, to connect users and things to the Local Area Networks. The report contains in-depth market and vendor-level information on manufacturers’ revenue, ports shipped and average selling prices for both Modular and Fixed, and Fixed Managed and Unmanaged Ethernet Switches (100 Mbps, 1/2.5/5/10/25/40/50/100/400 Gbps), Power-over-Ethernet, plus regional breakouts as well as split by customer size (Enterprise vs. SMB) and vertical segments.
To purchase these reports, email [email protected]
References:
Campus Ethernet Switch Revenues Crash to a Two-Year Low in 1Q 2024, According to Dell’Oro Group
Dell’Oro: Optical Transport, Mobile Core Network & Cable CPE shipments all declined in 1Q-2024
Dell’Oro: Broadband network equipment spending to drop again in 2024 to ~$16.5 B
Highlights of IEEE Triple Milestone Event – May 20, 2024 at CHM
Three very significant IEEE Milestones were celebrated May 20th at the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mt. View, CA. They were as follows:
- Google’s PageRank Algorithm and the Birth of Google. The PageRank Algorithm shaped our access to digital content and put Google on the map as an established web search company.
- The 1974 IEEE Computer Society paper on TCP (“Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Enables the Internet”) authored by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.
- The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee which generated and maintains the standards for IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet), 802.11 (Wi-Fi®), 802.15 (early Bluetooth), among others.
Among newer and important IEEE 802 projects:
- IEEE 802.1 Time Sensitive Networks Task Group provides standards for deterministic connectivity through IEEE 802 networks (i.e., guaranteed packet transport with bounded latency, low packet delay variation, and low packet loss). It’s being used at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
- IEEE 802.19 Wireless Coexistence Working Group deals with coexistence between unlicensed wireless networks. Many of the IEEE 802 wireless standards use unlicensed spectrum and hence need to address the issue of coexistence when operating in the same unlicensed frequency band in the same location.
In addition, four other ground breaking IEEE milestones were briefly discussed:
- Development of the Commercial Laser Printer, 1971-1977 Ron Rider, VP of Digital Imaging (retired), Xerox PARC
- Xerox Alto Establishes Personal Networked Computing, 1972-1983 John Shoch, Office Systems Division President (retired), Xerox PARC
- Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN), 1973-1985.
- ALOHAnet Packet Radio Data Network, 1971 Bob Metcalfe, Co-Inventor of Ethernet at Xerox PARC and Frank Kuo, University of Hawaii.
Dedication of the above 4 Milestones:
The first three milestones were dedicated at SRI PARC on Friday, May 17th. The fourth milestone ALOHAnet led directly to the development of Ethernet.
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You can watch a replay of this four hour event here.
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Of particular significance to IEEE Techblog readers:
- Vint Cerf, who co-authored the TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) paper with Bob Kahn and is often called a “father of the Internet,” described the history of the Internet. He said that Arpanet and ALOHAnet led the way to the Internet, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month with the IEEE Computer Society’s publication of the TCP paper.
- In addition to new enabling technologies (e.g. hollow core fiber and LEO satellite connectivity) Vint said we need new policies for economic, social and legal frameworks to make the Internet safer and more secure. Also, to hold bad actors responsible for malicious behavior. The Internet Society and others need to educate regulators to make these types of changes.
- Past and present executives of the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee discussed the success of Ethernet (802.3), Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11), Wireless Specialty Networks (IEEE 802.15), MAC Bridging (IEEE 802.1) which were developed by IEEE 802 LMSC. The purpose and role of the Radio Regulatory Technical Advisory Group, which supports the work of various 802 wireless standards, was also explained.
- Ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe provided a genesis of Ethernet which he co-invented with David Boggs while at Xerox in 1973. Working on Project MAC at MIT in 1970, Metcalfe used the Arpanet to connect dumb terminals to time shared computers. After he joined Xerox PARC, Bob read a paper about the ALOHAnet network at the University of Hawaii by Norm Abramson and was so intrigued that he visited there for one month to gain a deeper understanding of that innovative radio packet network. It used randomized retransmissions after a collision. The Ethernet MAC protocol (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection) he developed used similar ALOHAnet concepts. At 2.94 Mb/sec, the first Ethernet was 306.25 times faster than ALOHAnet (9.6 Kb/sec). That’s because it ran on 0.5 inch coaxial cable rather than radio airwaves. The 2.94 Mb/sec rate (vs 3 Mb/sec) was chosen due to the size limitation of the Ethernet circuit card which could not include a 3 Mb/sec crystal oscillator. That first 1973 version of Ethernet was used at Xerox to enable Alto GUI workstations (predecessor to the PC) to share a networked laser printer and for Xerox PARC engineers to communicate via in house email.
Addendum: Metcalfe did not mention that the hardware for the 10M b/sec version of Ethernet, which in 1985 became the IEEE 802.3 10Base5 CSMA/CD standard, was designed at Xerox by Robert Garner and Ron Crane, RIP.
In April 2022, IEEE SV Tech History committee (founded and initially chaired by this author 2013-2015), presented an event on the history of Ethernet at Xerox. The event description is here and the video is here. Unsung Hero of Ethernet Geoff Thompson moderated this superb panel session. It was originated by this author to provide well deserved recognition for another Unsung Hero- the late and great Ron Crane who (with Robert Garner) co-designed Xerox’s 10 Mb/sec Ethernet circuit card for the Xerox Star workstation as well as 3COMs breakout product – Etherlink circuit card (product # 3C100) for the IBM PC, which shipped in September 1982.
References:
https://ieeetv.ieee.org/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/ethernet-ieee-milestone
https://ethernethistory.typepad.com/my_weblog/2017/08/in-memory-of-ron-crane.html
Ethernet Alliance multi-vendor interoperability demo (10GbE to 800GbE) at OFC 2023
The Ethernet Alliance, a global consortium dedicated to progressing Ethernet technologies (albeit, only the MAC frame format is left from the original 10BaseT Ethernet standard), this week exhibited a multivendor interoperability demonstration at the OFC 2023 conference and exhibition in San Diego, CA.
–>Please see References 1. and 2. below for the detailed multi-vendor interoperability demo diagrams.
Featuring 18 different participating member companies, the Ethernet Alliance interoperability demo spans diverse Ethernet technologies ranging from 10 Gigabit Ethernet to 800GbE. The interoperability display features a live network between the booths of Ethernet Alliance and the Optical Internetworking Forum, Exfo, Spirent Communications, and Viavi Solutions.
The network leverages single-mode optical fibers with high-speed traffic originating from an array of switches, routers, interconnects, including copper and optical cables. It also employs various interconnects using multiple pluggable form factors such as OSFP, QSFP-DD, QSFP, and SFP, and multiple interface types including OIF 400ZR, OpenZR+ MSA 400ZR+, and 800G-ETC-CR8.
The Ethernet Alliance also spent time highlighting its roadmap, which sees continued advancement in the speed, reliability, and use cases for the networking protocol across multiple sectors. The goal of the organization is not to invent new standards, but rather to help foster their adoption and deployment in an interoperable approach.
Source: Ethernet Alliance
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“We’re now at the half-century mark, and Ethernet’s star continues to rise. As a profoundly resilient technology that’s getting progressively faster, it is an innovation engine that drives market diversification and fuels business growth. If you think about the journey from invention to deployment, what we do is we try to show that the technology does work and it is mature enough that it can be deployed,” said Peter Jones, chairman, Ethernet Alliance.
In the enterprise market, demand for 10 GbE-based Ethernet remains strong and there is also some growth for 25 GbE, which is intended more for servers. Ethernet also has 100 GbE and 400 GbE speeds to support larger enterprise and campus needs.
Network operators are always looking for more network capacity and speed and to that end 800 GbE and soon 1.6 Tb/s Ethernet (TbE) will fit the bill.
Jones said that in the early days, the goal for each new set of specifications was to provide 10-times the speed, at only three-times the price of the existing specification. Over time what has occurred is the standards have not just been racing forward to ever faster speeds, but rather are being tailored to meet the price and performance characteristics that a given use case requires.
For example, work is ongoing to help bring Ethernet into more industrial use cases as a solution for serial connections. Ethernet is also increasingly finding its way into automotive use cases as modern vehicles rely on growing levels of compute capacity to operate and communicate.
The Ethernet Alliance is also working on certification efforts for Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). While there have long been PoE standards, there hasn’t been a full-scale certification effort in the same way that there is for Wi-Fi in the wireless world. Jones said that while PoE mostly works today, there have been some instances of vendor technologies that weren’t interoperable.
“We really want people to be able to buy certified devices because we want to preserve the idea that Ethernet just works and we were starting to see that breaking down with PoE,” Jones said. “Ethernet is the most important technology that no one ever sees. Very few people that use the internet understand that Ethernet is the key part of it,” he added.
“One of OFC’s highlights was live interoperability demonstrations from leading optics companies running over OFCnet,” said OFC chairs Chris Cole, Coherent Corporation; Ramon Casellas, Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya; and Ming-Jun Li, Corning Incorporated.
References:
https://ethernetalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/EA_Ecosystem-Demo.pdf
https://optics.org/news/14/3/17
https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/analysis/why-you-should-never-bet-against-ethernet/2023/03/