SAN Equipment Market Expected To Jump 50% In 2012

Worldwide SAN equipment market is expected to jump 50% in 2012, as per Infonetics Research. It further forecasts the overall SAN switch and adapter market to grow to just under $10 billion by 2016.

“We’re forecasting the overall storage area network equipment market to jump close to 50% in 2012 on the strength of Fibre Channel adapters, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) converged network adapters, and FCoE-capable switches. We expect eye-popping growth in the nascent 16G Fibre Channel host bus adapters segment,” noted Sam Barnett, directing analyst for data center and cloud at Infonetics Research.

Findings of the fourth quarter (4Q11) SAN Equipment market share and forecast report by Infonetics Research pegged the global sales of SAN switches and adapters at $1.3 billion, a growth of 12.5%.

FCoE-capable switch revenue grew 24% in 4Q11 over the previous quarter. The emerging FCoE converged network adapter (CNA) market segment doubled in global revenue between the third and fourth quarters of 2011.

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As per the report, Brocade strengthened its commanding lead in the Fibre Channel SAN switch market, ending the 2011 year with 2/3 of the global revenue. Cisco emerged as the leader in FCoE-capable switches, commanding 88% of the global market in 2011.

QLogic and Emulex still hold majority share of the SAN adapter space, both posting healthy revenue gains in 2011 once again, though their rivals are also making steady headway as well.