March 17, 2014

By Carolyn J Dawson

TMCnet Contributor

 

The new research report published by Crehan Research highlights that shipments of 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) switch ports for data centers has been growing at a significant pace in comparison to the shipments of 1GbE switch ports. The increased adoption of 10GbE switch ports for data centers during 2013 has surpassed the number of 1GbE switch ports, a major development ever since the launch of the 10GbE switches for mass deployment.

Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research, said “When I first saw 10 gigabit Ethernet switches arrive on the market back in 2001, I never thought that we would be well into the next decade before these products would comprise a majority of data center Ethernet port shipments. Despite a network traffic growth curve that turned out to be way above most expectations, this technology was encumbered by numerous obstacles on its way to becoming a majority of data center connections.”

Those  major bottlenecks faced by 10GbE switch ports in fostering the widespread adoption included: delayed availability of the compatible 10GBASE-T solutions further aggravated by the low-port density switches and the huge associated costs. Moreover, the optical pluggable modules were expensive, and  there was a  requirement for various multi-source agreements and associated form-factors.

The industry transitioned through 300pin, XENPAK, XPAK, XFP and X2 modules, in that order, before finalizing at the currently deployed SFP+ form-factor. The data center industry was also impacted by two major recessions, which discouraged even big players in making major investments in technology revamp.

The increased adoption of 10GbE switches was triggered by the growing demand for high-speed data transmission. The trend  also is fostering deployments of next-gen switches required for uplink and aggregation of the increasing number of 10GbE data center connections.

Crehan Research is engaged in the research and publishing of information and trends that drive the market for data center switch and server-class adapter & LOM/controller. It is a recognized source for in-depth analysis, detailed statistics and context driven information


Edited by Peter Bernstein