Optical data center interconnect market nearly $5 billion in 2019: ACG

ACG Research expects the global market for optical data center interconnect (DCI) technology will increase from just over $1.1 billion in 2014 to $4.7 billion in 2019, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44.9%.

"Uptake of optical DCI is being driven by the migration of services to data centers and the cloud as service providers simplify deployment models and accelerate delivery of new and differentiated services," says Tim Doiron, practice lead for Intelligent Transport Networking at the market research firm. "New and expanded data center deployments are being driven by a variety of service providers including Internet content providers, network service providers, and interexchange providers as well as enterprises themselves. As more functions become automated and virtualized, the need to interconnect data centers for capacity, resiliency, and versatility will continue to grow and increase the need for reliable, cost-effective, high-speed data center interconnections."

ACG reviews optical DCI product sales within long-haul and metro applications, as well as whether they come from large-scale multi-slot chassis platforms or small-form factor (SFF) optical appliances. Sales of metro DCI platforms (defined as those that support DCI connections up to 150 km) will continue to rule over long-haul, ACG believes. However, both metro and long-haul categories will grow strongly -- 51.5% and 24.6% CAGRs, respectively.

The Americas, and specifically North America, will continue to dominate optical DCI sales through 2019, ACG expects. EMEA and APAC have seen significant optical DCI growth, but each remains about half the size of the Americas market, according to the firm.

As far as platform types are concerned, the majority of optical DCI deployments so far have used multi-slotted chassis products, ACG reports. However, a wave of SFF platforms, such as Infinera's Cloud Xpress, Ciena's Waveserver, ADVA Optical Networking's FSP3000 CloudConnect, and Fujitsu's 1FINITY T100, have or will soon reach the market, the company notes.

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