The evolution to 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switching took a major step in 2020, with shipments of 100GbE outnumbering those of 10GbE during the year, according to Crehan Research. A 20% increase in 100GbE port shipments combined with a decline in 10GbE popularity contributed to the milestone, says the market research firm.
The climb to the top of the port shipment list came just five years after initial deployments of 100GbE ports in 3.2-Tbps data center switches. “The data center Ethernet switch market’s transition to 100GbE as the most popular network connection speed is a reflection of the strong customer adoption of public cloud services,” commented Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “100GbE has been the de facto switch port speed in some of the largest hyperscale cloud service provider data center networks for over four years. Furthermore, this rapid migration to 100GbE has brought some significant market share shifts within the data center switch supplier ecosystem, and these shares are now in play again as the transition to 200GbE and 400GbE gains traction.”
Arista Networks and Cisco benefited significantly from the greater momentum behind 100GbE in 2020, according to the new report. Arista claimed almost 40% of the cumulative 100GbE branded data center switch shipment market share, while Cisco enjoyed more than 40% of cumulative 100GbE branded data center switch revenue. H3C, Huawei, and Juniper Networks all have shipped more than 2 million 100GbE data center switch ports since their respective product introductions. Nvidia also saw a bounce in 2020, with their shipments more than doubling last year.
Shipments of 25GbE ports also proved strong in 2020. However, the success of 100GbE and 25GbE was not sufficient to prevent data center Ethernet switch revenues overall from declining slightly for the full year, according to Crehan Research.
Crehan Research produces reports with statistics and information on the data center switch and server-class adapter and LOM/controller markets.
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