The 10-Gbit/sec networking market finally took off last year, as Cisco Systems, Extreme, Foundry, Force10, InfiniCon, Voltaire, Topspin, and many others began to promote 10-Gbit/sec connectivity. According to a new report from CIR (Charlottesville, VA), the market for 10-Gbit/sec ports is expected to net $570 million this year but should grow rapidly, reaching $3.3 billion by 2009. Much of this growth will come from 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE), which will account for two-thirds of the 10-Gbit/sec market this year but almost 80% of the market in ’09.
A surge in demand from corporations, research labs, and governments is driving the rise in 10-GbE. OC-192 router ports are now priced at 50 times that of the average 10-GbE port. But in spite of all the multiservice hype, service providers are sticking with SONET/SDH for MAN and WAN transport over more than 10 km, and the market for OC-192/STM-64 ports will continue to grow quite smoothly and reach more than $460 million in ’09.
Other factors driving market growth over the next few years will be the arrival of 10-Gigabit Fibre Channel and the continued growth of 10-Gigabit InfiniBand interfaces. There has been plenty of media analysis regarding Ethernet versus SONET, but in practice there are more decision makers comparing Ethernet to InfiniBand, since Linux clustering is forcing data centers to reconsider their network architectures.
For more details on the report, “10-Gigabit Networking: A Market and Technology Assessment,” visit www.cir-inc.com.