50% of global data center Ethernet switches will be 25GbE or 100GbE by 2021

According to the latest survey report titled "Long-term Forecast Report on Data Center Switches" by Crehan Research, sales of Ethernet switches for data center network applications will exceed $15 billion in 2021; half of which will come from 25GbE and 100GbE platforms.

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“The adoption of 25GbE and 100GbE data center switches has experienced exponential growth, with port shipments now in the hundreds of thousands per quarter,” explained Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “The numbers would likely be much higher if it weren’t for some supply constraints in certain areas, such as uplinks and the optical transceivers that connect these switches.”

The popularity of the switches is due to several factors, including a cost structure with little or no premium compared to 10G and 40G Ethernet switches; growth in bandwidth per channel; compatibility with existing data center fiber cabling and latent demand from hyperscale cloud providers, according to the market research firm.

In its latest report, the company noted that shipments of SFP-based 10GbE and QSFP-based 40GbE data center switches will decline in 2017 due to the popularity of 25GbE and 100GbE switches.

However, Crehan expects 10GBASE-T data center switches to continue to have strong growth trends for some time.