05 June 2014
There is a need for increased network bandwidth to meet the global IP traffic demand, which is growing at a rate of 30% per year according to a recent Cisco forecast. In order to meet this demand, there will be a need to upgrade to 40G Ethernet links for switch to server and storage area network connections in data centers and 100G Ethernet links for core switching and routing connections in the backbone.
The biggest market for 40G Ethernet (40 GbE) is in data centers for interconnection links with servers and storage area networks. The market for 100G Ethernet (100 GbE) will be driven by high bandwidth switching and routing for core network aggregation of 10G and 40G Ethernet links. The market for 40 GbE and 100 GbE will evolve over the next three to seven years as products become less expensive and more available over time. Figure 1 shows the natural progression of higher speed Ethernet as a function of time to meet the needs of server I/O and core networking bandwidth.
Figure 1 – Projected need for server I/O and core networking bandwidth
