Abstract
This IDC study provides IDC's 2006 worldwide market analysis and forecast for a
critical component in the market for network storage solutions, Fibre Channel
(FC) switches. It forecasts port shipments as well as factory and market
revenue for the sale of FC switches in four segments: chassis switches, 16-64
port fixed port switches, entry-level switches, and blade server embedded
switches.
This study discusses how future trends in virtual server and volume server
shipments, the deployment of storage in small and medium-sized businesses, and
competing technologies such as iSCSI will affect the competitive position of FC
switch vendors. It also discusses how continuing industry consolidation will
affect future developments and provides specific advice to these companies on
how to best take advantage of the changing world of networked storage.
"The next two years will be a period of solid revenue growth for the
consolidated group of remaining FC switch suppliers as companies continue their
move toward comprehensive, SAN-based storage architectures that support virtual
server environments and bladed server architectures," said Richard Villars,
vice president, Storage System at IDC. "As the market reaches a level of
saturation, however, FC switch suppliers must extend their focus into
file-level storage and greater management of data across the extended
enterprise."
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