The impending arrival of 25G will help drive the Layer 2-3 Ethernet switch market to approach $25 billion in 2018, according to Dell'Oro Group.
The Ethernet switch market will become increasingly dependent on data center sales for growth. Campus switch revenues will continue to decline as mobile and WLAN connectivity replace cables in that environment, Dell'Oro states.
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Cloud providers upgrading server access connections from 10G to 25G in 2016 will be one of two drivers towards that $25 billion figure. The other will be enterprise migration to 10G in 2015.
The Ethernet switch market was $22.4 billion in 2013, according to Dell'Oro.
The market research firm also forecasts that uptake of 25G will propel sales of 100G Ethernet switching as well. That 100G is essentially four lanes of 25G is said to make the upgrade simple and cost effective.
Indeed, Dell'Oro has stated that 25G could drive a better cost curve than 40G, which is four lanes of 10G, and thus likely unseat 40G as the next highest server access speed and technology after 10G.
Dell'Oro believes the move to higher speed 25G and 100G will cause 10G modular port shipments to decline.
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