According to Infonetics Research, revenue from the storage area network (SAN) equipment market stood at $648 million at the end of 2013. Further, SAN equipment revenue (including fibre channel switches and adapters) grew by 14 per cent sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2013. However, on a year-over-year basis, the market declined by seven per cent over 2012.
The research firm states that equipment vendor, Brocade accounted for 54 per cent of the SAN equipment revenue in 2013. During the year, the company improved its market share by three percentage points. Brocade gained market share at the expense of Cisco which lost ground in this space.
The growth in the SAN equipment market was driven by increasing demand for converged network adapters followed by iSCSI and universal adapters. The industry also witnessed high demand for 16G fibre channel.
