We have reported on the significant price drops and other factors that many believe will propel the adoption of 10GBase-T. CommScope's Yinglin Frank Yang has even pointed out that on a per-Gbit/sec, per-port basis, 10GBase-T is a more-economical solution than 1000Base-T.
A forecast recently published by Dell'Oro Group lends credence to those assertions. The report projects five-year deployment rates for controllers and adapters of different transmission rates and different media orientation. When announcing the availability of its Controller and Adapter 5-Year Forecast Report, Dell'Oro stated that by early 2014, 10-Gbit/sec controller and adapter port shipments will surpass those of 1-Gbit/sec. The 10-Gbit/sec devices will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33 percent over the next five years, according to the market-research firm. That rapid growth will be "fueled by increases in server I/O processing capabilities, virtualization and big data," the company says.
Dell'Oro analyst Sameh Boujelbene, who covers the controller and adapter market, explained that the migration to 10-Gbit/sec from 1-Gbit/sec differs from the previous-generation migration (from 100-Mbit/sec to 1-Gbit/sec) in that it "is happening first with the so-called 'daughter adapter' instead of native LAN on Motherboard [LoM]." Daughter adapters provide server manufacturers with flexibility in terms of brands and features, he further explained, adding that he expects server manufacturers to keep 1-Gbit/sec on motherboards and "interim solutions with a combination of 1 and 10 Gbits/sec on the same controller/adapter will emerge to help end-users through the 10-Gbit/sec migration."
In addition to these dynamics, the report discusses the likely drivers and inhibitors of 10GBase-T adoption, and forecast for the shipment of ports enabled with Fibre Channel over Ethernet.
You can find out more about the Dell'Oro Group study here.
