Fibre Channel continues to make a strong showing in the storage area network (SAN) segment, with revenues surpassing $476 million in the first quarter of 2012, Dell'Oro said in a new quarterly report.
Brocade, in particular, saw its strongest quarter since Q4 2009, gaining six points of revenue share in Q1 2012, to reach about 71.
"Brocade has had two consecutive strong Fibre Channel switch quarters, calendar 1Q12 being their best ever for Fibre Channel switch revenue, reaching just under $340 million," said Casey Quillin, senior analyst at Dell'Oro Group.
Quillin added that there are two new trends driving the Fibre Channel market: the need for file-based storage alternatives with the rise of unstructured data, and service providers deploying Fibre Channel SAN storage with NAS systems.
Brocade's success coupled with new growth from Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) will also raise the SAN equipment market tide.
"With Brocade's momentum, the continued ramp of Intel's Romley platform, and Cisco's fiscal year end and strongest month coming in July, we expect to see strength in the overall Fibre Channel market in the second half of 2012," said Quillin.
For more:
- see the release
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