5/4/2010 -- Cisco Systems Inc. improved its standing in a fiercely competitive storage area networking (SAN) space, closing the gap between it and long-time SAN switching leader Brocade Communications Inc. With analysts forecasting healthy SAN growth this year and beyond, Cisco's SAN standing seems poised to improve.

All in all, says market-watcher Infonetics Research, 2009 was a tough year in the SAN switch and adapter segment. That said, the travails of 2009 should soon become a thing of the past: combined sales of SAN switches and adapters should more than double between now and 2014, Infonetics says.

"Despite a setback in 2009 spending, the storage area network (SAN) switch and adapter market will grow again, pushed by the growing crush of data and video content residing on storage and servers in data centers," said Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier and data center networks with Infonetics Research, in a statement. Things started looking up in the final quarter of '09, when sales of SAN adapters, along with demand for both Fiber Channel and Fiber Channel over Ethernet SAN switches, all picked up. Going forward, everything -- or almost everything --- is trending in favor of strong SAN growth, Howard argues.

"The consolidation and increasing size of data centers requires the simplification and scalability offered by SANs," he said. "The introduction of 16G Fiber Channel [this year and next] will drive the Fiber Channel segment for years, but it's the Fiber Channel over Ethernet … segment that will see the majority of the growth, fueled by the consolidation of LAN and SAN onto single Ethernet networks."

Brocade was number one in the SAN switching segment. No surprise there. Cisco, however, has been able to leverage offerings like its Nexus 5000 (a "server access" switch that supports FCoE and which Cisco positions as either a SAN backbone or -- used singly -- as a SAN hub) to nab the number two slot in the SAN switching space. Elsewhere, QLogic Corp. retained its lead in the SAN adapter segment, with adapter and interconnect specialist Emulex (from which QLogic was spun off in the mid-1990s) capturing the number two slot. At this point, Infonetics notes, the SAN adapter and switching space is dominated by North American competitors: nearly half of global SAN switch and adapter sales are attributed to Brocade, Cisco, Emulex, QLogic and other North American vendors.
--By Stephen Swoyer