A recently published report by Dell’Oro Group forecasts 400 Gbps shipments to surpass 15 million switch ports by 2023. Meanwhile, 100 Gbps port shipments are expected to peak in 2020, but should still comprise more than 30% of data center switch ports shipped during the next five years, the analyst says.

“The first wave of 400 Gbps switch systems based on 12.8 Tbps chips were introduced in the market in the second half of 2018,” notes Sameh Boujelbene, senior director at Dell’Oro. “However, we do not expect material adoption of 400 Gbps until 2020 due to the lack of high volume, low cost 400 Gbps optics."

Dell'Oro's latest report provides more details about the timing of 100/200/400/800 Gbps deployments, and how the use cases may vary depending on the SerDes lane and market segment driving the speed.

Commenting on the research, Dell'Oro's Boujelbene adds, "The only cloud service provider that started deploying 400 Gbps [in 2018] was Google, opting for 2×200 Gbps optics with an earlier time-to-market. Meanwhile, we expect other cloud service providers -- for instance Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft -- to keep deploying 100 Gbps, and to probably use higher density 100 Gbps switch systems based on the 12.8 Tbps chips to lower costs."

Dell’Oro Group is an information analyst specializing in the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries. For more information, contact Dell’Oro Group at +1.650.622.9400 or visit www.delloro.com.

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