Global data center and enterprise software-defined networks (SDN) markets will be worth $3 billion by 2017, a new report reveals.
The report from Infonetics Research predicts wide scale in-use SDN deployments will occur first in the data center with large enterprises and cloud service providers, followed closely by the enterprise LAN.
Cliff Grossner, directing analyst for data center and cloud at Infonetics Research, said “the important question that everyone wants answered is, ‘What’s the real market for SDN?’
“It’s still early days, but our research over the last two years confirms that SDN controllers and Ethernet switches in-use for SDN will play a role in enterprise and data center networks, growing to a $3.1 billion market by 2017.”
SDN is going through a classic market adoption cycle, with many new entrants looking to gain a toe-hold, and the majority of enterprises still kicking the tires.
Vendors shipping SDN products in 2013 include Alcatel-Lucent, Big Switch, Brocade, Cisco, Cumulus, Dell, Extreme, HP, Huawei, IBM, Juniper, Midokura, NEC, Pica8, Plexxi, Plumgrid, VMware and others.
The few early deployments for SDN - Google, NTT, AT&T, Verizon, DT, BT, and China Mobile - are in large data centers of cloud service providers and large enterprises.