Software-defined networks will need watching Network Monitoring Equipment market has jumped 24% in a year, driven by software defined networking; Europe is expected to gain in the coming year, says researcher IHS.
Network monitoring equipment revenue, including switches and taps, reached $513m last year. The strong performance came after muted growth in 2014, when vendors integrated acquisitions and service providers reduced spending. Now, the fundamental drivers of making networks more secure and reliable are driving network monitoring equipment to a new high. In addition, software-defined networking (SDN) and bare metal switch-based monitoring solutions gained traction, expanding the market by cost-effectively enabling more pervasive monitoring.
Advanced switches—those with additional packet processing capabilities—made further gains in 2015, accounting for the vast majority of monitoring switch sales (78%). 10G ports are the most common type of monitoring switches, but 40G is the new high-growth market, with port shipments more than doubling in 2015. 100G will take off in 2016, buoyed by 100G deployments in production networks, it says.
Driven by the need for robust network monitoring capabilities to ensure smooth operations of mission-critical network infrastructure, the network monitoring equipment market is projected to grow at a five-year (2015–2020) compound annual growth rate of 14%.
North America is the largest region for network monitoring equipment, accounting for over two-thirds of total revenue and driving the highest growth among the top three regions in 2015. Going forward, growth is anticipated to pick up in EMEA as currency effects fade, and mission-critical networks drive companies to deploy network monitoring equipment and vendors look to grow beyond their home markets. The top four vendors in the networking monitoring space are, in alphabetical order, APCON, Gigamon, Ixia and NetScout, it says.