Japan datacenter network infrastructure market size will continue to expand beyond 2011, driven by the growing importance of datacenters in the overall IT market place, a new study published by International Data Corporation (IDC) showed.

It said factors that contributed to the growth of the Japan data center network infrastructure market in 2010 included the consolidation of IT resources into centralized data centers, and the enhancement of Internet-based service delivery facilities. The 2010 market size grew 18.4 percent year over year, making a significant recovery from the negative growth in 2009.

IDC estimates service providers will continue to invest in Internet-based services facilities and in their datacenters. Thus, its 2011 datacenter network infrastructure market size is expected to expand at a 9.1 percent rate over 2010.

IDC forecasts the market will continue to grow in 2012 and beyond and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5 percent between 2010 and 2015, reaching 69,134 million yen by the end of the forecast period.

Key players in the datacenter network infrastructure market include: Cisco Systems, a major supplier of datacenter Ethernet switches, and a leader in advanced data center strategies; leading vendors of specialized equipment segments, such as Layer 4–7 switches and WAN application delivery systems; and Brocade Communications Systems, a leading vendor of Fiber Channel (FC) switches (included in a broader scope of datacenter network infrastructure).

IDC believes IT consolidation and the growing use of virtualization technologies will drive the transformation of the datacenter network architecture. In addition, this transformation will impact both product development and the overall market structure of the datacenter network infrastructure market.

"Vendors should expedite the commercialization of core technologies and functionalities targeting datacenter network architecture systems, while closely observing both standardization and end-user demand trends. The key to high competitiveness and leadership in this new market is dependent on the vendor's ability to effectively develop its products and related technologies. By the time end-user demand enters the growth stage, vendors will need to have a portfolio of well established products," said Kenichi Kusano, senior market analyst, Communications, IDC Japan.