The global market for Ethernet switches is seeing a boom in sales, driven by increased support for the 25GE and 50GE protocol standards.
The latest report from Infonetics Research, a market research firm, showed that revenues rose 5% sequentially to $2.2bn in the third quarter of last year.
The report, which tracks data centre Ethernet switches, application delivery controllers (ADCs) and WAN optimisation products, put the growth down to increased demand for the latest switching products from cloud service providers and US public sector organisations.
Cliff Grossner, directing analyst of data centre, cloud, and SDN at Infonetics Research, said: "The data center switching market is poised for another transformation with 25GE and 50GE enabling new data center network architectures targeting large cloud service providers looking to migrate from 10GE switching and server connectivity to 100GE switching and 25GE server connectivity."
He added: "A new generation of Broadcom switching silicon will add 25GE and 50GE to the mix of port speeds in the data center for 2015."
The report also found that sales of ADCs slid 2% during the same period from the second quarter of 2014, but added that the market has grown consistently on a year-over-year basis over the last six quarters.
Meanwhile, virtual ADC appliance revenue increased by 20% from the second quarter of 2014, as sales for WAN optimisation products grew 9%.
