Revenues from Fibre Channel switch and adapter revenues will near $3 billion in 2016, having grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 2%, says market research firm Dell’Oro Group. The company made the prediction in its latest "SAN 5-Year Forecast Report."

"Although Ethernet has become an increasingly popular storage network technology, Fibre Channel is being used to backend the Ethernet systems," said Casey Quillin, senior analyst at Dell'Oro Group. "We forecast a portion of the server aggregation layer to shift away from Fibre Channel, which will result in a decline in port shipments in the outer years. However, we expect overall prices to rise with advanced data management features and the shift to 16 Gbps, resulting in positive growth throughout our forecast horizon."

The report also covers alternative storage-area network (SAN) technologies, such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). Vendors currently shipping FCoE enabled equipment include Cisco, HP, Brocade, Juniper, Emulex, and QLogic.

The new "SAN 5-Year Forecast Report" covers manufacturers' revenue, average selling prices, and port shipments by speed. This includes 1 Gbps (historical data), 2 Gbps (historical data), 4 Gbps, 8 Gbps, and greater than or equal to 16 Gbps for Fibre Channel switches and adapters, and 10-Gbps FCoE switches, controllers, and adapters.