Ahead In the Clouds
By Jay Gill
Principal Product Marketing Manager
For the past few years hyperscale Internet content providers (ICPs) have been attracting attention because the global network investments they are making to interconnect their data centers are outpacing investments being made by traditional service providers. Once again in 2015, ICP investments in data center interconnect (DCI) grew fastest, more than doubling the growth rate of every other segment, according to Ovum’s recently published Market Share Report: 4Q15 and 2015 Data Center Interconnect (DCI). The ICP segment is now 34% of the global DCI market, and over 50% of the largest market, North America.
It should come as no surprise that competition to serve this large and fast-growing market is fierce. But perhaps some observers might be surprised to learn that Infinera has not only maintained its strong lead in the market, which it first gained in early 2014, it has increased that lead dramatically. Per Ovum, Infinera finished 2015 with a 29% share of the ICP DCI market, 8.5% higher than a year earlier and 10% higher than the nearest competitor.
How has Infinera been able to grow DCI share so dramatically among ICPs? One of the most important factors is Infinera’s unique and highly differentiated technology, especially the Photonic Integrated Circuit or PIC. Infinera PICs deliver unparalleled flexibility and efficiency for ICPs to build Intelligent Transport Networks for all of their applications, from long-haul to metro DCI. Infinera recently announced the latest generation of PIC technology, which combines with Infinera’s FlexCoherent processor to create the Infinite Capacity Engine.
Infinera delivers the benefits of its unique optical engine technology in multiple products that align directly to ICP applications. ICPs continue to rapidly expand their long-haul network capacity using the Infinera DTN-X platform to interconnect remote hyperscale data centers with distributed metro data centers close to their users. And since late 2014, ICPs have deployed massive amounts of metro DCI capacity using Infinera’s Cloud Xpress to interconnect data centers within metro areas. Infinera developed Cloud Xpress with ICPs in mind and created a new category of compact, low power appliance purpose-built for metro DCI. With its extraordinary simplicity and ease of use, that remains unmatched by later competitors, Cloud Xpress continues to be the clear market leader in its category.
Infinera complements these differentiated technologies and products aligned to ICP needs with high reliability and outstanding service and support, which enable ICPs to create a competitive advantage and shorten time to ROI. The combination of technology leadership, customer-centric focus, world-class quality and time as a weapon have created what we call the “Infinera Experience.” As our expanding market share lead demonstrates, ICPs clearly like the Infinera Experience they have been receiving, and as they continue to rapidly grow their networks for the foreseeable future, we look forward to growing with them.
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