Cisco isn't the only beneficiary, of course. A rising tide lifts all boats, and -- if market watcher Infonetics Research is correct -- demand for purpose-built switches increased by almost one-third in the first quarter of 2010. That's quite a tide.

At the same time, however, sales of Cisco's Nexus switches spiked by almost one-quarter (23.5 percent), according to Infonetics, which calls Cisco a "driving force" in the data center switching segment. "We saw a 30 percent sequential jump in purpose-built switch sales in the first quarter of 2010, with Cisco a driving market force with their Nexus switch line," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise voice and data with Infonetics, in a statement.

Purpose-built switches like Cisco's Nexus cater to new and very different requirements, Machowinski points out. "Healthy annual growth is expected to continue in this segment because these switches better address the requirements of the next generation data center, including LAN/SAN convergence, reliability and high performance," he observes.

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For the record, Infonetics reports, sales of data center Ethernet switches increased by almost one-sixth (16 percent), generating almost $1.2 billion in revenue. Of this tally, "strong quarterly growth in the data center switch segment was due primarily to Cisco," Infonetics reports.

Things are less promising for Cisco in the application delivery controller (ADC) space, where it trails market leader F5 Networks by almost 20 points. (As recently as two years ago, both Cisco and F5 vied for ADC market supremacy, Infonetics reports.)

Sales of ADC offerings were up by 28 percent in Q1 of 2010, after a disappointing 2009.
--By Stephen Swoyer