Authorization of the 40/100G Ethernet standard

The 40G / 100G Ethernet standard has been ratified, the 1st specification to at the same time use 2 new Ethernet speeds. The IEEE 802.3ba standard was ratified last Thursday, according by the IEEE. Approval paves the way for a new wave of higher speed Ethernet server connectivity and core switching products, the standards organization says.

100G Ethernet Cheat Sheet.

Some vendors, e.g. Cisco and Juniper Networks have just been trialing 100G Ethernet products since late last year. By manufacturing pre-standard products, these sellers are "taking a risk," announces John D'Ambrosia, chair of the IEEE 802.3ba Task Force.

"We made changes up till March [2010]," D'Ambrosia said. "[Compliance] is up to those [vendors] and where their products were up to that point."

Juniper explains it took part in the meaning of the standard and so the 100G product it trialed in October and Nov 2009 wishes no alteration to be completely compliant with last week's ratified standard.

"It is based on the standard as it was at that stage," announced Luc Ceuppens, VP of product selling for Juniper's Sub-structure Products Group. "Changes made this year didn't materially impact the product. I do not think we want to [modify] it."

Ceuppens says Juniper is at present taking order for the product, a 100G Ethernet interface for its T1600 core router. Cisco did not comment by press time.

Pricing is also a problem with forty / 100G Ethernet. Partakers at the latest Ethernet Technology Peak announced current price points were too high to spur conventional adoption.

D'Ambrosia says long reach optics for 100G Ethernet are dear but short reach is "extremely reasonable," and that some forty / 100G Ethernet price points are less expensive than 1st 10G Ethernet optics. Indeed, Extraordinary Networks is pricing its 40G Ethernet switching modules at $1,000 per port, barely higher than the average selling cost of a 10G Ethernet port.

"This is first generation [technology]," D'Ambrosia says. "It’ll come down."

The 802.3ba standard addresses bandwidth desires needed by the growing number of applications in information centers, service supplier networks and other traffic-intensive high-performance computing environments. Then expansion of virtualization and virtual machines inside information centers together with converged network services, video-on-demand, and social networking, were driving forces behind the meaning of the standard.

The standard is also anticipated to speed the adoption of 10G Ethernet now that higher-speed 40G / 100G pipes are available to total scores of 10G links. The IEEE also explains it enhances the Fed. Communication Commission's "Connecting America" State Broadband Plan, which calls for delivering bigger broadband access nationwide -- 100Mbps for at least a hundred million houses.

"It is an enabler" of those technologies and initiatives, D'Ambrosia says. "It isn't the only thing that will make it take off, but it's an enabler."

The IEEE cooperated with the Global Telecommunication Union's Telecommunication Standardizing Sector (ITU-T) Study Group fifteen to make sure that the new Ethernet rates are cartable over optical transport networks, the IEEE expounded.

IEEE 802.3ba remains compatible with existing IEEE 802.3 installations, which helps to preserve existing Ethernet investments, the IEEE says. The new standard is also anticipated to lower operating costs and improve energy efficiencies by assuaging the necessity to total multiple 10G links to gain 40G and 100G rates, the standards organization says.

The new standard has the same Ethernet frame format as IEEE 802.3, D'Ambrosia says. Clocking schemes are also "in the bounds of the boundaries of plausible and doable," he asserts.

The standard is available immediately for sale in draft format, the IEEE asserts.