You should know about "jumbo frames"
 
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Acceptance hasn't been immediate, but the concept of "jumbo frames" is starting to take off.
Jumbo frames were created for a specific purpose - connecting servers to a Gigabit Ethernet network. As networks approach gigabit speeds, servers have to work harder to keep up. That's because each packet a server receives will generate an interrupt and require the server to process the packet's header. With Gigabit Ethernet, those packets come fast and furious.
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Today, the maximum frame size Ethernet allows is about 1.5K bytes. With larger frames a server would have fewer interrupts and less processing to do during any given length of time.
Alteon WebSystems invented jumbo frames, allowing for frames as big as 9K bytes, and the company has found success with the technology among its customers. But many users are hesitant to use frames that exceed the size decreed in the IEEE Ethernet standard. The IEEE is resisting Alteon's efforts to standardize jumbo frames there.
However, the concept makes enough sense for server-to-server traffic that other vendors are also embracing limited applications of jumbo frames. Intel has the capability to support 16K-byte frames in its Gigabit Ethernet interface card, and 3Com plans to support jumbo frames in the third quarter of this year.
