Networking alliances in alignment

The Ethernet Alliance and the Road to 100G Alliance this week announced that the latter organization would be folded into the former.

If you are thinking, "Well, duh," I'm with you on that one.

The Road to 100G Alliance appeared last year at a time when the IEEE's Higher Speed Study Group was still wrestling over the issue of whether to pursue 40Gbps or 100Gbps as the next Ethernet standard. As you may know, the group decided to pursue both at the same time.

The Road to 100G Alliance was formed as a nonprofit corporation to help foster interoperability among the components necessary to create such high-speed network equipment. It was also intended as a facilitator for a "100G ecosystem," connecting the manufacturers of those various components.

The Road to 100G Alliance declared victory this week in a statement attributed to Bill Weisinger, the group's chairman:

"The Road to 100G Alliance has met and exceeded its expectations in terms of exposing the challenges of developing 100G platforms… With the challenges well understood, it is the right time for us to join with the Ethernet Alliance and fulfill the balance of our goal: to establish a comprehensive ecosystem of suppliers and users to accelerate the adoption and ongoing development of high-performance networking solutions."

The Ethernet Alliance was formed in 2006, and its mission is all about promoting Ethernet technology in general, rather than taking a side on disagreements over speed. It's natural that the group would take over from here.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.