* IEEE Higher Speed Study Group weighs 100 Gigabit
The users participating in the IEEE’s Higher Speed Study Group are arguing for 100Gbps to be the next standard Ethernet speed.
Of course, the speakers at last month’s meeting represented those organizations that need more speed than anyone – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the Amsterdam Internet Exchange, and NTT Communications.
Do these organizations have the same needs as enterprise companies? Uh, no. But they are early adopters, and certainly these kinds of organizations had a say in bringing along 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Today, 10G Ethernet is making its way into enterprise networks.
The representatives from the Amsterdam Internet Exchange and NTT said don’t even bother with anything under 100Gbps, according to their presentations on the IEEE Web site. The other major speed being considered is 40Gbps.
The LBNL representative said that the goal for reach at the LAN level should be 2 kilometers.
The speakers also downplayed link aggregation as a solution. There is definitely a feeling that aggregating smaller links to form a larger logical pipe is a clumsy solution to a bandwidth problem. It increases cost and complexity, they said. The additional fiber lines cost money. Routing optimization is best performed over fewer links. And if you’re using up ports for aggregation, you’re not using them for customers.
The rate discussion was just one aspect of the meeting. It’s clear that it’s early days yet for this study group, and much of the discussion, according to the presentations, is focused on defining the very mission of what might become a task force. But it’s interesting to see users – at least, some users – clamoring for a very high-speed Ethernet indeed.
