IEEE Standards Will Unite High-Speed Ethernet, Says Force10

The special elements of the high-speed Ethernet market will congregate as IEEE standards are adopted, according to Force10 Networks. President and chief executive officer Henry Wasik praises the IEEE - the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for its work on the P802.3ba standard, ratified for both 40 GbE and 100 GbE.

He says: "We entrust the IEEE for their efforts as the standardization of 40 and 100 GbE is a key step, from a bandwidth perspective, toward converging storage, compute and network resources on to Ethernet technology."

Force10 Networks adds that its own employees were involved in the early stages of the consent process, demonstrating the desire among clients for higher Ethernet speeds to become possible.

John D'Ambrosia from Force10 Networks also co-wrote the 2008 Ethernet Alliance Technology Overview of 40 and 100 GbE, which was published following the IEEE's own journal of a draft adjustment to the 802.3 Ethernet standards, an important step towards unifying 40 and 100 GbE within its specifications.

Power 10 to Go With 40 Gbe

Force10 Networks will integrate the rising IEEE standard 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40 GbE) into its switch/router solutions to offer the most reasonable incremental step from 10 GbE for dynamic data centers.

The company says that 40 GbE currently represents a more economical increase in Ethernet transmission rates than stepping up to 100 GbE technologies.

From the uplink at the server edge to the network core, Force10 plans to take a guidance role and develop solutions focused on this important emerging IEEE standard. 40 GbE is expected to be ratified by the IEEE in June.

It is an stimulating time as the outlay made by the industry over the past four years in 40 GbE and 100 GbE is set to conclude in June with the authorization of the IEEE P802.3ba standard, said John D'Ambrosia, chair of the IEEE P802.3ba Task Force and director of standards for Force10 Networks. This standard will offer the tools needed to add bandwidth and reduce intricacy in the data centre.

Michael Howard, co-founder and principal forecaster for carrier and data centre networks, Infonetics Research added the inevitable rout of data is causing scaling problems in data centers that are today limited to 10 GbE networks. Even though 100 GbE is preferred, data centre owners are looking for practical relief offered in the lower-cost 40 GbE. 100 GbE makes logic at some point as the technology becomes more cost effective, but customers want solutions to shorten their data centre networks and drive down costs today.