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10 Terabit Ethernet By 2010
Eric Frost writes "From Directions Magazine: 'Because it is now impossible to sell networking unless it is called Ethernet (regardless of the actual protocols used), it is likely that 1 Terabit Ethernet and even 10 Terabit Ethernet (using 100 wavelengths used by 100 gigabit per second transmitter / receiver pairs) may soon be announced. Only a protocol name change is needed. And the name change is merely the acknowledgment that Ethernet protocols can tunnel through other protocols (and vice versa).'"
Bandwidth doesn't necessarily help play games with very little delay. For quick responses in games, you need low one-way latency. A network may be capable of throwing out 1000 zillion bytes/second, but if it takes too long to send out the first packet, the game isn't going to work very well. One-way latency is way more important than bandwidth when the goal is to send out many small packets as soon as possible. High bandwidth would greatly speed up large downloads, but for faster response in games, etc, lower latency is what you need.
iSCSI bascially takes native SCSI commands, wraps it up (encapsulates it), and sends it over the wire. In other words, you could use a SCSI scanner over a network without having to resort to PC Anywhere or something.
Lucent was selling their all-optical DWDM switches (Lambda Series) last year. The LambdaXtreme is a 40 Gbps DWDM unit that uses micro-mirrors (MEMS) for switching. Data is not converted to electricity, but stays as photons the entire route. It is capable of sending data through optical fibers for 1,000 KM *without regeneration* and at 4,000 KM *without regeneration* at reduced (10 Gbps) speeds.
They sold a pair of units (and you have to buy at least 2 or they are useless) to Time-Warner. There is one on the East Coast and one on the West and it forms a major part of their cross-country backbone.
8-10 of the units were sold to Korea (South) for use in wiring up their national rail systems. I also believe NTT DoCoMo (Japan) bought a couple.
This is all last year. Since I'm no longer with that company (layoffs), I no longer get all the product updates. These units were in my product group for install, service and support.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'll stop trolling here after I get this out: stop thinking this has anything to do with your top-of-the-line, supergeekin' Athlon.
:(
This technology is namely meant for backbones, be it on a campus level or as a longer haul backbone. Obviously, your desktop will not need to transfer anywhere near that much data within the next, say, 25 years. If you were using your head while you were reading the (albiet poorly written) article, I wouldn't have to troll.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
10Tb/s means
5 million 2Mb/sec compressed video streams
Copy a 250GB drive in 1/4sec
23 thousand streams of 24bit x 1600*1200pix x 75hz uncompressed
1.5k byte packets at 670 million/sec
2 billion x 50 byte packets per sec
port scan all ports on all IPv4 addresses in 20 minutes
Every US resident downloads Metallical's new track in 30 minutes of my http server
And this will all be available at Fry's for a $50 NIC and $30 cable ? When ? I'll hold off buying any new network HW 'till then :^)
Seriously, there are some significant implications here. For 1, you won't need a monitor connected directly to the "fast video card" to get the next fancy 3D graphics features. Memory bandwidth and network bandwidth will be similar meaning that clustered NUMA systems will be interesting. Some of the design decisions we deal with today have been because getting the person close to the computer to improve the experience was a critical factor will disappear.