100 Gbps Via Ethernet

Doc Ruby writes, "As reported at GigaOM, 'Infinera has bonded 10 parallel 10 Gb/s channels into one logical flow while maintaining packet ordering at the receiver,' bridging 100-Gbps ethernet over 10 10-Gbps optical WAN links. Infinera's press release is here. Further from GigaOM: 'The experimental system was set up between Tampa, Florida and Houston, Texas, and back again. A 100 GbE signal was spliced into ten 10 Gb/s streams using an Infinera-proposed specification for 100GbE across multiple links. The splicing of the signal is based on a packet-reordering algorithm developed at [UC] Santa Cruz. This algorithm preserves packet order even as individual flows are striped across multiple wavelengths.' We're all going to want our share of these 100Gbps networks. The current network retailers, mainly cable and DSL dealers, still haven't brought even 10Mbps to most homes, though they're now bringing fiber to the premises to some rich/lucky customers. Are they laying fiber that will bring them to Tbps, or will that stuff clog the way to getting these speeds ourselves?" Rumors say that what runs over Verizon's FiOS is ATM, to support their aspirations for triple-play.

Comments

100 GBPS

[Intron]

Why should I have to wait 5 seconds to download a movie. Don't they have anything faster?

Re:100 GBPS

[Firehed]

5 seconds at 100Gbps? How high-def is your pr0n?

Re:100 GBPS

[UnknowingFool]

Kids! Back in my day we have to wake up at 4am in the morning to collect firewood to send out smoke signals. If you were lucky you would have 8 bits out bit by noon. And those were the good days when some script kiddie didn't try to r00t our fires. You'll take your 100GPS and like it. Now, get off my lawn!

Re:100 GBPS

[`Sean]

Man...and I thought I had it rough having to rely on RFC 2549.

Re:100 GBPS

[kfg]

Smoke? Luxury!

In my day we had to throw bits of shit at each other.

That's right, monkeys invented digital communications. Insert your Al Gore joke here:

KFG

Re:100 GBPS

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I used to work at the phone company as a bit ejaculator. My record was 6 bits in one day. The person you wanted to talk to had to be 6 feet away or less.

Re:100 GBPS

[networkBoy]

Hey in my day you had to be within 4 feet and 4 bits was the max.... wait a second there...

Hey you youngin's are weak! in my day we could whack out one full EBDIC character a day and at a range of 10 feet, so there!

Re:Rich?

[Jim_Maryland]

Recently switched to FIOS myself and I'm saving compared to my Comcast bill.

$117 Comcast (Digital Cable without any of the premium channels, broadband at 7 Mbps (although never actually saw rates near that))
$69 Verizon FIOS (Digital TV without any of the premium channels, broadband at 5 Mbps (actually saw rates exceeding that but generally very close to the advertised speed))

Since Verizon FIOS was available in the area (Maryland), Comcast has been pretty heavily advertising their bundle for new customers where you get the Digital Cable ($33), VoIP ($33), and Broadband ($33). Unfortunately that appears to be a one year deal compared to Verizon FIOS which doesn't appear to have plans to jump up after the initial year (hopefully I didn't miss some small print).

FYI - Using SunRocket as my VoIP with the monthly cost under $17 so the Comcast package isn't an option for me.

TCP-PR = neat stuff

[neuro.slug]

Here's a link to the paper (PDF) on the packet reordering if you're interested. Being a former banana slug, I was very interested to see this research coming out of UCSC. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy whenever something theory-based is actually implemented.

Yeah.

[Spazntwich]

Ass to mouth is probably a good guess for what runs over Verizon's FIOS pipes.

Certainly welcome in the data centre world

[anticypher]

This is a natural progression of ethernet speeds. 10GigE switches are getting to the price point now that we are installing them everywhere. I even had a 10GigE switch on my home fibre for a week of testing, but slashdot just doesn't load any faster.

All the broadband providers are moving to larger pipes now, with GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) going in everywhere, as consumers are clamoring for more than ADSL2+ speeds (24Mbps down, 2Mbps up) in city centres. I'm designing the back end of a GPON network, where every neighborhood gets 2.5Gig down, 1 Gig up, shared between 16 residences. Of course, there is going to be more than just internet on pipes that big, quadruple play to start, and as new services become available even more bandwidth will be needed. Once you start piling up the 10GigE connections, it will be nice to have a working trunk/etherchannel/bonding solution for those long hauls between data centres.

the AC

Re:Whoa.

[ebob9]

Well, thats closer, but I think in reality it would be a bit smaller.

So, you did 10 (Gbit/sec) * 8 (bits per byte) * 5 (seconds) = 62.5 Gbytes.

The 10Gb links are Ethernet links. Lets also assume HTTP is the transfer method, just to make it 'easy'. We could use FTP which is UDP but then we'd have to account for the TCP Control connection in the traffic. Heck, Lets even assume nice jumbo frames with a 9000 MTU. Also, lets assume the video is 'optimally' compressed.

Ethernet header = 14 bytes
IP header = 20 bytes
TCP Header = 20 bytes

14+20+20 = 54 bytes out of every 9000 transfered for header information.

On top of this, there will be HTTP headers at the start of the request, but since they are only transfered at the start (not every packet), lets factor them out as miniscule.

So, basically 62.5 is the maximum theoretical data of the circuits. 62.5Gbytes /9000 * 54 = 375Mbytes of packet overhead.

The Maximum possible transfered in 5 seconds would be 62.5Gbytes - 375Mbytes = 62.125Gbytes.

FTP uses UDP?

[yabos]

Not according to the almighty wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ftp

Fiber's still the wave of the future

[Manchot]

Let's face it, for long-term benefit, fiber's still the way to go. Though still mostly in the research and development mode, there are companies who can make complete wavelength-division multiplexed optical systems on a chip. Some of them can send and receive 40 Gb/s on 40 different channels. Do the math. That's 1.6 Tb/s per fiber. If you have a bundle of 100 fibers, you're starting to push petabits per second. Also, keep in mind that the main limiting factor for optical data transmission rates is the electrical speed of the transistors at both ends, not the fiber itself. As transistor speeds improve, the maximum data transfer rate per channel will improve. The maximum data transmission rate of copper, on the other hand, is pretty much fixed by the fermionic nature of electrons.

Re:Fiber's still the wave of the future

[iWill]

This (Infinera) is the company that makes complete wavelength-division multiplexed optical systems on a chip. They have demonstrated 40 Gbps x 40 channels = 1.6Tbps in development and currently have many 10 Gbps x 10 channel networks deployed by companies such as Level 3 (which first came online in 2004.) Also, the limiting factor in single optical channel transmission is not the transistors at each end. The real problem is the laser modulation at the transmitter as well as the response of the photdetector at the receiver. GaAs or InP transistor circuits at either end are more than capable of handling speeds in excess of 40Gbps if the laser generation/detection ever gets there.

Why stop there?

[tringstad]

'Infinera has bonded 10 parallel 10 Gb/s channels into one logical flow while maintaining packet ordering at the receiver,' bridging 100-Gbps ethernet over 10 10-Gbps optical WAN links.

So what's preventing them from taking 10 of these newly created 100GbE channels, applying the same technique, and producing 1TbE?

-Tommy