New Ethernet Standard — Both 40 and 100 Gbps

Artemis recommends a blog entry that does a nice job of summarizing the history and current state of the Higher Speed Study Group and the IEEE's next-generation Ethernet standard. "When IEEE 802.3ba was originally proposed [there] were multiple possible speeds that were being discussed, including 40, 80, 100, and 120Gbps. While there options were eventually narrowed down to just two, 40 and 100Gbps, the HSSG had difficulties [deciding] on the one specific speed they wanted to become the new standard... [T]wo different groups formed, one which wanted faster server-to-switch connections at 40Gbps and one which wanted a more robust network backbone at 100Gbps... Unable to come up with a consensus the HSSG decided to standardize both 40Gbps and 100Gbps speeds..."

Comments

Ars Technica?

[conigs]

I'm normally not one to do this, but the article linked is nearly identical to the coverage over at Ars Technica. It seems that only a few words were changed and without even a link to the original ars article.

Read all the gory details yourself

[evw]

If you want all the gory details rather than a copy of a summary of a summary, here is a link to all the presentations at the meeting.

http://www.ieee802.org/3/hssg/public/july07/index. html

Read through the minutes (warning PDF) to get a summary.

Motion #4: Move that the HSSG adopt the following objectives in replacement of
existing HSSG objectives:

o Support full-duplex operation only
o Preserve the 802.3 / Ethernet frame format utilizing the 802.3 MAC
o Preserve minimum and maximum FrameSize of current 802.3 standard
o Support a BER better than or equal to 10-12 at the MAC/PLS service interface
o Provide appropriate support for OTN
o Support a MAC data rate of 40 Gb/s
o Provide Physical Layer specifications which support 40 Gb/s operation over:
- at least 100m on OM3 MMF
- at least 10m over a copper cable assembly
- at least 1m over a backplane
o Support a MAC data rate of 100 Gb/s
o Provide Physical Layer specifications which support 100 Gb/s operation over:
- at least 40km on SMF
- at least 10km on SMF
- at least 100m on OM3 MMF
- at least 10m over a copper cable assembly

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is one hope though. And its name is Google......"

No. There is another.

Re:speed vs. robustness?

[Midnight Thunder]

What does the 40Gb standard have that the 100Gb standard doesn't cover?

In one word: cost. The 100Gb connection is limited to fibre optics, whereas the slower connection support copper. Fibre optics are still more expensive than copper. It should also be noted that backbones deal with more traffic than non-backbone networks. Think of the difference between inter-city high ways and local back streets and you should get the picture.