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IEEE Launches 400G Ethernet Standards Process
alphadogg writes "The IEEE this week launched a study group to explore development of a 400Gbps Ethernet standard to support booming demand for network bandwidth. Networks will need to support 58% compound annual growth rates in bandwidth on average, the IEEE claims, driven by simultaneous increases in users, access methodologies, access rates and services such as video on demand and social media. Networks would need to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabit per second by 2020 if current trends continue, the organization says."
It also remains to be seen whether the IEEE wants to go after some of the non-ethernet interconnects with this one, to try to get ethernet into use for larger-than-single-chassis interconnection of things that are usually confined to single boxes and 'internal' busses.
Your end user probably doesn't even need 1GbE; but his boring cheapo desktop probably has an 8(if 2.0) or 16(if 3.0) GB/s PCIe connector available for adding a graphics card. Hypertransport or QPI are faster still.
If one had the desires of people building larger-scale closely interconnected systems in mind, a very, very, very fast flavor of ethernet(with convenient ethernet features not generally available on internal busses, like the more sophisticated switching and routing capabilities); but enough speed to serve as an interconnect for a rack full of blade modules with virtualized storage and networking, or NUMA across all blades, or both, could be quite handy.
Such features have been available for a while in proprietary busses from the very expensive supercomputer outfits; but the IEEE may be looking to move in to that area with at least certain flavors of ethernet....
As of my post there were 8 posts, all pessimistic either stemming from "they will never be able to do it" or "customers wont want to upgrade" or "most of my customers are still 100mb, and thats all anyone will ever need"
Who are you people? This is a cool and exciting new technology. Since when did this become a website full of luddites? (and seriously, the "100mb/640k is enough for everybody" people can go fuck yourselves)
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
FTFA:
The article also notes that 100G, which was ratified in 2010, is just now barely coming online.
Thus doing a little math, we're likely to see this standard in 2020 at the earliest, later if the nation collapses in insolvency.
Is all that bandwidth really just wasted on shiny?
You it's all just shiny, the world is going to hell in a handbasket and our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Now if you excuse me, I'll go and install that CentOS VM from the DVD image which downloaded in under an hour, listen to some streaming music and perhaps watch something on iPlayer this evening.
Facetiousness aside, the increase in capacity is great. I can easily share huge files with far-flung co-workers, upload/download whole VM images to IAAS providers, watch video on the net and a whole host of other things.
Oh, and finally, have you seen how fast "download all headers and articles" goes these days on even a busy usenet group? I remember doing that over a modem and it's much better now.
I certainly get my money's worth.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is for enterprise and ISPs. Most of the equipment that uses this kind of bandwidth just splits it up and sends it on its way. Imagine the trunks that connect ATT to Sprint... They aren't going anything with the data but routing it. Check out this switch, and it's an old one: http://www.tech.proact.co.uk/foundry/foundry_bigiron_rx16_switch.htm
What feeds that? Trunks like we're talking about here.