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..."

In other news

Major telcos has increased the upload speed to 800k at a cost for only $70.00 a month.

Re:In other news

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

No. There is another.

Cable Length

Interesting to see that the faster 100Gbps also has the longer cable lengths built into the standard. From TFA:

40Gbps can be 1 meter long on the backplane, 10 meters for copper cable and 100 meters for fiber-optics. The 100Gbps standard includes specifications for 10 kilometer and 40 kilometer connections over single-mode fiber.

I'm seeing the 100Gbps used for infrastructure with its larger bandwidth and longer cable length while the 40Gbps would be used for datacenters, server rooms, etc. with its faster "connect" speeds (clarification on what exactly this would mean?).

Re:Cable Length

How often is your server 40 kilometers from the nearest switch?

My mom's basement is HUGE!

speed vs. robustness?

one which wanted faster server-to-switch connections at 40Gbps and one which wanted a more robust network backbone at 100Gbps

Why is the 40 Gbps one considered "faster" and the 100 Gbps one considered "more robust"?

Re:speed vs. robustness?

You misunderstand; one group said "We need to connect our servers to the switches with a faster connection." The other group said "we need to make our network backbone more robust by adding faster connections between buildings and such." The group that needed faster server-switch speeds don't need 100Gbps, they just need better than what they've got. The group that needed faster building-building/infrastructure links didn't believe 40Gbps is fast enough.

Adding both takes care of both groups of people.

Re:speed vs. robustness?

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.

Re:speed vs. robustness?

I wonder if it has something to do with latency. Maybe the 40Gb connections are faster because they have a simpler routing protocol or they use smaller packet sizes with no CRC. I haven't been able to get through to the actual proposed spec yet, so it's hard to say...

Ars Technica?

I'm normally not one to do this, but the article linked is nearly identical to the coverage over at Ars Technica [arstechnica.com]. 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

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 [ieee802.org]

Read through the minutes [ieee802.org] (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

Standards

The great thing about standards is ther's so many to choose from.

why ethernet?

Exactly how far will ethernet efficiently scale? As I understand it there were problems with 1Gbp/s as first planned leading to jumbo frames, and ethernet isn't (wasn't) that efficient a protocol.

Are there any other serious contenders which could/should be examined as a replacement for ethernet?

Looks like

the network will soon be faster than the computer. Any chance we can syphon off of this speed to do some computing? Make the network become the computer?

nice increase

Considering that this stuff was doing 10 GB in 2005, to see 100 in 2007 is a pretty nice upgrade...my question is, given that the speeds are increasing, will we see any of this as consumers in the US? Not a "providers suck" (which we already know), but more of a "will this potentially make connections cheaper"?

Edit much?

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...

Slashdot editors and their homonyms have a wonderful relationship. There may be "there"s in the summary, but they're subject their edits.

OT: Close to 2,000,000 posts!

Who will be the lucky slashdotter?

excellent!

Why have one standard when you can have two instead! This strategy has worked so well in the past...

10 gig still not totally utilized...

Assuming it's adopted, the 40gb standard may be the first Ethernet standard to have widespread fraud in the capabilities of hardware sold. Lots of hardware will be built that can't even come close to actually getting 40 gigabits advertised. Why? Many motherboards still can't utilize the full 10gbps even if the card can. The bad guys will catch on to this the second time around.

If you are the type to do the numbers and get a MB with sufficent bus speed. Buyer beware. The lack of speed may not be obvious without an order of magnitude jump.

Stevens

This should take care of the "Enormous amounts of material" the great Ted Stevens warned us about.

I want one for my home!

So they couldn't come to a resolution on who to make happy, so they decided to make both people happy. If only Microsoft offered 2 versions, 1 for those hardcore performance nazi's(myself included) that has no extras, just the OS and that's all, or a slow performance sapping, DRM loaded, 'feature' full version! Microsoft should take notes from these guys. So 40 Gbps or 100 Gpbs? I'll settle for just the 40Gbps internet connection for now.

Cheap fast optical networking?

Hopefully we might soon be able to let copper cabling die.

Cheap high speed optical chips: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/ 25/2046208 [slashdot.org]

Flexible, robust optical cables: http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41171 [theinquirer.net]

Adhocnet

Why do will we need ISPs? For some things, anyway?

We can string backbones using standard ethernet, at these speeds. We can use radio to bridge gaps. As I understand it, using copper across open outdoor spaces is electrically mad, so optical cabling is necessary, but the cost is dropping. We can run our own naming system. As for file sharing piggies, they can be screened out. We need a simple communication system that isn't under the boot.

Let's face it, the corporations and the moral police have taken over the old internet. Time for the ad hoc, mobile, difficult to pin down, constantly adapting citizen's net.

And no, I don't care about the "pedophiles" or the old men dating younger girls. As for the pedos, all this "knowledge" about their presence is garbage. If you know where to find underage stuff, YOU are a pedo; if you haven't looked for it, you couldn't possibly speak to the subject. Everyone is making the problem up, citing each other as sources. Witchcraft, satanism, terrorists and commies, oh my. We always need a reason to break down the doors, don't we? Otherwise why would we need all these expensive, newly militarized police we've acquired? We've the safest, wealthiest society that's ever existed, so we wouldn't need all that surveillance and LED blinders and tasers and strip searches and drug tests and armed guards in schools if we didn't constantly find new threats, even if they don't, strictly speaking, actually exist, as compared to, say hurricanes making landfall.

A dark night is coming, and we are exporting the darkness to others around the world at gun- and market-point. A network cloud that is relatively immune to corporate and government shutdown and surveillance is essential to keep mankind free. No exaggeration.

How does it work?

PC's with 1Gbps on the backplane xferring to each other through a Gigibit switch I get a peak speed of about 300mbps (mega-bits). This is using only about 33% of the speed of the network & my assumption is that it's faster than the drives can write. So my question is what computers can transfer data at 40Gbps let alone 100?

Re:'HSSG'?

High Speeds Standards Group. How hard is it to read the summary? Slashdot: where people don't only RTFA, they don't RTFS.

Re:'HSSG'?

You must be... no, you're definitely new here.

Re:'HSSG'?

>High Speeds Standards Group. How hard is it to read the summary? Slashdot: where people don't only RTFA, they don't RTFS.

No. It's High Speed Study Group. In IEEE 802 this makes a huge difference.

A study group studies and recommends what standards are to be written by a Working Group (in this case, the WG is 802.3). They do this by arguing for a while then drafting a scope and purpose for the new spec (you'll find this in the first few pages of each IEEE spec). This is sent up the hierachy (the IEEE 802 EC (executive committee) and IEEE SA NESCOM (IEEE Standards Association New Standards Committee)The Working Group then goes off and writes the spec if the EC and NESCOM approve the PAR (Project Authorization Request).

So the HSSG is not a standards writing group at all, it is a bit of pre work to decide what work is going to be done. Arguing over link speeds is exactly the sort of arguing it is chartered to do.

Re:Is this standard by committee just newspeak?

There is already precedent for this at 10G. The LAN people wanted the data rate to be 10.0 Gbps so that it was exactly 10x 1G while the WAN people wanted something compatible with SONET OC-192 wide area transport gear (9.95328 Gbps including framing bits). So they adopted both. They're not compatible at the physical layer so you'd never plug one into another. However they use compatible layer 2 formats so it's easy to switch packets from one to another.

Re:Watch: 40 in USA, World: 100

Granted it seems like the US is often time far behind the world in most things, but speaking from experience there are quite a few TelCo's throughout the country that are currently, or soon upgrading to, using 10Gbps links within their core. Every mention of these speed increases always seems to make people think that they will have 40Gbps to their household. The purpose of these technologies is almost always to provide transport for a bunch of other traffic MUXed onto it whether it be DS3s, OCns, etc... That coupled with DWDM technology which already allows providers to send up to 80 'channels' of 10Gbps each of a single pair of fiber...it's hard to imagine ever needing that much bandwidth...

Can you imagine...

... making a Beowulf cluster with these?

(I'm sorry... I just had to!)

Re:Uhhmm

...

In Soviet Russia, meme fails YOU!