Racing towards 10Gigabit Ethernet

By all accounts, it's larger organizations, governments and universities that are leading the 10GbE way, using it in parts of data centres where applications such as video streaming, converged communications, animation or medical imagery generate bandwidth-busting files that can't be handled even by aggregating several 1GbE ports. Virtualizing multiple applications on servers can also boost their output to justify 10GbE. In these situations its used for switch or blade server interconnects.

And speed isn't the only advantage, points out William Terrill, an associate analyst at Info-Tech Research. It also slashes the number of cables snaking through the data centre, reducing potential switch-to-switch bottlenecks in addition to lowering the odds of human switching mistakes.

According to Info-Tech, prices are approaching US$400 a port for 10GBASE-T (twisted pair) solutions, allowing even small enterprises think about using the technology. 10GbE is also appearing in products from some iSCSI SAN manufacturers such as Lefthand Networks and EqualLogic (now owned by Dell), although Terrill thinks that's more for bragging rights than practicality at this point.

Tim Labie, vice-president for the Americas at Juniper Networks, notes that some organizations with three layer infrastructures think they can put 10GbE fibre straight from the core to the wiring closet, bypassing the distribution layer. Finally, 10GbE cost effective as a backbone between floors or buildings.

Many analysts and manufacturers say organizations are particularly pondering the value of 10GbE when they refresh their data centres. That's the right time, says Sanjeev Gupta, director of Nortel's Ethernet switching division, who advises network managers to start by running 10G uplinks from the wiring closet to core switches. "Enterprises need to start planning migration to 10G in campus cores or data centre cores, along with the next step, which is data centre aggregation or edge server connectivity," he says.

But Zeus Kerravala, senior vice-president of enterprise research at the Yankee Group, has doubts many organizations need it yet for server connectivity. As a rule, every gigabit of bandwidth needs an equal amount of CPU power. Yet today most servers have 8Gb chips, he said. When reviewing infrastructure for the suitability of 10GbE, remember that there are a number of local 802.3xx standards, says David Zacks, a Cisco Systems engineer. These include copper twisted-pair (10 GBASE-T), copper (10GBASE-CX4), and short and long medium distance fibre (10 GBASE-SR and -LRM respectively). Those interested in using 10GbE for metro or backbone networking need to be aware of the 10 GBASE -LX4, -LR, -ER, -SW, -LW and -EW standards.

The most recently-approved standard is 802.3ap, which defines a backbone specification for blade servers and will allow the autoselection of multiple signaling mechanisms. According to Tim Shaughnessy of Blade Network Technologies, it will allow those running 10GbE to blades to stop using 16-pin XAUI interconnects, which use four 2.5Gbps copper wires, and move to a single 10Gpbs pipe. Chips recognizing 802.ap should be ready soon he said.

In terms of new products to look out for this year, Gartner's Fabbi suggests watching for new top-of-rack switches from only not only from the usual manufacturers, but also from upstarts like Woven Systems, Teak Technologies and Blade Network Technologies. BNT's Shaughnessy would only say that his company is "looking to expand our current offerings outside the blade server area." Woven, which this month lured two Cisco Systems officials to take senior marketing jobs, makes an Ethernet Fabric switch that it says scales to more than 4,000 non-blocking ports, as well as a top-of-rack switch for server aggregation with four 10GbE uplinks.

Teak makes a switch module for IBM BladeCentre-H servers and a network interface card.

While 2008 will also see port prices continue to fall, Fabbi believes they won't drop to the four-times multiple for another 12 to 18 months. Still, he cautions that need, nor affordability should drive demand.

Andrew McAusland's cautious embrace of 10GbE at Concordia is proof of that. Eventually, he acknowledges, it will be pervasive.

"The pieces being built for the network now for virtualization and communications are going to consume huge bandwidth," he says, "so we have to be in a position to deploy that."

Meanwhile, this fall he's thinking of testing Cisco Systems' TelePresence video conferencing system in a meeting room or two. That will mean a few more 10GbE switches and routers to those locations.

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