10 Terabit Ethernet By 2010 306
Eric Frost writes "From Directions Magazine: 'Because it is now impossible to sell networking unless it is called Ethernet (regardless of the actual protocols used), it is likely that 1 Terabit Ethernet and even 10 Terabit Ethernet (using 100 wavelengths used by 100 gigabit per second transmitter / receiver pairs) may soon be announced. Only a protocol name change is needed. And the name change is merely the acknowledgment that Ethernet protocols can tunnel through other protocols (and vice versa).'"
Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article: "iSCSI (Internet SCSI) over Ethernet is replacing: *SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface..."
iSCSI is far superior to stadard SCSI for obvious reasons, and its widespread adoption will really spark a massive gain in the SAN (Storage Area Network) market. The technology is there, now we just need more major vendors of SCSI devices (especially storage and image filing systems) to make more SCSI devices that support iSCSI natively and applications that take advantage of it. Combined with practical solutions from vendors of network storage software like Veritas we could see some major spending in IT. And more money being spent on IT is always a good thing.
I don't keep up much with the progress of the Ethernet technologies at hand, so is it realistic to suppose that the practical implementation/creation of 100 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 Terabit Ethernet, and 10 Terabit Ethernet will be seperated by merely two years each?
"Because it is now impossible to sell networking unless it is called Ethernet". Incorrect. You can easily sell network gear that is tagged with the "WiFi" designation.
And what am I going to do with 10TB ethernet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably not. But I could definitely see it being useful for top-end server systems with hugely parallel storage and memory access.
Re:And what am I going to do with 10TB ethernet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And what am I going to do with 10TB ethernet? (Score:4, Interesting)
but
-Ab
Re:LAN or Internet? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about those interested in clustering and not interested in paying for expensive solutions (that now exist because of high latency in ethernet)?
How about those that are interested in having a network other than their home network where 100 or 1000Mb is just not enough?
The home market isn't the ONLY market available for networking you know. Especially with FL thinking about taxing it
Re:LAN or Internet? (Score:2, Interesting)
At those speeds, does the
-B
Re:boy! If you could build a Beowolf Cluster of th (Score:4, Interesting)
It wasn't long ago that we really started exploiting video chipsets for rendering graphics, either...
packetengines (Score:4, Interesting)
These guys had gigabit routers four years ago when I was helping to set up the AFN (ashlandfiber.com)
Cool to see.. mo'faster is mo'betta
Re:Disks cant keep up (Score:2, Interesting)
As long as the aerial density keep increasing, we will see slow but steady increases in speed too.
If anything, networking has been the stagnant factor lately. Gigabit over copper has been out for years now, and the hardware for it is still overpriced, and mostly made by a few manufacturers.
Reasonable Limits Aren't (Score:2, Interesting)
And who knows what bandwidth-hungry LAN application you're going to want to do in the future. Have you any idea how long it takes to render a cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot in spacetime over a 100 Mbit/sec connection? I can tell you one thing: it's not going to be hot.
More bandwidth than you'll ever need is always better than not enough. Especially when you aren't leasing it from an outside party!
Re:What about latency? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What about latency? (Score:3, Interesting)
Clustering and LAN file servers are two common uses for networks that won't benifit much by increasing bandwidth beyond 2gbps compared to how much they would benefit from lower latencies.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Has be called Ethernet? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
iSCSI
A really nice development.
Yet more big advantages to iSCSI are the ability to keep the
- large,
- noisy,
- power-hungry,
- heat-generating,
- unsecure
disks out of workstations in workers' offices and down the hall in a- sound-proof,
- secure,
- air-conditioned,
- UPS'd server room with
- mirrored images,
- archival backups
.Next thing you know, GPUs will come with on-board Ethernet controllers and USB plugs for keyboard and mouse, and be built in to the back of an LCD monitor.
RIAA (Score:2, Interesting)
A 5MB mp3 would take 0.000004 seconds. A whole CD would take a whopping 0.00056 seconds.
Routing (Score:3, Interesting)
Now really, I don't see much point in directing 10Tb ethernet to one machine anyhow. But it would be great for large node-points. I you think about 100Mbps, generally no single machine is going to use that much in a normal network. However, many machines will, and sometimes quite easily in large situations.
For huge networks, or ISP's, 10Tb would be the way to go.
Re:Good stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
[Note: I work for EMC and am friends with the iSCSI developers, so my views are a bit biased.]
Better question... (Score:5, Interesting)
And that assumes that transfer occurs at chip speed, which it doesn't. Assuming a modest clock multiplier of 8 between system bus and chip, that's a 15x overcapacity, even if the entire computer were used to transmit.
Re:Good stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
I think not. 10 GbE hasn't exactly taken the world by storm and it's been around for over a year now. I know of products that have 10 GbE ports, but I have not witnessed an abundance of demand. To be nice the author of this article is just a little facetious in his claims.
In reality if you read the article it's hard to even take him seriously. To say that Nortel's DWDM system is ethernet is like calling your 56k modem ethernet. Yeah, so you can pass ethernet frames on it. It's not standard, it's not documented anywhere in IEEE 802.anything (esp with regards to conformance), so it's NOT ethernet. Just passing ethernet frames does not make you an ethernet device. I'm honestly not really sure what the author's point is except that he seems to think 1) ethernet is increasingly popular, 2) everyone should want to carry ethernet frames, and 3) people want bigger and bigger pipes. The first 2 are true, the third is less true now than it was 3 years ago.
So the answer is, it wouldn't surprise me if we see 10 Terabit links by 2010, I doubt very, very much that we'll see a 10 Terabit ethernet port on a single chassis ethernet switch with 100 Terabits of switching capacity. I could be wrong, I hope I am, but it doesn't seem reasonable.
Re:And what am I going to do with 10TB ethernet? (Score:5, Interesting)
The efficiency of the routers / backbones you encounter is always a factor, and if one router in the chain takes forever to respond, it's going to kill your latency.
Your packet has a certain size, and the time it takes to completely transmit that packet and complete the ack is your latency. Distance and bandwidth are the prime factors.
Sure your packets travel fast on a fiber backbone, but if your last mile connection is several orders of magnitude slower ( broadband or dialup ), it's going to cause a significant increase in your latency.
Even high bandwidth cannot save you from real distance. You try to play a game on the other side of the US, you're going to add a sizeable delay even with those high-bandwidth backbones. Gaming with a server on another continent? It becomes largely unplayable.
Re:Attn Geeks: This is not for your desktop (Score:3, Interesting)
As an asside I think the funniest part of current desktop GigE is the switches support full speed but I know of only one card that can get even close to those speeds.
No name change needed (Score:2, Interesting)
It's even simpler than this, in a way. "Ethernet" denotes a protocol. But in Ethernet parlance, "DWDM" is a Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) sublayer. 10 Gb/s Ethernet (802.3ae) already includes a WDM PMD, 10GBASE-LX4.
Re:Good stuff (Score:3, Interesting)