The rise of 10G - increasing Ethernet performance bit by bit

Globally there has been a significant increase in the adoption of Gigabit within networks, from the small-to-medium sized businesses right through to the top enterprise, mainly due to the ongoing integration of sophisticated applications and the increase in demand for maximum performance, as well as in network traffic in general.

Typically, users require greater bandwidth in order to cope with the demands of a digital environment. Digital images, e-clips and video conferencing is now the norm, says Luff.

As voice over IP (VoIP) becomes more user-friendly and cost effective, and easier to implement, it will place greater demand on an environment geared for maximum output, with underlying technology and architecture has needing be flexible and powerful enough to support overall system performance.

Locally, the elevation of Gigabit technology has made a dent in the 10/100 Ethernet market and vendors have been forced to step up efforts to meet the demand.

10G represents a solution to market requirements for faster, higher performance networking infrastructure. It is based on IEEE 802.3 Ethernet media access control (MAC) protocol and offers data speeds of up to 10 million bits per second.

More efficient, less costly

The technology eases the load on typically over-burdened backbone infrastructures, which in essence improves the overall performance of the complete network. It is expected to add a new dimension, in terms of efficiency and cost, to levels of interconnectivity between Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs), and is largely considered to be a more efficient and less costly approach to data transfer on a backbone.

From an architectural point of view within a workgroup, physical cabling within an already cabled environment is likely to present a real challenge. With 10G, the current limitation is 10 meters over copper. This can be increased by either adding fibre to the points where 10G is required at a desktop or ensure that the client is within 10m of the switch. The alternative is to wait until the technology is developed that makes use of the current copper infrastructure.

Looking ahead, says Luff, users can expect either changes in the technology or a drastic change in cable infrastructure. Ultimately, however, there will be far greater business opportunity than previously experienced in this arena.

Although all evidence suggests a significant move towards 10G, limitations will determine the speed of conversion. The actual fixed asset, in terms of cabling, within the networking environment represents the next frontier in networking technology and infrastructure.