Virtualisation, unified communications, and data that’s doubling every year. You wonder where all this is headed. It all leads to increased network traffic, of course. Shoring up the network core with Gigabit Ethernet has definitely helped. But your servers now have multiple Gigabit Ethernet adapters driving up the need for more ports. And often your network administrators end up buying more servers to get more ports, and better performance. What does that bring in? More cables, more adapters, more power needs. Sounds like a vicious cycle.

Enter 10 Gigabit Ethernet. This lets you push 10 billion bits of data per second—that is well over the 1 billion bits per second that Gigabit Ethernet delivers. 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) has emerged as the standard to interconnect LANs, WANs, and metropolitan area networks (MANs). What works hugely in 10 GbE’s favour is that it works with your existing Ethernet equipment. You and your team already know the ropes of using it.

10GbE uses industry standards such as intelligent Ethernet-based network services such as MPLS, Layer 3 switching, Quality of Service (QoS), caching, server load balancing, mainstream security and policybased networking.

10 GbE also uses full-duplex transmission, so you can think of covering a long distance for your data. It can support distances of 300 m on multimode fiber. However on single mode fiber, it can cover up to 40 kms. That unleashes a lot of flexibility for you to rethink the connectivity of your offices within the city, or even moving your data centre to a more cost effective location just outside the city, without having to lose performance.

What’s on 10G?
Not everyone needs to be on 10 GbE, nor does everyone have to move to this standard. You really have to work the network traffic you are looking at, before you take the 10GbE plunge. For instance, NIT-Trichy moved to a 10 Gbps backbone in 2007 because they knew video conferencing sessions with foreign universities would grow in the years to come, and they chose to be future ready for it. And sure enough the early adopters of 10 GbE have been universities, research institutes and companies with large data centres.As high-performance computing has gained ground over the years with several enterprises across industries leveraging the research prowess of HPC clusters. The cluster interconnect has been GE, but applications that require low latency are looking at 10GbE.

In the Data Centre: Enterprises today run compute-intensive applications that also require low latency and high bandwidth pushing the case for 10 GbE. And with rapid uptake of virtualisation in the data centre, enterprise applications can draw on pools of shared computing, storage and networking resources. To improve performance, where several Gigabit Ethernet adapters have been used, it makes sense to replace them with a single 10 GbE adapter, which over time saves becomes cost effective. This brings down cabling, power needs, and cooling requirements.

In the storage setup: 10 GbE clears the path for consolidation of your storage setup as it supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet as well as iSCSI. So your existing investments do not have to go into thin air. You get to run a single Ethernet based multipurpose network infrastructure.

On the LAN: 10 GbE can be the interconnect for clusters of servers. As mentioned in the data centre usage, you can replace the Gigabit Ethernet bits with 10 GbE segments. You can also consider 10 GbE links between switches where you need rapid data movement.

On the MAN: Gigabit Ethernet uses wavelength optics on dark fiber to cover large distances through the use of pluggable transceivers (gigabit interface converters). 10 GbE exploits this further to help service providers create huge networks for customers. A whitepaper from Cisco, Strategic Directions: Introduction 10 Gigabit Ethernet, talks of 10 GbE in the MAN over DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing). It says, “For enterprises, access to 10 Gigabit Ethernet services over DWDM will enable serverless buildings, remote backup, and disaster recovery. For service providers, 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the MAN will enable the provisioning of dark wavelength gigabit services at very competitive costs.”

On the WAN: 10 GbE interfaces with WAN PHY enables the construction of WANs that connect LANs that are located in various geographies, over existing SONET (Synchronous Optical Network).

Where’s it Going?
The uptake is on, but primarily it’s in the data centre. In the second quarter of 2010, IDC says that 1 million GbE ports were shipped. This is the first time this has happened. IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Networks Tracker shows a strong 87.9 percent year-over-year increase in 10 GbE switch revenue in second quarter of 2010. The 10 Gb adoption was driven by datacenter, cloud, and campus build outs, according to the Tracker.

California based research company, Dell’Oro Group, forecasts the Ethernet Switch market to return to growth in 2010 and continue to grow annually through 2014. “We believe the performance of the datacenter will drive growth in the Ethernet Switch market over the next five years,” said Alan Weckel, Director of Dell’Oro Group. “While we are still very early in the migration towards 10 GE for server connectivity, we believe that we will see 10 Gigabit Ethernet as a catalyst for growth in the Ethernet Switch market,” stated Weckel. The report also shows the Fixed 10 Gigabit Ethernet revenues are projected to grow the most during the forecast period.

By Suma EP