7/26/2007 -- The Ethernet Alliance burst on the scene early last year as part of a multi-vendor effort to revitalize the world’s most ubiquitous networking technology: Ethernet.

With a member roster that includes Cisco Systems Inc., 3Com, Agere, Broadcom, Foundry Networks, Intel, Nortel and others, the Ethernet Alliance made a strong case for relevance by pushing for next-gen Ethernet standards -– including the 10G EPON and 10GBASE-T standards development processes.

This week, the Ethernet Alliance once again flexed its Ethernet advocacy muscles, this time in support of two big pipe Ethernet standards: 40 GigE and 100 GigE. The group highlighted its technical and market recommendations for both technologies, suggesting that 100 GigE will likely best meet the demands of next-gen Internet backbone and network aggregation points, while 40 GigE will better match the bandwidth requirements of next-gen server technologies. The alliance also investigated the feasibility of proposed energy-saving standards, including a protocol to change the link speed on the fly.

Analysts are encouraged by the Ethernet Alliance’s efforts. “The new progress report outlines notable, increased technical and market clarity since the Higher Speed Study Group ... was formed in July 2006 and the Energy-Efficient Ethernet Study Group ... was formed in November 2006 to take the next step toward defining the future of Ethernet,” comments Glen Hunt, a principal analyst for carrier infrastructure with Current Analysis. “With next-generation Ethernet technologies ... off in the distance, these early decisions will tend to shape the longer-term investments being made in technology by silicon vendors, Ethernet equipment vendors, services providers and data center operators.”

One important upshot of the Ethernet Alliance’s research, Hunt says, is that it provides an initial quantification of the speeds needed by networking and data center and/or storage applications. What’s more, the group suggests that the IEEE should treat 40 GigE, 100 GigE and future power-saving standards as a single project, which -– alliance researchers argue -– will help keep future Ethernet innovations more closely aligned along market and technology lines.

“Dealing with long-term power consumption at the inception of the standards process will help insure that evolving next-generation Ethernet technologies do not place more demands on power and cooling resources than necessary. This is especially significant as network operators and data centers expand their use of Ethernet technologies and cope with the implications of ever-increasing power consumption,” he comments. “Devising a protocol to change the link speed on the fly to realize power savings in under-utilized links enables network and data center equipment to deliver high bandwidth when required and to downshift to lower performance levels when higher bandwidth performance is not necessary.” -- Stephen Swoyer