10 Gigabit Ethernet Standard Close To Ratification

Task force hoping to standardize networking applications in LANs, MANs, and WANs resolves its technical issues during its latest meeting and moves to a sponsor ballot.

by Michael Singer of internetnews.com [December 11, 2001]

After an intense six months of debate and compromises, the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance (10GEA) Monday says it its close to coming up with a standard for networking applications in LANs, MANs, and WANs.

The Newport Beach, Calif.-based organization says the IEEE P802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet) Task Force has given approval for the current draft of the standard to go to Sponsor Ballot possibly in 2002.

If the technology passes the standards vote then a standards group will be established followed by a commercial rollout of products.

The 10GEA was organized to facilitate and accelerate the introduction of 10 Gigabit Ethernet into the networking market. It was founded by 3Com , Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Intel, Nortel Networks, Sun Microsystems, and World Wide Packets.

Following the recent IEEE P802.3ae Task Force meeting in Austin, Texas on November 14, the Working Group re-circulated a ballot of IEEE Draft P802.3ae/D3.4 that did not generate further technical comments and was overwhelmingly approved. This permitted the P802.3ae Task Force to submit IEEE Draft P802.3ae/D4.0 for Sponsor Ballot.

During last month's meeting, the Task Force agreed that all technical feasibility requirements had been satisfied, a major criteria for moving to Sponsor Ballot. In addition, the P802.3ae Task Force worked with feasibility subgroups and the recent 18 vendor 10 GbE technology demonstration, hosted by the 10GEA at the NetWorld+Interop show in Atlanta back in September. Both paved the way for this agreement.

Officials with the group say this marks one of the final milestones in the multi-year effort towards ratification of a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) standard.

"Essentially, all the technical work related to the formation of the standard is complete," says Brad Booth, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE P802.3ae Task Force and Strategic Marketing Manager for Intel's LAN Access Division. "I want to thank the members of the Working Group and the Task Force for their tremendous effort the past six months. As a result of their hard work, I am proud to say we remain on schedule for completion of the standard in the first half of next year."

Booth says 10 GbE will provide simple, high bandwidth at relatively low cost. In LAN applications, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will let organizations scale their packet-based networks from 10 Mbps to 10,000 Mbps, making the most of their investments in Ethernet. In MAN and WAN applications, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will enable service providers and others to create extremely high-speed longer distance Ethernet links at very competitive cost.

In addition, the alliance is working together to develop the 802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet) standard so that 10GbE products can talk to each other.

"Customers are very excited about 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology and products," says Bruce Tolley, Vice President for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance and Manager of Emerging Technologies for Cisco Systems. "Many Ethernet companies have shipped or are about to ship 10 Gigabit Ethernet modules for switches, routers, and other devices for enterprise and service provider customers. These customers are deploying 10 Gigabit solutions in local and metro networks."

The 10GEA expects the standard to be ratified during the first half of 2002.

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