40Gb uplinks abound, but 100Gb in Datacom still a ways out

Interop showcased almost every new switch with 10GbE links to servers as input that had 4 to 8 40Gbps QSFP uplink sockets for direct attach copper and optical links.

Right now, customers want more than 1GbE but don’t necessarily need all of the 10Gbps (perhaps 3-4G) on each link, so many of the system we saw were oversubscribed with 24 to 48 10GbE ports to servers (240G) and only 4 QSFP uplinks (160G).

Both Broadcom and Marvell showed off reference platforms for their 10Gb and 40Gb Ethernet switch controller platforms. Figure 3 shows Broadcom’s 40GbE reference platform. Based on technology that Broadcom picked up from its Dune Networks acquisition completed last year, the platform enables sixteen 40Gb QSFP ports. Extreme Networks also showed its new BlackDiamond X8 20 Terabit switching system with 768 nonblocking 10GbE ports or 192 nonblocking 40GbE ports; it’s designed to evolve to support 100GbE.

July 26, 2011

Continue