Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

As customer data center servers handle large amounts of traffic from new and smarter applications, Internet of things devices, video, and so on, Fast Ethernet is rapidly becoming the network norm.

Overall 100Gb Ethernet revenue rose 83.8% year-on-year to $742.5 million in the first quarter of 2018, and port shipments rose 117.7% year-on-year in the first quarter, according to IDC. Dell'Oro Group researchers say 100G Ethernet port shipments are expected to reach 12 million this year, compared with about 1 million in 2016.

Sameh Boujelbene, a senior director at Dell'Oro Group, said demand for faster data centers was driven by a number of factors, such as huge growth from very large networks such as Google, Amazon and Facebook, as well as the price and performance of 100G products.

A recent study by PwC further explains the need for high-speed networks. "as companies move away from traditional enterprise data centers, workloads are becoming more and more unitary. They are becoming more decentralized, more mobile, and more like workloads that are usually associated with very large-scale environments," PwC wrote. "in the next 1-3 years, almost all major workloads will be transferred from internal deployment to the public cloud. Applications will be more dependent on the network, and the network will become more important because of the distribution and dynamics of workloads."

Roland Acra, senior vice president and general manager of the Cisco data Center Business Group, said that the demand for high-speed ports and more data driven from the dense edge of the network are driving the upgrading of the backbone.

"it is mainly driven by the evolution of the network interface card NIC on the server. Most server connections are basically between 1G and 10G. Now, servers connected to top-of-rack switches have changed greatly, from 10G to 25G or 50G, which makes top-of-rack uplinks want to achieve higher density, 100G," Acra said.

From 10g to 25g to 100G Ethernet

"the price of 25G is basically the same as that of 10G and 100G. Using the four-channel 25GEGraI 100GE backbone platform requires less cabling, space requirements and costs. Backward compatibility provides additional options for simplifying conversion while expanding the value of current assets," Cisco said.

"Cloud and software-defined architectures are shaking the market for Ethernet switches and routers," wrote Petr Jirovsky, global network tracking research manager at IDC. "continued price decline and growing differences in purchasing preferences between cloud and communications service providers and enterprises create a challenging environment for suppliers as well as opportunities for end users."

Cisco, Juniper, Arista, HPE and Huawei target data centers

Cisco, Juniper, Arista, HPE and Huawei are just a handful of vendors actively looking for opportunities in the high-speed and traditional Ethernet market. Juniper recently launched the EX4650 high-density 25gambit 100 Gbps switch, which supports 48 100G Ethernet ports, or 48 25G ports and 8 100G uplinks.

But the 100G driver is just the beginning of high-speed Ethernet. According to a report by Dell'Oro earlier this year, 400G is expected to account for 20 per cent of data center switching revenue by 2020. The higher rates of 100G, 200G, 400G and 800G are expected to grow significantly over the next five years.

"in December 2017, Broadcom announced the launch of a Tomahawk3 chip based on 56G SerDes, with the addition of innovation and technology and Nephos," Boujelbene said. "We expect commercial chips based on 56G SerDes to drive 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps shipments, with 400 Gbps accounting for the majority. Between 2020 and 2021, we expect 112G SerDes to drive another speed upgrade cycle, driving 800 Gbps port shipments, plus another wave of 200 Gbps and 400 Gbps shipments.

Cisco's Acra says 400 gigabytes are two to three years away, or at least until 400g plummets to be attractive enough. "400G remains a concern for cloud and service providers. Cisco has not made 400G links a priority."

However, Juniper seems to be hoping to achieve 400G Ethernet speed faster than it is now. (Juniper says he is looking forward to being the first person in 400GbE.)

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