To meet a need for faster high-end Ethernet, 800GbE has become a formal specification, but the reality on the ground is that 400GbE shipments are just ramping up, and much lower speeds are what’s in common use.
Reseller News
Join Reseller News
Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.Sign up now
Ethernet innovation pits power against speed
Achieving Ethernet speeds of a terabit per second and beyond means overcoming technical obstacles of optics, power and network architecture Credit: Dreamstime
While the move to 400G ethernet has so far been a largely hyperscaler and telco-network event, the ambition for those users, as well as data centre customers is ultimately to move to at least 800Gbps and possibly 1.6Tbps.
And while 800Gbps seems to be a solid goal for ethernet networking visionaries, the challenges such as the optics, power, and architecture required to make the next speed leap seem formidable.