Development of 100G Ethernet

What’s driving the 100G port increase

In recent years, with the rapid development of the industry, various emerging services such as high-definition video, virtualization, e-commerce, wireless, and networks have emerged, and people’s demand for network bandwidth is growing rapidly, and the emergence and deployment of cloud computing have accelerated People’s demand for network bandwidth increases.

The increase in people’s need for network bandwidth has caused the doubling of the interface bandwidth of Internet node devices. Gigabit ports are gradually unable to meet the server’s requirements for interface bandwidth. Ports are being used more and more in client devices and access in the device.

Once ports are widely used in servers, it will inevitably lead to a rapid increase in the demand for ports at the network backbone layer and network aggregation layer. Therefore, it becomes essential and urgent to research and design the ports of high-end routers and switches, the key interconnection equipment in the data center.

The research of 100G port equipment is based on the development of Ethernet technology. Ethernet was proposed by the organization, and a task group was established in 2009 to devote itself to the formulation of Ethernet standards, and its standard was officially approved in 2009. Ethernet technology not only has strong advantages in transmission rate and transmission distance but also has broad application prospects in LAN, MAN, and WAN based on its excellent network interconnection capability. For example, the backbone interconnection of optical transmission networks between telemedicine institutions; the interconnection between major customers and core metropolitan area networks; the backbone interconnection between important government departments and scientific research institutions, educational institutions and other government departments; clients in data centers, storage area network and interconnection between servers, data exchange, and management.

40G/100G standard

IEEE officially released the 40G/100G standard IEEE802.3ba in June 2010. At the same time, ITU-F, OFI, and other optical communication organizations have also formulated related standards and specifications from different perspectives.

Specifically, it is mainly from the perspective of business interfaces. Interface parameters, develop client-side network interface and Ethernet-related mapping standards, and provide industry specifications for client-side interfaces; ITU-T mainly regulates 40G and 100G technologies from the perspective of optical transport networks and formulates relevant standards for operator networks; OIF Mainly focuses on the specifications of 100G long-distance transmission line interfaces and related electrical interfaces and formulates protocol specifications for 40G and 100G optical module electrical and mechanical interfaces, software management interfaces, integrated transmitter, and receiver components, and forward error correction technology.

From the research on various specifications of 100G Ethernet to the large-scale commercial use of 100G interface equipment, it is necessary to deal with four key technologies, namely 100G interface technology, 100G package mapping technology, 100G line transmission technology, and 100G key device technology.

In the market, 100G has gradually replaced 40G as the mainstream technology of next-generation Ethernet, and 100G equipment has entered large-scale commercial use.