Large 24x7 organisations will find benefits, but most should wait
For most organisations, 10 Gigabit Ethernet is still embryonic and
too expensive to consider. The lack of several key support
elements, including network management tools and TCP off-loading
algorithms, is another reason not to be an early adopter. Research
suggests price erosion will result in a 50% decrease in prices by
2005, with key support hardware and software in place at that
time.
Otherwise known as the IEEE 802.3ae specification, there are
several different options for this architecture since it supports
three unique light frequencies as well as two different types of
fibre interfaces. Some interfaces have been developed for wide area
networks while others are more appropriate for local area
networks.
Despite the high cost, they can be cost-effective in certain Wan
configurations. One example is where a company needs 10x1gbps
Ethernet links to connect sites 10 miles apart. Given the cost of
leased fibre optic cables, there could be a tenfold saving in line
costs, which far exceeds the cost of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports.
While few desktop applications require gigabit bandwidth, Intel has
embarked on a plan to bring down the price of 10/100/1,000 adapter
cards so that they match the current cost of 10/100 cards.
Assuming it achieves this price point, most firms will start buying
the new cards, since it gives them room to grow at no additional
cost. As companies add new desktops with faster buses and begin
turning on gigabit to the desktop, there will be a need to
aggregate these data flows, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet is the most
likely choice.
The argument for using 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the datacentre is
that is reduces the number of switches and layers required. It also
uses less rack space and consumes less power. A datacentre with
hundreds of servers each generating 100mbps of traffic has dozens
of 10/100/1,000 Ethernet switches in a matrix architecture. In such
cases the introduction of two 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches in
active/active mode to replace the gigabit switches offers a
significant decrease in complexity.
10 Gigabit Ethernet technology offers the speed and distance (up to
40km) to make IP-based storage area networks realistic - both for
network-attached storage appliances and for iSCSI implementations.
Ten gigabit links also provide adequate separation between a
primary datacentre and a remote site for business continuity
support as part of a disaster recovery strategy.
Initially, 10 Gigabit Ethernet performance will not be as efficient
as 1gbps Ethernet because there are some missing technology pieces.
Engineers are working on TCP/IP off-load, which means implementing
part of an IP stack as hardware instead of software. The result
would be faster performance.
They also are working on new algorithms for 10gbps packet
inspection, but these are unlikely to be widely deployed until at
least 2004. Suppliers also have no plans to offer protocol
analysers for 10 Gigabit Ethernet, given the amount of memory they
would require - they recommend that users troubleshoot slower
connections at the edge of a network.
Another missing ingredient in 10 Gigabit Ethernet is
traffic-shaping tools and another issue for early adopters is the
lack of support from security technologies such as firewalls and
virtual private network appliances. Also, some switching suppliers
admit that their current chassis-based cards will only connect to
their backplanes at 8gbps.
I agree with the assessment by most switching suppliers that 10
Gigabit Ethernet will follow the same pattern of adoption as
Gigabit Ethernet: prices will remain high until there is sufficient
demand to bring economies of scale - and that is not likely to
happen before 2005.
By that time, Gigabit Ethernet will be pervasive to the desktop and
10 Gigabit Ethernet will be required for backbones. The earliest
adopters of this technology have been forced to make that decision
since their extensive use of Gigabit Ethernet switches left them no
real alternative for aggregating traffic on an enterprise-wide
basis.
Some enterprises with 24x7 operations will become early adopters
because they see 10 Gigabit Ethernet as a way of providing
continuing back-up of real-time transactions, and they will justify
the cost by pointing to the unacceptable cost associated with
downtime.
However, most businesses would be best served by ignoring the
supplier hype associated with 10 Gigabit Ethernet and waiting until
2005 before any widespread deployments.
Stan Schatt is an analyst at Forrester
Research