Section One - What is Gigabit Ethernet?
Table of Contents
The growing number of complex, mission-critical applications of today need more and more bandwidth than that offered by existing network configurations. The typical 10 Mbps Ethernet LAN becomes inadequate because it cannot maintain acceptable performance for the Client/Server environment. As audio and video became increasingly important, the networked world needed to find a newer, faster technology to accomodate bandwidth needs. Even though Fast Ethernet, which runs at at 100 Mbps, arrived at the networking arena a few years ago, the existence of Fiber Optics or FDDI (100 Mbps) running at the backbone level seemed to render this a switching technology, thus creating a bigger need for more speed. Thus the evolution of Gigabit Ethernet took place, providing a technology solution to the increasing bandwidth problem.
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Gigabit Ethernet is currently the fastest speed available in Ethernet configurations which obviously run at 1000 Mbps or 1Gbps. And because it's Ethernet, it can be used to upgrade your current campus backbone. It also mainitains compatibility with IEEE's 802.3 standard. One thing that needs to be made clear is that Gigabit Ethernet is optimized for Layer 3 switching, which basically means that it has more router functionality than previous Ethernet Technologies.
Gigabit Technology also supports Full Duplex operation between switch-to-switch and switch-to-end station connections and Half Duplex operation over Fiber cabling for shared connections using repeaters and the CSMA/CD access method. Full Duplex and Half Duplex over regular copper cabling (UTP 5) is in the process of being ratified and will be issued when the standard surfaces later this year.
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Ethernet is the future of networking
Ethernet Technology is used on 83% of all installed networks according to IDC as of 1996. As a matter of fact, 77% of the equipment shipped as of 1996 were Ethernet-related products. The number of Ethernet NICs (Network Interface Cards) and Hubs/Switches have already exceeded 42 and 54 million respectively and is rising steadily as more businesses realize the benefits in employing a networked environment.
The dominance in use of Ethernet products obviously show a reduction in use of competing technologies such as FDDI, Token-Ring etc., and as a result, a reduction of sales as well. The reason why Ethernet is chosen over the other technologies is due to its many benefits that are listed below:
Due to the snap-in capability of Gigabit Ethernet, most of the benefits briefly mentioned above apply to Gigabit Technology as well. Unfortunately, there is a downside to this technology.
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The Gigabit Ethernet Alliance is committed to promote the adoption of Gigabit Ethernet as a standard to be ratified by the IEEE. Companies that are part of the Alliance will introduce products regularly, and it is up to the Alliance to test and demonstrate the interoperability of these products such as Gigabit Ethernet NICs, 10/100/1000 switches and routers, etc.
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Gigabit Backward Compatibility
Gigabit Ethernet is designed to be a transparent technology. Once implemented, it will support existing applications, Network Operating Systems (NOS), network management protocols, and network transport protocols like TCP/IP, IPX/SPX etc. Since Gigabit Ethernet technology is very similar to previous 10 and 100 Mbps variations, existing knowledge can be recycled with a minimum of new learning.
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Although Gigabit Ethernet products have been shipping since the second quarter of 1997 from vendors such as Cisco Systems, 3COM, etc; the standard is still in the draft stage and was scheduled to be finalized at the February 1998 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet Task Force meeting. Unfortunately, there were still some issues to be settled, and thus postponed the formal ratification of the standard until June 1998, as the Task Force meets only once every three months.
The question that comes to mind is what happens to all those early adopters of the products that have already been marketed over the last couple of months. Will they have to buy newer equipment? Will the existing equipment work with newer, standarized Gigabit Ethernet products? The answer is; it depends. Most vendors have agreed to comply with the new standard through a software upgrade solution.
Most of the products being marketed today are used as a backbone upgrade within the fairly short distance limitation of Gigabit Ethernet Technology. All of these are only using FDDI, as 1000 BASE-T (over copper cabling) has not been marketed yet, due to the final ratification in the proposed draft standard. The different cabling specifications will be discussed in Section Two.
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