

Microsoft, Google et al to push 25/50 Gbps Ethernet - karmakaze
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/02/ms_google_et_al_to_push_2550_gbps_ethernet/

======
rphlx
This is a somewhat misleading headline as Microsoft/Google/.. are mostly
"pulling", not "pushing". Broadcom is the real pusher of 25 and 50GE; they
basically bypassed the IEEE & developed it in near-secret, to become first-to-
market at the expense of their competitors in the NIC and top-of-rack
switching markets.

Now that they have working products ready-to-ship (or nearly so), they are
trying to make it an industry standard, complete with its own standards body.
The standard, of course, is going to be exactly what Broadcom has already
implemented.

The technology is a natural and significant improvement over 10GE and 40GE
within a datacenter though, and it is clearly going to be be gladly pulled by
Microsoft, Google, et al over the next year.

~~~
jlgaddis
I see history repeating itself...

Anyone who buys/implements this gear is effectively locking themselves in and,
while it may work just fine within their own datacenters, they're still going
to have to use the "normal" (i.e. IEEE) standards to connect to anyone else.

Broadcom already has a huge portion of the networking market. It's my guess
that they didn't initiate this, but why wouldn't they agree to supply the
chips if they were approached and asked to do so?

Honestly, this seems in line with Microsoft's "embrace and extend" mantra,
although I'm having trouble seeing how it benefits them (financially).

~~~
kjs3
Yeah...anyone remember 100baseVG? The HP backed switched ethernet
"alternative"? Neither does anyone else...it was a total lock-in play.

------
jlgaddis
I hope the rest of the networking industry simply ignores this and continues
moving forward on 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps equipment. There's already gear on the
market for this and by the time there's 25/50 Gbps gear available, the prices
for 40/100 will be more viable and more gear will be available.

2 x 10 Gbps gets you pretty close to 25 Gbps and if 40 Gbps isn't enough then
you can bond a couple of those together too (or just go ahead and make the
leap to 100 Gbps).

------
kjs3
Tangentially, what is the rationale behind Mellanox pushing a 56Gb ethernet
solution? That one doesn't seem to make a bit of sense.

------
Zekio
Pretty sure I need a home internet connection of 25/25Gbps for
research(Probably just speedtest lol) xD

~~~
jlgaddis
I have 50/25 Mbps at home (via fiber) but, looking at my usage graphs, my peak
usage is waaaaaay below that (we hit up to ~6 Mbps when watching Netflix). I
can get 1000/500 Mbps if I want to pay another ~$100/month and I've thought
about upgrading but I really don't have a good reason to do so (other than the
geek factor and bragging rights).

