Ethernet Alliance Completes 40 & 100 GigE Interoperability Event

The Ethernet Alliance reported substantial success for a Higher Speed Ethernet (HSE) subcommittee interoperability plugfest for products designed to support IEEE Std. 802.3baTM-2010, 40 and 100 Gbps Ethernet. The testing was held during the week of April 18th to verify the interoperability of test equipment, switches, routers, NICs, transceivers and cabling supporting 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet.



"This interoperability event demonstrates that the HSE ecosystem is continuing to mature," said David Schneider, marketing chair of the Ethernet Alliance's Higher Speed Ethernet subcommittee. "The fact that many systems were able to interoperate indicates that widespread deployment will soon be a reality."



"The ratification of the IEEE Std 802.3baTM-2010 standard was a step in the development of the 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet ecosystem," said John D'Ambrosia, who chaired the IEEE P802.3ba 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet Task Force, and Chief Ethernet Evangelist of Force10 Network's CTO Office. "As these Ethernet Alliance events demonstrate, the technology behind the 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Ethernet standard advances Ethernet's long legacy of interoperability and robustness."



Fourteen Ethernet Alliance members participated, including Berk-Tek Systems (a Nexans Company), Broadcom, Brocade, Extreme Networks, Ixia, JDSU, Juniper Networks, Mellanox Technologies, Opnext, Panduit, Siemon, Spirent Communications, TE Connectivity (TE – formerly Tyco Electronics) and Volex Group plc.



Cables tested met or exceeded IEEE Std. 802.3ba, and bit error ratio tests (BERT) were used in the transceiver and cable tests to verify link-level error-free operation within the requirements of IEEE Std. 802.3ba. Basic layer 3 traffic was used to verify system-level error-free operation.



Ixia, JDSU, and Spirent provided 40 and 100 Gbps test ports, Broadcom, Brocade, Extreme Networks, and Juniper Networks provided 40 and 100 Gbps switch and router ports, and Mellanox provided 40 Gbps NICs.



Transceivers from Opnext, TE and one other optics vendor were included in the testing.



Copper and optical cables, including OM3 and OM4 multimode fiber and direct attached copper, passive and active cable assemblies along with direct attach active optical cable assemblies were contributed by Berk-Tek, Panduit and Siemon.



This is the second such interoperability event hosted by the Ethernet Alliance; the first event was held in September of 2010.http://www.ethernetalliance.org