Many organizations are upgrading the network core to 10 Gigabit Ethernet or even higher.
“Our network is incredibly fast and we have way more bandwidth than we can ever use,” said no one ever.
The truth is that when it comes to network capacity, there is no such thing as “enough.” In a recent global survey of CIOs, IT directors, and network engineers conducted by Viavi Solutions (formerly Network Instruments), 48 percent of respondents said they believe that their bandwidth requirements will double by the end of 2017. This comes after a 50 percent jump from 2015 to 2016.
Bandwidth-heavy applications and services are placing a burden on aging network infrastructure. Existing network backbones are being overwhelmed by mushrooming data volumes, changing traffic patterns and evolving workloads. Although servers and storage have gotten faster, network interfaces haven’t kept pace.
All signs point to an impending upgrade cycle, however. Network port shipment figures illustrate a global movement from the workhorse 1 Gigabit Ethernet (1GbE) interfaces of the past decade toward higher-speed 10GbE ports. Additionally, analysts say the recent development of new Ethernet standards will push 25GbE, 40GbE and even 100GbE into the data center.
The Time is Right
The technology behind 10GbE isn’t new. The standard was ratified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2002, but for years it was used almost exclusively to interconnect switches and routers. Server connections in data centers generally remained 1GbE for cost-performance reasons — it was more cost-effective to have multiple 1GbE connections than a single 10GbE port.
That cost-performance advantage has all but disappeared. With demand driving volume, 10GbE has experienced significant price drops in recent years. The cost per gigabit of bandwidth and the price per port have dropped enough to make the 10GbE upgrade a value proposition.
Another factor spurring the upswing is support for 10GbE on motherboards from virtually every major server vendor. This means organizations no longer have to use pricey and power-hungry adapters to connect servers to the faster network backbone. Motherboards with onboard 10GbE controllers generate less heat with a better cost-performance ratio and a smaller footprint than those requiring a PCI-Express expansion card.
Enabling Virtualization, Storage, Wireless
Analysts agree that the rapid growth of server virtualization is probably the single biggest factor behind the increased demand for 10GbE. While 1GbE is sufficient to support basic file serving, email and databases, it can’t meet the demands of the virtualized environment. Physical servers that previously hosted only one application are now running virtual operating systems and hosting multiple apps, fueling the need for increased I/O capacity at every server.
Storage network changes also make 10GbE more compelling. Storage is increasingly dependent on heavy algorithms for compression, de-duplication, thin provisioning and more. Additionally, the increasing use of flash storage is delivering massive performance improvements over rotating media. These changes all increase the need for a high-performance network infrastructure.
Organizations considering the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard should be particularly interested in 10GbE. With 802.11ac, 10GbE uplinks are needed to consistently deliver higher data transfer speeds and better data rates in high-density environments. A single 802.11ac access point will be capable of supporting much higher traffic volume and faster wireless connections, but only if 10GbE is in place to provide a faster connection between the access point and the network core.
Faster, Faster
Many organizations are looking beyond 10GbE to 25GbE, 40GbE or even 100GbE. The Viavi survey found that 36 percent of respondents have deployed 25GbE or will do so by 2017, and 44 percent have deployed 40GbE already or will do so by 2017.
Organizations are making the jump to 100GbE much faster — 24 percent have 100GbE now, another 23 percent will implement it this year, and 25 percent will upgrade by 2017. In the company’s 2015 survey, 100GbE wasn’t even on the radar of 56 percent of respondents.
Clearly, bandwidth is becoming scarce and 100GbE is the destination. But what’s the best way to get there? Network upgrade trends once seemed to favor upgrades to 10GbE, then 40GbE, then 100GbE. However, cloud service providers have preferred a 25GbE standard to create a cleaner, less costly path to 100GbE. Simply double to 50GbE, then double again to 100GbE.
Whatever path organizations choose, it is safe to assume that demand for more network capacity, speed and services will only continue to grow. Upgrading the network backbone delivers key improvements in bandwidth, scalability, reliability and performance to meet that never-ending demand for “more.”
