Ixia (News - Alert) will reportedly demonstrate an initial implementation of 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) line-rate traffic generation and analysis June 17-19 at NXTcomm08 in Las Vegas.

 

The Ixia proof-of-concept demonstration includes the new 100 GbE and 40 GbE physical coding sublayer (PCS) layer. This very first implementation of multilane distribution (MLD) architecture was approved as the baseline proposal last month by the IEEE 802.3ba task force, according to the company.

 

Errol Ginsberg, founder and chief innovation officer of Ixia explained in a statement that MLD is a crucial enabling technology that will allow 100 GbE links to be carried over available fiber — now and in the foreseeable future.

 

Ginsberg said that the company found it very important to provide this essential technology early in the standards cycle; this was made possible by Ixia’s early involvement in the IEEE (News - Alert) 100 GbE /40 GbE standards development effort. The implementation proves that MLD is a viable architecture that can be implemented with today’s technology.

 

Ixia explains that the IEEE 802.3 formed a Higher Speed Study Group (HSSG) in July 2006 to define the objectives for the standards. Later, in December 2007, this Group formally became the IEEE 802.3ba task force, focused on creating standards for implementing 100 Gbps and 40 Gbps data rates over optical fiber and copper cables.

 

Ixia has been working in the HSSG and 802.3ba task force from its inception and through this demonstration will showcase the operation and testing of a 100 GbE link based on the current state of IEEE standardization efforts.

 

John D’Ambrosia, IEEE P802.3ba task force chair, and senior research scientist at Force10 Networks (News - Alert) said that due to the growing video traffic and more powerful server architectures, bandwidth requirements are growing for both the computing and networking applications. He emphasized that the next generation of Ethernet will define 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps to address these needs.

 

D’Ambrosia added that Ixia’s commitment to creating a high performance testing environment for these higher speeds of Ethernet will enable vendors to deliver more reliable equipment and increase the early adoption of 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet technology.

 

Atul Bhatnagar, Ixia’s president and CEO said that because network equipment manufacturers are responding to the need for more bandwidth and are already working on pre-standard, 100 GbE products, it’s vital that they be able to test their equipment before it is deployed in data centers.

 

By demonstrating their ability to generate and analyze 100 GbE traffic, Ixia is helping to advance the technology, and also reinforcing their testing leadership, added Bhatnagar.