Sixteen Ethernet Alliance members, including Altera, Amphenol, CommScope, Cisco, FCI, Finisar, Ixia, Leviton, Mellanox Technologies, Opnext, Panduit, Siemon, Vitesse Semiconductor and Volex Group, gathered Sept. 13 at Ixia's iSimCity in Santa Clara, California, to verify interoperability of test equipment, switches, routers, NICs, transceivers and cabling. The plugfest was assisted by the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL). Success was achieved for interoperability between transceivers, cables and systems tested, except for one cable that was determined to be faulty due to incorrect assembly.
Cables tested either met or exceeded IEEE 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 802.3ba. Basic Layer 3 traffic was used to verify system-level error-free operation.
"This interoperability event demonstrates that the 40 and 100 Gbps Ethernet ecosystem is real and ready for deployment," says David Schneider, marketing chair of the Ethernet Alliance's HSE subcommittee. "That widespread interoperability was so quickly achieved is testament to the strong engineering teams of the member-participants and to the standard itself."
"Ethernet Alliance members pulled together an interoperability event within one quarter of the standard's ratification, which demonstrates the availability of the 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet ecosystem," says John D'Ambrosia, chair of the IEEE P802.3ba 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet Task Force, and director, Ethernet-based standards of the CTO Office for Force10 Networks.
Additional information on the interoperability demonstration will be available in a white paper on the Ethernet Alliance website at:
http://ethernetalliance.org/library/higher_speed_ethernet_40gbs_and_100bs_ethernet/white_papers.
