In highly virtualised environments, the network connections need to be fast and reliable. The 40/100GbE standards have been out for some time, but changes are ahead. The 100GbE on multimode fibre standard for example is going to change. Rather than parallel processing 10 lanes of 10GbE, the revised standard is expected to be based on four lanes of 25GbE. This will decrease strand counts within a MPO or MTO based channel to support that application.
For the 40GbE available today, new products have been introduced both for full 40GbE to 40GbE channels and 40GbE at one end, broken into four 10GbE channels at the other. The breakout happens in a hybrid MPO/MTP assembly. The main consideration moving from traditional two strand 10GbE to 40GbE parallel traffic is polarity and this is something important to pay attention to for error free implementation.
Also pending is work on the IEEE 40GBASE-T higher speed copper transmission standard which is expected to be a 2 connector shielded channel at some distance less than 100 metres (ie. 40 metres). Whilst this work is in its infancy and far too early for any vendor to claim a working solution, it is one to monitor over the next couple of years as 10GbE to the server progresses. 40 GbE to the server will drive 100GbE on the backbone.
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