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Final 25G/50G Ethernet spec finally lands
Most of the kit at 2016 plugfest worked just fine and should be backwards-compatible
There's already product a-plenty on the market, but it still matters that the Google-led 25G Ethernet consortium has formalised the release of its technical specification.
It follows the publication of the final report from last August's 25G/50G Ethernet plugfest.
The plugfest demonstrated an impressive 882 25G link configurations (843 of which passed the test), and 360 50G link configurations (341 passed).
Similarly, most configurations passed the plugfest's packet error ratio tests – 712 out of 760 configs at 25G, and 311 of 323 configs at 50G.
Arista, Dell, DNI, Hitachi, HPE, Intel, Ixia, Marvell, Mellanox, Microsoft, Netronome, Qlogic, Spirent, Teledyne Lecroy and Xilinx were involved in switch tests, with cables from Amphenol, Hitachi, Molex, and TE.
As well as the specification (published by the 25G Consortium, registration required), the group will publish a list of certified integrators.
In its statement, the 25G Consortium says the plugfest also demonstrated backwards compatibility (for example with 10 Gbps Ethernet connections).
The consortium was established in 2014 by Google, Microsoft and others. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
