Moving standards to 100 Gbe and beyond

There is a need for 100 Gb/s data transport, or 100 Gb Ethernet (100 GbE), for both local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). Standardization related to 100 Gb/s is a key next step for Ethernet to continue in its role as a ubiquitous end-to-end protocol. This article describes recent standardization efforts, and activities planned for the future. 100 Gb is a work in progress and this article provides an early snapshot of the standards effort being undertaken mostly by the IEEE 802.3 and its High Speed Study Group (HSSG), which recently approved a project authorization request (PAR) 802.3ba document. In addition, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T) is involved in the definition of 100 GbE parameters for transport over the WAN by using the Optical Transport Network (OTN) rates standardized so far. It is critical that 100 GbE efforts progress in an orderly manner to ensure a robust and healthy overall network infrastructure.