2024 was a banner year for Ethernet, which has been a foundational element of networking for more than 50 years and is poised for more advancements as 2025 kicks off.
Multiple standards and certification efforts made progress in 2024, helping networks to be more reliable and deliver more bandwidth. One of the most significant developments was the maturation of 800 Gigabit Ethernet (800GbE). The IEEE P802.3df taskforce released version 1.0 of the 800GbE specification on Feb. 16, 2024, marking the end of a multi-year process to create and finalize the high end of Ethernet bandwidth.
There was also a lot of work focused on improving Ethernet to better meet the growing need of AI/ML workloads. Much of that work occurred under the direction of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium, which is an open-source effort under the governance of the Linux Foundation.
Beyond the big-ticket items of higher bandwidth and AI, a key activity in any year for Ethernet is interoperability testing for all manner of existing and emerging specifications. 200 Gigabits per second per lane is an important milestone on the path to an even higher bandwidth Ethernet specification that will exceed 1 Terabit per second.
“In 2024 the Ethernet Alliance hosted the initial testing of 200G/lane devices in advance of specification ratification by the IEEE,” David J. Rodgers, Ethernet Alliance events & conference chair, told Network World. “IEEE Working Group leads, seeking proof of viability for 200G/lane, were able to rely on the Ethernet Alliance’s test and measurement community to facilitate a pathfinding test session over the summer and provide results before a final specification draft.”
At the other end of the speed spectrum, the Ethernet Alliance also produced the first Single Pair Ethernet plugfest to advance seamless interoperability for products and services designed for 10BASE-T1L applications. That is a standard based on the IEEE 802.3cg specification that was finalized in 2019.
“The underpinning and overall broad success of Ethernet lies in the commitment to testing and validation to fulfill the promise – things just work!” Rodgers said.
Towards terabit Ethernet in 2025 and beyond
With 800GbE now firmly established, adoption and expansion into ever larger bandwidth will be a key theme in 2025.
There will be no shortage of vendors offering 800 GbE equipment in 2025, but when it comes to Ethernet standards, focus will be on 1.6 Terabits/second Ethernet.
“As 800GbE has come to market, the next speed for Ethernet is being talked about already,” Martin Hull, vice president and general manager for cloud and AI platforms at Arista Networks, told Network World. “1.6Tb Ethernet is being discussed in terms of the optics, the form factors and use cases, and we expect industry leaders to be trialing 1.6T systems towards the end of 2025.”
2025 will also see discussion and early work on looking even further out than 1.6T. Ethernet Alliance’s Rodgers noted that the industry has already begun to chart the path toward 3.2Tb and 400G/lane Ethernet.
Linear Pluggable Optics get real
While perhaps not as exciting as high-speed Ethernet bandwidth, 2025 will also see the real world deployments of Linear Pluggable Optics (LPO).
“High-speed computing requires high bandwidth and reliable interconnect solutions,” Rodgers said. “However, high-speed also means high power and higher heat, placing more demands on the electrical grid and resources and creating a demand for new options.”
That’s where LPOs will fit in.
Rodgers noted that the LPO-MSA (multi-source agreement) group brought together the leading system and interconnect vendors to architect a new type of pluggable optical module. The LPO promises to remove heat-inducing and power-hungry digital signal processors (DSPs) used in traditional optical modules and provide a more cost-effective interconnect for shorter-reach applications.
“Arista has talked about LPO for 800G earlier, but 2025 is the year when LPO will become real, with demonstrable power and cost savings,” Hull said. “At a time when many DC [data center] operators are facing challenges around power and cooling, LPO can save 25% of the networking power budget, at a system level.”
Ethernet goes ‘Ultra’ to compete against Infiniband for HPC and AI
Throughout 2024, progress was made at the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC). A primary goal of the UEC is to enable Ethernet for AI and HPC workloads and position better against rival interconnect Infiniband.
“The UEC grew from ten companies to over 100, representing a broad cross-section of the tech industry committed to addressing networking challenges for AI and HPC in an open and collaborative way,” said J Metz, chair of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium.
Metz noted that in addition to vendor participation growth there was a lot of technical innovation. Significant developments were made across the physical, link, transport, and software layers, including innovative congestion schemes, built-in security and optimized packet delivery.
“More than 25 individual projects contributed to the development of a finely tuned Ethernet stack designed to meet the demands of the most intensive workloads in history,” Metz said.
2025 will be a big year for UEC.
“The fully integrated 1.0 specification, consolidating all drafts, is set to be released in early 2025,” Metz said. “Efforts are already underway to focus on compliance, performance enhancements, storage, and management solutions.”
The list of vendors participating in the UEC reads like a who’s who of the networking industry. Arista’s Rodgers said that he expects the release of the UEC spec will provide key enhancements to Ethernet for AI in both training and AGI environments.
“The UEC spec is a multi-vendor effort with representation from the largest users of AI, systems and silicon vendors,” he said.
Read more about Ethernet advances
- Ethernet at 50: Bob Metcalfe pulls down the Turing Award: Ethernet turned 50 years old on May 22, 2023, and co-creator Bob Metcalfe says he remembers that day in May, 1973, very clearly. “I was sitting in Building 34 (at Xerox PARC), at a Selectric typewriter, typing a summary of my thoughts on how networks should work, and then I hard-drew the diagrams. I wrote the memo on the Orator ball on the Selectric, which was sans serif because I liked that font.”
- Industry groups drive Ethernet upgrades for AI, HPC: AI workloads, HPC requirements, and sustainability initiatives are spurring tech industry efforts to rework the venerable Ethernet ecosystem. There’s pressure to increase the scale, stability, and reliability of Ethernet, and, among other outcomes, that pressure has led to wider interest in the Ultra Ethernet Consortium.
- Cisco, Arista, HPE, Intel lead consortium to supersize Ethernet for AI infrastructures: Backed by the Linux Foundation, the new Ultra Ethernet Consortium aims to increase the scale, stability, and reliability of Ethernet networks to satisfy AI’s high performance networking requirements.
- Ethernet turns 50, but its voyage has only begun: You’d be hard pressed to find another technology that has been as useful, successful, and ultimately influential as Ethernet, and it is clear that Ethernet’s journey is far from over.
- AI workloads driving high-speed Ethernet switch adoption: The high-end Ethernet switch market is getting a boost from cloud providers and enterprises that are preparing their data centers for AI workloads. Meanwhile, high-end router sales are slowing, according to IDC’s most recent quarterly trackers.
Source:: Network World