QLogic and Broadcom demonstrate end-to-end interoperability for 25Gb and 100Gb Ethernet

Supporting 10/25/40/100Gb Ethernet port speeds, the combination of the Broadcom® StrataXGS Tomahawk switch and the QLogic® cLOM8514 controller is able to address all next-generation server and storage to top-of-rack connectivity requirements in the data centre.

“Whether you’re talking about hyper scale, private cloud or on-premise enterprise computing, data centers are still at the heart of business IT, and I/O is the lifeblood of high performance business applications,” said Vikram Karvat, vice president of products, marketing and planning, QLogic. “25GbE represents a radical improvement in value for the IT manager, enabling higher connectivity densities, a 2.5X increase in performance per link over 10GbE, and improvement in TCO via lower infrastructure costs compared to 40GbE. Because of these factors, we expect 25GbE to change the networking landscape over the next two to three years.”

“Broadcom’s collaboration with QLogic to demonstrate the first working end-to-end 25Gb and 100Gb Ethernet solution attests to our shared vision of driving rapid innovation in data center networking,” said Rochan Sankar, Broadcom director of product marketing, Network Switch. “QLogic’s network controller leverages a common 25Gbps transceiver technology with our StrataXGS Tomahawk Switch Series, and we’ve proven out the protocol interoperability over 25Gb and 100Gb Ethernet links. Together we’re paving the way for substantially greater capacity, scalability, and cost efficiency of next-generation server and storage interconnect.”

25Gb and 100Gb Ethernet are complementary interconnect technologies for the next-generation data center. Both specifications leverage a common 25Gbps per-lane signaling scheme, with 25GbE utilizing one lane and 100GbE utilizing four lanes. 100Gb Ethernet is a released IEEE standard today; 25Gb Ethernet is an emerging standard, initiated via the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium and now an approved project within the IEEE (802.3by). 25Gb Ethernet provides 2.5X the performance of 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) on a single lane of copper making it a cost-effective upgrade to 10GbE infrastructure, while 100Gb Ethernet provides the absolute highest performance for the most demanding applications.

Both QLogic and Broadcom are driving future 25Gb Ethernet solutions through active membership in the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium. The consortium is devoted to establishing and evangelizing a new, standardized specification to allow data center network transmissions to run over a 25Gb or 50Gb Ethernet link protocol. Whereas today's 40Gb Ethernet networks require four 10GbE lanes, the specification adopted by the consortium prescribes a single-lane 25Gb Ethernet and dual-lane 50Gb Ethernet link protocol, enabling up to 250 percent more bandwidth. The resulting benefits are lower costs and easier deployments.