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Sit down in front of my computer and you will find upwards of five Internet windows each with at least eight tabs, all open to different sites.  Pages just don’t load fast enough for me.  The moment it takes a page to load, I feel like I need to be doing something else or it is time wasted.

I am going be in trouble when they make things even faster than the cable Internet I have now.  It is in the works to increase Ethernet speed from 10 Gigabit Ethernet (“GbE”) to 40GbE or 100GbE (or 80 GbE,120 or even 160 GbE as the actual number is undetermined at present).  From the way it looks, I have about two years to figure out what to do about that and come off my multi-window addiction.

2002 is when the industry started buzzing about 10GbE, up from 1GbE.  Increases in the number of Internet users, streaming video, and websites with millions of simultaneous users (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) create the demand for higher Gigabit Ethernet capacity.  The need for data centers has become a reality for all of us, whether we realize it or not.

We use servers in all kinds of unknown places to store our emails, photos, and videos, to hold websites and to transfer information.  The more of us who use and rely on such centers, the greater the demand is for them to perform to our desires: fast and flawless.

Data centers can only process as much data as their equipment allows.  A simultaneous rush causes a bottleneck.  Think about it like this: you are at a sold-out stadium event and the event ends.  You get up to leave.  Say the stadium has only one door (let’s compare this to our 10GbE). Chaos occurs as everyone tries to leave quickly.  Now, let’s say we make that door bigger and add three to nine more exits (increasing our 10GbE to 40 or 100GbE).  The flow would move much faster and smoother and we would be much happier.

This increase in Ethernet speed will open up our capacity for bigger downloads and uploads faster.  Pictures, video, and gaming will transfer more quickly.  Our intranets and home networks will work faster.  Moving around HD video on your network will be even easier. 

Of course, there are so many factors that go into how fast you can go.  Ethernet is only one part of the twisted web.  Your computer itself will play a big part in your realization of the Gigabit Ethernet increase. Your responsibility will be to keep current with an up to date PC.

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