Since the inception of ethernet switching back in the 1990s,
the industry had normally introduced speed increments in variables of 10x. Over
time we moved from 10 Megabits per Second (Mbps) to 100, 100 Mbps to 1 Gigabits
per Second (Gbps), etc. So, when the new multi-gigabit standard was
introduced in 2016 (802.3bz), many wondered why the industry would deviate from
a tried and true system of growth to introduce 2.5 and 5 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE)
copper derivatives.
Truth is that the deviation from 10x increments actually
started when the IEEE ratified the 100GbE standard back in 2010
(802.3ba). The addition of 40GbE as an option in that standard allowed the
server virtualization and cloud phenomena boom to continue to grow, as many
servers were capable of pushing much higher network data rates once they had
multiple applications utilizing a much higher percentage of their
capacity. The cost of a multiport 100GbE switch at the time would have
been cost prohibitive to a majority of companies, so the move to 40GbE allowed
manufacturers to produce a product that could meet the demands of the data
center market at an affordable cost.
Fast forward five years to the current 2.5/5GbE addition and once again the industry is trying to assist customers in making the most out of what they have while keeping up with technological advances. With the eruption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the wireless industries continued advancement in WiFi speeds, there’s a need to be able to provide more than the current 1Gbps bandwidth that older WiFi access points required. As an example, the WiFi 6 standard (802.11ax) is capable of providing 1Gbps per spatial stream to wireless end-user devices. Most high-end access points have four spatial streams, so the theoretical ethernet requirement from a WiFi 6 access point upstream to the switch would be more than 4Gbps. Ruckus even sells an eight spatial stream access point that doubles that requirement to 8Gbps. These are theoretical maximums, and you should engineer your network to expect fifty to seventy-five percent of actual throughput …