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Technology Stocks : The New QLogic (ANCR)
QLGC 16.070.0%Aug 24 5:00 PM EST
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To: Jay Quinty who wrote (10991)10/8/1997 3:17:00 PM
From: Craig Stevenson   of 29386
 
To All,

We are finally beginning to see some actual benchmark numbers for Gigabit Ethernet gear. The October 1st issue of Network Computing has a review of some GE gear, beginning on page 122.

I noticed several things after reading the article. Gigabit Ethernet appears to be VERY early in the development stage. Beta equipment and drivers were the excuses used to explain away poor performance. The cost is also quite high, ranging from $2,000 - $4,000 per port. Fibre Channel should have an advantage here, at least for a while.

The biggest surprise to me was the poor performance. A chart on page 126 shows that the Alteon Networks card achieved throughput of about 260 Mbps, and the Essential Communications card achieved throughput of only about 100 Mbps. That compares with 1 Gig Fibre Channel at about 400 Mbps, even though Fibre Channel has a slower raw signalling rate.
Essential claims to achieve 250 Mbps in back-to-back tests, but I don't know if that was half or full duplex.

The text of the article claims that on a dual-processor 300-MHZ Sun Ultra-2 clone, the Alteon card was able to pump out 437 Mbps of data, but I don't know if that was half or full duplex. Based on the fact that this is almost exactly double what the chart shows I think it is probably full duplex. It was also unclear whether Alteon's proprietary Jumbo Frames were enabled.

The fact that we are finally starting to see some real GE numbers will help us gauge the success of Fibre Channel as a technology.

Craig
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