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June 01, 1998, TechWeb News
Giga-Not?
By Kelly Jackson Higgins
Speaking of switching, is anyone really comfortable with the idea of Gigabit Ethernet handling QoS (quality of service)? So far, the Gigabit Ethernet answer to QoS is massive bandwidth that no one can max out on anytime soon.
But even with Layer 4 QoS arriving in some gigabit-speed routing switches, where you can configure a switch to prioritize certain types of traffic or users, some industry experts remain skeptical of Gigabit Ethernet's QoS. David Axner, principal at IGI Consulting, which recently released a report on Gigabit Ethernet networks, says mixing delay-sensitive traffic like voice and video with non-delay-sensitive traffic isn't a done-deal with Gigabit Ethernet. Techniques for Gigabit Ethernet QoS have been bandied about by vendors, he says, but they don't get specific enough about how they will actually handle QoS in their switches.
Standards for the Ethernet world, such as the IEEE's 802.1p, aren't firmed up enough to judge whether Gigabit Ethernet can handle true QoS, and IP routing's answer to QoS, the RSVP (Resource Reservation Protocol), still is in its infancy in products. This is where ATM basically overshadows Gigabit Ethernet, according to Axner, because all of this is built into ATM, not into an add-on as is the case with Ethernet technologies. Other industry experts, including Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research, says ATM is the only protocol that can handle the mix of voice, data and video traffic and then easily ramp up to higher speeds as necessary, without having to rebuild the network.
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