The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) has begun offering 25 Gbps Ethernet Testing at its facility in Durham, New Hampshire, targeting equipment vendors that are selling to data center providers and service providers that are using higher network speeds to support cloud-based services.
While 10G is still a dominant network speed, Ethernet technology is migrating to 25 Gbps per lane to take on current silicon and system design. What makes 25 Gbps compelling is that it is available at a lower cost than existing 40G Ethernet technologies.
Earlier this year, UNH-IOL hosted a 25/50G Consortium interoperability testing event to showcase interoperability of 25G and 50G Ethernet devices. With a total of 21 participating companies from across the Ethernet ecosystem, the plugfest provided a neutral testing environment which aided in fostering multi-vendor interoperability and united diverse industry constituencies.
Offered as part of the 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium, UNH-IOL’s 25G Ethernet Testing Services evaluate a product’s market viability. Besides confirming interoperability and electrical validation of systems and modules, the services will confirm auto-negotiation (ANEG) to ensure connected devices choose common transmission parameters. ANEG will become more important as new and higher speeds are created.
Jeffrey Lapak, UNH-IOL enterprise industry and operations strategic manager, told FierceTelecomthat the new service will help vendors dig deeper into issues like ANEG, which came up during the Ethernet Consortium’s plug fests.
“There are some specific issues we have uncovered in the last couple of events centered on auto negotiation, which is the handshaking between devices as they establish a link,” Lapak said. “We have some unique capabilities to debug and enhance what they’re doing in that space.”
Lapak added that ANEG is not only important to current 25 Gbps products, but also future 100, 200 and 400G products.