Avago Technologies, Infinera and Ixia plan to demonstrate the ability to send 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) traffic over a long-haul network from the show floor at NXTcomm08 next week.

Ixia will demonstrate an initial implementation of 100 GbE line-rate traffic generation and analysis. The traffic will be handed off to a 100 GbE interface on the Infinera DTN DWDM transport system. The 100 GbE signal will then be switched and transported by the DTN through a long-haul DWDM network to Los Angeles, where it will be looped back and then transported back to the Infinera booth in Las Vegas. Performance metrics will be reported from the Ixia XM2 chassis.

According to the companies involved, the demo will be the first implementation of the Multi-Lane Distribution (MLD) protocol architecture, the new 100 GbE Physical Coding Sublayer (PCS) approved as the baseline proposal just last month by the IEEE 802.3ba task force. MLD bonds multiple physical lanes into a single, logical 100 GbE link.

Currently, the highest line rate commonly available for Ethernet is 10 GbE. Ixia and Infinera have been working with the 802.3ba task force from its inception and are committed to supporting efforts to reach an industry-wide standard.

Avago’s contribution is a demo of a 100 GbE short reach link consisting of a 10 channel optical transmitter and receiver pair. These modules are capable of transmitting data at rates in excess of 10G per channel, resulting in 100G aggregate bandwidth.

A white paper on the approach is available here.

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