The Ethernet Alliance announced the formation of a Data Center subcommittee, formed to address the demands on Ethernet networking in the data center as the role of Ethernet expands from transporting TCP/IP packets to technologies such as low-latency data center application networking, unified fabric over Ethernet and energy-efficient Ethernet.

Subcommittee members will work with IEEE 802 task force members and T11 members to promote emerging standards for data center networking, including IEEE 802.1 Data Center Bridging and Congestion Notification, multiple IEEE 802.3 projects, and T11 FC-BB-5 for Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).

The subcommittee also plans to sponsor private interoperability test events for various data center Ethernet technologies through third-party test facilities and will work collaboratively to produce white papers and educational material.

To lead the effort, Anthony Faustini of Cisco was elected as technical chair and Sunil Ahluwalia of Intel was elected as marketing chair.

Companies that are interested in joining the Data Center subcommittee or that would like additional information should contact admin@ethernetalliance.org.

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