To meet the increasing demand of virtualization and cloud computing in the IT industry, Juniper Networks launched what it claims is the industry's first 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE) router interface card. The 100 GbE has been demonstrated by Nortel, Infinera, and Cisco Systems previously, but this is the first ‘commercially’ launched card. This card will be offered as part of Juniper's T1600 core router. The card is designed to meet the increasing demand of Telecommunications providers, cloud-infrastructure companies, and other organizations rolling out large-scale virtualization solutions. The 100 GE interface will provide an order of magnitude increase over most current interfaces. It will also make it easier to to deploy high-capacity services like video and 3G/4G wireless broadband.

100 GbE is equipped to be a major factor in the increasing deployment of virtualization in cloud computing, data centers, and networked storage. Where adding interface capacity used to mean just more traffic-handling capability, now capacity is a crucial element of virtualized infrastructure for applications, servers, and content. 100 Gigabit Ethernet is not yet an established standard. The IEEE is still developing the 802.3ba standard for 100 GE (as well as 40 GE). It is expected to be finalized in mid-2009, with ratification hopeful for June 2010.

[Gizmag]