There’s no such thing as ‘business as usual’ in the data center, and 2020 was certainly no exception to this rule. With the volume of data pouring into the data center continuing to climb, driven by even greater connectivity demand - network planners are rethinking how they can stay a step ahead of these changes!

Looking back to 2014, when the 25G Ethernet Consortium proposed single-lane 25-Gbit/s Ethernet and dual-lane 50-Gbit/s Ethernet, it created a big fork in the industry’s roadmap, offering a lower cost-per-bit and an easy transition to 50G, 100G and beyond.

In 2020, 100G hit the market en masse, driving higher and higher fiber counts - and larger hyperscale and cloud-based data centers confronted their inevitable leap to 400G. With switches and servers on schedule to require 400G and 800G connections, the physical layer must also contribute higher performance to continuously optimize network capacity.

The ability to evolve the physical layer infrastructure in the data center is ultimately key to keeping pace with demand for the low latency, high-bandwidth, and reliable connectivity that subscribers demand. Take a look at the top trends to watch in this e-book as data center managers plan for 800G and the data mushroom effect that 5G will bring!