Why is Gigabit Ethernet necessary? Isn Fast Ethernet good enough?
A Gigabit Ethernet is imperative for two reasons: faster systems and faster backbones. As Fast Ethernet makes its transition to a widespread desktop technology, a faster backbone network is necessary, and Gigabit Ethernet technology fills that need perfectly. As systems get even faster, and technology improves, Gigabit Ethernet will migrate to the desktop. Simply put, faster systems require faster networking, input/output (I/O), memory throughput, and access to larger memory and storage in order to remain balanced. Fast Ethernet is a good match for today’s midrange and high-end systems, but systems over the next several years will be able to utilize an order of magnitude more bandwidth.
