With exponential growth in Internet users and applications, data center traffic continues to experience explosive growth. Driven by increases in social networking, data and video content delivery, along with demanding business applications, are now pushing beyond the speed limits of traditional server and switch infrastructure. To meet these needs, data center (Figure 1) operators are now turning to mature, cost-effective 25G Ethernet technology, including new 25G switches and high-bandwidth servers with 25G Network Interface Cards (NIC).
Figure 1. A typical data center design
Cisco