History and Standardization of Ethernet:
– Developed at Xerox PARC in 1973-1974.
– First documented by Robert Metcalfe in 1973.
– IEEE published the first Ethernet standard in 1980.
– IEEE approved the IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD standard in 1982.
– Delays in standardization impacted market introductions.
Ethernet Technology Evolution:
– Data transfer rates increased from 2.94Mbit/s to 400Gbit/s.
– Frames divide data with source and destination addresses.
– Adoption of the 48-bit MAC address by IEEE 802.
– Interworks well with wireless Wi-Fi technologies.
– Widely used in homes, industries, and the Internet.
Market Impact, Usage, and Deployment:
– Ethernet market exceeded $16 billion annually by 2010.
– Used to interconnect appliances and personal devices.
– Industrial Ethernet replacing legacy systems.
– Continues to evolve for new bandwidth requirements.
– Various forms like 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T.
Ethernet Networking Components:
– Shared medium based on coaxial cable.
– Repeaters and hubs for network extension.
– Transport layer protocols like TCP, UDP, and DCCP.
– Internet layer protocols for routing packets.
– Link layer protocols including ARP and MAC.
Advanced Networking and Industry Impact:
– Bridging and Switching to isolate collisions.
– Advanced features like Shortest Path Bridging.
– VLANs for user class separation.
– Link aggregation for bandwidth and redundancy.
– Ethernet’s impact on supercomputers and industry.
Ethernet (/ˈiːθərnɛt/ EE-thər-net) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1983 as IEEE 802.3. Ethernet has since been refined to support higher bit rates, a greater number of nodes, and longer link distances, but retains much backward compatibility. Over time, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies such as Token Ring, FDDI and ARCNET.
The original 10BASE5 Ethernet uses a thick coaxial cable as a shared medium. This was largely superseded by 10BASE2, which used a thinner and more flexible cable that was both cheaper and easier to use. More modern Ethernet variants use twisted pair and fiber optic links in conjunction with switches. Over the course of its history, Ethernet data transfer rates have been increased from the original 2.94 Mbit/s to the latest 400 Gbit/s, with rates up to 1.6 Tbit/s under development. The Ethernet standards include several wiring and signaling variants of the OSI physical layer.
Systems communicating over Ethernet divide a stream of data into shorter pieces called frames. Each frame contains source and destination addresses, and error-checking data so that damaged frames can be detected and discarded; most often, higher-layer protocols trigger retransmission of lost frames. Per the OSI model, Ethernet provides services up to and including the data link layer. The 48-bit MAC address was adopted by other IEEE 802 networking standards, including IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), as well as by FDDI. EtherType values are also used in Subnetwork Access Protocol (SNAP) headers.
Ethernet is widely used in homes and industry, and interworks well with wireless Wi-Fi technologies. The Internet Protocol is commonly carried over Ethernet and so it is considered one of the key technologies that make up the Internet.
