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To Gigabit or Not To Gigabit

PFW.com - 2008What is Gigabit?
Gigabit switches are the latest in the line of network switching devices. The speed of the ports (1000 Mbps) is 10 times that of its predecessor. For approximately five years now, PC vendors have been providing 10/100/1000 Mbps capable cards in the units they are selling, thus enabling end users to take advantage of the new levels of data transfer abilities and speeds. In some cases and depending on wiring, it is necessary to redo your cabling to achieve these speeds. Remember that Category 5 and Category 6 are wiring standards, not types of cable.

Why would I want Gigabit speed?
My internet is not gigabit, you say. Why should I boost all the PC’s network cards? In the technology world, a term that is often thrown around is “bottleneck”. This refers to the point at which information transfer is slowed or corralled. The only thing IT departments can do is to move or position a “bottleneck” to its least compromising location on a network. Typically, most Internet firewalls still connect at 10/100 Mbps. The idea is to move the “bottleneck” to the furthest point from a user.

The world we live in is becoming more of a multimedia streaming world. To take advantage of these technologies, network backbones must be fast enough. Client/Server applications are especially geared to take full advantage of network speed increases.

Will it really help my network?
As mentioned, all new PCs are coming out with gigabit capability in them. As well, the iSeries is available with gigabit-capable network cards. Matching the two together will give vastly improved transfer rates between client and server. Communication to remote stores is also improved as the “bottleneck” is moved to the furthest point from the server.