Despite promising developments, there are still big questions. Primary among these, for IT, is whether Ethernet can become more efficient without additional costs--in terms of IT support or productivity, or the expense of adding RPS to NICs--that outweigh the incremental savings. The biggest fear is that there will be incompatibilities similar to those that existed, and some say still exist, for autonegotiation, which is used to negotiate the speed and duplexity of twisted-pair connections automatically. These incompatibilities have slowed network installations while network engineers diagnosed the resultant connectivity problems and implemented manual workarounds, thus increasing support costs.
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Power-hungry Nics
The EEE initiative is built on two assumptions. First, the various speeds of twisted-pair Ethernet--10/100/ 1,000/10,000 Mbps--have consume power at different rates. The faster the link, the more power consumed, even while the link is not transmitting data. Second, most computers, especially desktops, are often idle with very short bursts of data usage. Initial studies by Ken Christensen, a researcher with the University of South Florida, confirm this. The EEE is trying to figure out how to adjust Ethernet speed and corresponding power usage to reflect the instantaneous bandwidth requirements. This involves watching for changes in network utilization or queue depths and quickly adjusting the link speed as needed. If a computer is simply idle, for example, or the user is working with applications that require low levels of bandwidth, a Gigabit NIC would power down to 100 Mbps.
The benefit of such a speed adjustment is that Ethernet NICs at the desktop or server, as well as at the switch, would draw less power, which translates into lower utility bills.
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