LightReading reports on Google, Microsoft and others forming a consortium for 25/50 Gbit/s switches to increase speed and reduce cost of data center networking.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – A consortium of companies including Arista Networks, Broadcom Corporation, Google Inc., Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., and Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of a specification optimized to allow data center networks to run over a 25 or 50 Gigabit per second (Gbit/s) Ethernet link protocol. This new specification will enable the cost-efficient scaling of network bandwidth delivered to server and storage endpoints in next-generation cloud infrastructure, where workloads are expected to surpass the capacity of 10 or 40 Gbps Ethernet links deployed today.

The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium was formed by the above leading cloud networking technology providers for the purpose of supporting an industry-standard, interoperable Ethernet specification that boosts the performance and slashes the interconnect cost per Gbps between the server Network Interface Controller (NIC) and Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch.

ZDnet says the consortium is a response to stalls in the IEEE process.

The consortium was formed after plans to create official Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) specifications stalled at a meeting last March, due to a perceived lack of support.

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The tech giants say that in essence, specifications published by the consortium "maximizes the radix and bandwidth flexibility of the data center network while leveraging many of the same fundamental technologies and behaviors already defined by the IEEE 802.3 standard."