Network Interfaces
These days, 100-megabit Ethernet is the most common network media in use. Every caching product supports 100-megabit Ethernet, and it is probably sufficient for most situations. In tests that I have done, 100baseTX achieves about 90Mbps in both directions (full duplex). For typical web traffic, this corresponds to a request rate of about 1,000 per second. A 100-megabit network interface is not going to be a bottleneck for speeds up to dual T3’s.
Gigabit Ethernet is available with many caching products as well. In a few years, Gigabit Ethernet is likely to replace 100-megabit Ethernet as the de facto standard.
Less popular network interfaces, such as FDDI and ATM, may be available as well. If you’re thinking of a software solution, then certainly you can make your own choices for networking hardware. If you’re looking at appliances and don’t want to use Ethernet, check with the vendor to see what else is available.
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