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Russell Heilling
Asked: 2010-02-26 02:29:24 +0800 CST

Are there any statistics on the number of networks using Ethernet Jumbo frames?

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I am often told by Sales Engineers and Product managers that a Layer 2 Ethernet service is not fit for purpose if the maximum supported frame size is in the 1518-1522 range (enough to support standard Ethernet frames or VLAN tagged frames).

Or in other words: an MTU of 1500 is not enough (see this blog post for my definition of MTU and a short rant on how the term is often misused)

I am never able to get any details from them on:

a) What proportion of customers (Enterprise / SMB) require Jumbo frames

b) What are typical expectations on frame size for Jumbos on WAN links? 1600, 2000, 9k, etc...

I know that in Telco and Data Centre environments Jumbos are pretty common, but I am after some insight as to how common this is within Enterprise and SMB networks.

jumboframes wide-area-network switch ethernet

4 Answers

  1. We use jumbo frames on our iSCSI infrastructure, nowhere else. I doubt you'll find Jumbo Frames on a WAN anywhere,

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  2. As for small business, from my own experience, there is little or no need to implement Jumboframes. In other words: there is only a need to implement Jumbo frames if you need to move huge amounts of data.

    If I calculated correctly you only need about a quarter of the frames you'd normally need, so your overhead due to using the IP protocol will drop by three quarters.

    I cannot imagine, however, there will be much ISPs offering Jumbo frame support. Not to mention the number of hosts offering Jumbo frame support (namely not a lot).

    So there seems no need to implement them, other then on the local network if and only if one would have to move large quantities of data.

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  3. EqualLogic suggests 9K frames on their SANs, and this suggestion tends to be widely adopted for storage-area networks on sites using EqualLogic hardware.

    That said -- even though we're following that suggestion for our storage network, my employer still uses default 1500 byte frames on the primary (non-storage) network.

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  4. We have employed jumbo framing specifications on enclosed networks - networks that are configured for internal usage and do not have any WAN connectivity other than the nodes that are connected to it.

    Jumbo frame support is only as good as it is when all participants within the network are utilizing it. There is no need to implement jumbo framing unless you see a need to do so.

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