WildPackets this week introduced a highly extensible data recorder for 10 Gigabit (10Gig) Ethernet networks, the latest sign that 10Gig networks are gaining wider acceptance, even among medium-sized businesses.

The 10Gig standard has been around since 2003 and is currently the fastest of Ethernet standards, transferring data at 10Gbps, ten times the rate of Gigabit Ethernet.

Although only 1 million 10Gig ports were shipped in 2007, according to some estimates, the combination of multi-core servers and the growing use of server virtualization are helping to push 10G networks toward the mainstream, say those in the industry.

WildPackets' Omnipliance SuperCore, introduced at the Cisco Live! Conference this week, is aimed at allowing network administrators to keep track of everything going on their networks, both in real time and retrospectively, according to WildPackets marketing vice president Tony Barbagallo.

SuperCore is aimed specifically at compliance operations, including incident response operations and policy compliance investigations, according to the company.

Key features include up to 64 Terabytes of local storage as well as support for capture direct to storage-area networks (SAN), WildPackets said.

The product is comparable to Network Instruments' GigaStor, but unlike GigaStor offers both SAS and SATA storage, as well as a faster CPU and a faster RAID controller card, Barbagallo said.

SuperCore can be extended through the addition of capture cards, disk subsystems and SAN integration, he said.

WildPackets said medium-sized businesses are increasingly seeing the need for 10Gig network monitoring, a finding borne out by others in the industry.

A major factor in driving the adoption of 10Gig networks is server virtualization, according to industry analysts.

This trend, combined with multi-core servers, can mean up to 128 virtual servers on a single physical system. The growing popularity of networked storage takes up yet more bandwidth, analysts have pointed out.

Further emphasizing the trend, Arbor Networks earlier this month introduced what it said was the first distributed denial of service (DDoS) detection and mitigation system aimed specifically at 10Gig networks, the Threat Management System 3100.