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By the end of 2016, 100G Ethernet has been widely deployed and becomes a significant portion in data center. Many network-equipment developers are motivated to introduce 100G devices like CFP and QSFP28 modules that consumes as little real estate and power as possible, while achieving necessary price points and delivering superior performance. This post is heading to talk about these two 100G modules and their cabling solutions.

CFP: Out With the Old

Specified by MSA among competing manufacturers, CFP is the first generation 100G transceiver which is designed after the SFP interface, but is significantly larger to support 100Gbps. As we all know, the original CFP has very large size, and in order to meet the need for higher performance and higher density in data center, there is the development of CFP2 and CFP4 specification, which specify a form-factor of 1/2 and 1/4 respectively in size of the original specification. Commonly used CFP/CFP2/CFP4 transceivers are available in 100GBase-SR10 and 100GBase-LR4.

100GBase-SR10 and 100GBase-LR4 CFP

QSFP28: In With the New

QSFP28 is the latest 100G form factor, which is a high-density, high-speed product solution designed for applications in the telecommunications, data center and networking markets. It utilizes four channels of respective signals with data rates up to 25Gbps to meet 100Gbps Ethernet requirement. 100GBase-SR4 and 100GBase-LR4 are two main types of QSFP28 module. The detailed specifications of these two QSFP28s are shown in the following table.

100GBase-SR4 and 100GBase-LR4 QSFP28

100GBase-SR10 Cabling Solution

100GBase-SR10 CFP uses a 24 strand MPO cable for connectivity (10 Tx and 10 Rx with each lane providing 10Gbps, leaving 4 channels unused). It can support maximum link length up to 100m and 150m respectively on OM3 and OM4 fiber cable. 100GBase-SR10 can also be used in 10×10 Gigabit Ethernet modes along with ribbon to duplex fiber breakout cables for connectivity to ten 10GBase-SR optical interface.

100GBase-SR10 CFP Cabling Solution

100GBase-SR4 Cabling Solution

Like 100GBase-SR10, 100GBase-SR4 QSFP28 also uses laser optimized OM3 and OM4 multimode fiber for indication. But 100GBase-SR4 QSFP28 utilizes 12f MPO trunk cable for connectivity (4 Tx and 4 Rx, leaving the middle four unused), which makes it possible to reuse 40GBase-SR4 fiber assemblies when upgrade from 40G to 100G.

100GBase-SR4 QSFP28 Cabling Solution

100GBase-LR4 Cabling Solution

Both 100GBase-LR4 CFP and QSFP28 are both interfaced with LC connector. They uses WDM technologies to achieve 100G transmission over single-mode duplex LC fiber patch cable supporting the link length up to 10km.

100GBase-LR4 Cabling Solution

Conclusion

As the need for high bandwidth is increasing, 100G Ethernet will widespread in data center quickly. Equipped with this basic information about 100G modules and their cabling solutions, we will have little worry upgrading to 100G Ethernet.

The dramatic growth of bandwidth requirements in data centers has led to the worldwide use of higher-performance optical products for network scalability, management, flexibility and reliability. Currently, 10GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) can’t meet the increasing needs of high speed transmission well for such applications as Big Data, cloud and Internet of Things being introduced in many industries. As such, network migration to 40G Ethernet has already been the industry consensus.

But as the cost for 100G is far beyond what most enterprises can afford and the technology for 100G is still not mature enough, 40G Ethernet has been a better solution for its lower cost and maturer technologies compared to 100G. Nowadays, some manufacturers are battling for the 40G Ethernet market, which drives down the 40G Ethernet deployment price, leading to the even wider deployment of 40G Ethernet infrastructure. When migrating from 10G to 40G, three aspects should be considered: fiber optic transceiver, transmission media, and pre-terminated MPO assemblies.

Fiber Optic Transceiver

For any telecommunication network, fiber optic interconnection is of great importance. Photoelectric conversion is a necessary part in fiber optic network. The function of fiber optic transceiver is photoelectric conversion, which makes it one of the most commonly used components in the data center.

As for 40G transceivers, two different package forms are available: QSFP+ (Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus) and CFP (C Form-factor Pluggable), with the former more widely-used than the latter. A single 40G fiber optic transceiver may not be expensive. But what a medium-sized data center needs is thousands of optical transceivers, meaning a large sum of money to be spent. In such a case, third party transceivers that are compatible with a variety types of switches come into point. They have the same performances that the original brand transceivers have, but cost less money. When selecting 40G compatible transceivers, cost and quality are very important. Choosing the compatible 40G transceivers from Fiberstore can ensure 100% compatibility and interoperability. The picture below shows the testing of Cisco compatible QSFP-40G-SR4 transceivers on a Cisco switch to ensure its compatibility and interoperability.

QSFP-40G-SR4 for 40G ethernet

Transmission Media

Allowing for several situations that may exist, the IEEE 802.3ba specified the different transmission media for 40G links, including the following listed media:

40GBASE-CR4: 40Gb/s Ethernet over copper cable in short transmission distance.

40GBASE-SR4 (eg. QFX-QSFP-40G-SR4): 40Gb/s Ethernet over four short-range multi-mode fiber (MMF) optic cables.

40GBASE-LR4: 40Gb/s Ethernet over four wavelengths carried by a signal long-distance single-mode fiber (SMF) optic cable.

There also exists hybrid cabling solutions for 40G applications, like QSFP to 4SFP+ breakout cabling assembly. Take QSFP-4SFP10G-CU5M for example, this product listed in Fiberstore is the QSFP+ to 4 10GBASE-CU SFP+ passive direct-attach copper transceiver assembly with 5-meter reach.

Question occurs: fiber optic cable or copper cable, which should be used in 40G migration? Copper is cheaper. But it can only support 40G transmission limited to several meters. SMF supports the longest 40G transmission distance up to 40 km. As for MMF, OM3 and OM4 are suggested to support short distance transmission. The longest distance that OM3 can support for 40G transmission is 100 m. OM4 can support a longest 40G transmission distance of 150 m. The selection of transmission media should depend on the specific applications.

MPO Assemblies for 40G

The IEEE 802.3ba standard also specifies multi-fiber push-on (MPO) connectors for standard-length MMF connectivity. Most of the 40G multi-mode Ethernet transceivers are based on the MPO technology. It is wise to increase fiber optic density by using MPO technology, but a new problem arises. As the fiber number increased, the cabling and splicing difficulty in data center increased. Unlike traditional two-strand fiber connections, MPO connectors cannot be field terminated easily. Thus, most of the data centers choose the pre-terminated MPO assemblies in 40G deployment, which is more reliable and can save more human labor. Before cabling, determine the cabling lengths and customized pre-terminated MPO assemblies with manufacturers would save a lot of time and money.

Conclusion

Using compatible third party transceivers of high quality for 40G Ethernet links saves a lot of money. Taking specific applications and characteristics of 40G transmission media into consideration can also help you to save cost. Pre-terminated MPO assemblies are necessary for flexible and manageable cabling in 40G deployment. With these information in mind, cost-effective 40G Ethernet migration is at the corner.

Tag: MPO cable

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