[c-nsp] 6500s/XFPs (Was XENPAK 10GB-LW (WAN PHY))

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 10:55:13PM +0200, Asbjorn Hojmark - Lists wrote:
> > Do Cisco have anything in the pipeline for XFPs on 6500s? 
> 
> Well there's the XFP-10GLR-OC192SR in SPA-1XTENGE-XFP in 7600-
> SIP-600, but...
> 
> > (That will be comparable in cost to the 6704/Xenpak solution)
> 
> >From what I've been told, no. The argument was that multimode is
> very important for a lot of their big (enterprise?) customers and
> that you can't do LX4 on XFPs.
> 
> Coming modules should be X2-based, however.

X2 is pretty much the worst of all worlds. The tradeoff with XENPAK vs XFP 
is that you get first crack at the new high-end optics which require more 
space to implement in the first gen. For example, DWDM ITU grid tuned 
XENPAKs with 80km reach (ZRD) have been shipping for quite a while, but 
they're just now starting to trickle into the market for XFP.

X2 is still XAUI based (its reall just XENPAK in a smaller form factor), 
but with a significantly less competition^Wexisting users. I've never seen 
a ZR X2 in the wild let alone a ZRD or WAN PHY. The only things switching 
to X2 are going to get you is an even bigger headache in sparing, a 
requirement to buy new pluggables, and higher prices across the board.

Don't get me wrong, keeping a XENPAK based board around for legacy optics 
like LX4 and for early adoption of new long reach optics makes sense, but 
when the high density 10GE cards start rolling out they should really be 
XFP. Otherwise Cisco is going to get its ass kicked by folks like Foundry 
and Force10 (F10 24-port 10GE XFP in 1U for $22k list - SWEET!) in the 
dense/cheap 10GE market.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)