[c-nsp] SFP+ modules in Catalyst switches

[Justin Shore]

Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> Don't forget, SFP+ is limited to such low power (1.5W in the highest power 
> class) that it is all but impossible to ever power long reach optics (40km 
> or 80km+) with them.

One of my biggest wishes for Cisco is that they support much longer 
reach simplex SMF GigE SFPs than they do.  6 miles just doesn't cut it 
for our needs.  I'm running 80km single strand optics through 3rd-party 
media converters to connect a couple of our sites.  While the optics 
might be usable with the unsupported-transceivers command I don't really 
want to do that (or trust that it will always work through future 
upgrades).  I would really like a native GigE simplex SMF solution. 
It's hard for me to argue for extensibility of our 7600s to a telco 
person when they see me using $300 media converters to meet our distance 
needs.

Along the same lines are the 10GigE optics.  I don't think there is a 
single-strand SMF solution yet but when there is I really hope that it 
can at least reach 50k or I'm going to have to look for another 
3rd-party hack.

> This is fine if all you're doing is datacenter or small campus stuff, but 
> completely destroys the capability to do long reach/DWDM optics over dark 
> fiber. Personally I suspect that SFP+ is not going to be particularly 
> popular with the SP crowd, and any vendor who values their business should 
> make a high-density (16-port or so) XFP blade alternative as well.

That's probably the point.  The Nexus is meant for enterprise data 
centers where the distances are typically short and higher density is 
needed.  SFP+ fits meets those requirements.  Lincoln and Tim have 
explained that well.  The long-term solution for the SP crowd will 
eventually shake out.  We just need to be patient.  (But I do *really* 
need long-range single-strand SMF GigE today!)

Justin