[c-nsp] 100FX Ports or Media Convertors?

[Will Hargrave]

Justin M. Streiner wrote:

> I have a few devices and buildings on campus that I feed at 100FX, both 
> from 4500s with MTRJ blades and from 3750s with the 100FX SFPs and both 
> seem to be pretty reliable.  I haven't seen the 'live' failure rates on 
> the 100FX SFPs to be much better or worse than the GE SFPs we use all 
> over the place.

We have been using 3750G-12 + 100FX SFPs for 100FX distribution out 
there at sites. Although it's expensive at the start the advantage is a 
very easy upgrade to gigabit. Previous to that we did use 3550+6-way 
100FX media convertors, specifically the 6-in-1u allied telesyn things, 
which worked well enough.

We have had some problems with the 3750G+100FX SFP combination insofar 
as the 100FX SFPs get very hot in those boxes and in less well specified 
locations have a tendency to overheat and fail. This accelerated our 
upgrade plan in one location to upgrade the edge (Cat 1900 -> Extreme 
x250e in fact) and I think the 1000SX SFPs run a lot cooler.

In the area of larger sites where we have 6500s, especially given the 
lack of 100FX support in newer edge switches, we are just trying to get 
links up to gigabit. The length constraints can be a major pain, we're 
using a combination of replacement with singlemode or 1000LX + mode 
conditioning cables (550m over 62.5/125). We don't really want to buy 
100FX stuff for the 6500 due to the limited benefit and lifetime.

Will