[c-nsp] alternatives to Cisco's SFPs

[Tristan Gulyas]

Hi,

I've had a look at some of the third party 1000baseLX SFPs which are 
Cisco-coded so no "service unsupported-trans" was required.  We used an 
optical power meter and did notice that the transmit power was less than the 
genuine Cisco transciever but still sufficient for specification. The 
third-party SFPs may be 1000baseLX vs. the LH standard which doubles the 
supported length.  Mind you, I've seen over 20km running without erorrs on 
the LH SFPs. I don't expect that from a third party optic...

I can't remember the brand, however.

Also our warranty is time-limited, I believe 3 years with these SFPs.  We 
haven't noticed many (but we have had some) Cisco SFPs fail.  We've only 
been using the third party ones for a short time but we've had no failures 
or DOAs thus far.  Also make sure you have some spare Cisco SFPs just in 
case you need to log a TAC case about something - I don't imagne Cisco will 
be much help with non-genuine hardware.

Tristan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Mayers" <p.mayers at imperial.ac.uk>
To: <sthaug at nethelp.no>
Cc: <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 8:51 AM
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] alternatives to Cisco's SFPs


> On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 11:18:16PM +0100, sthaug at nethelp.no wrote:
>>> Does anyone have good experience with non-Cisco SFPs? In particular,
>>> we're trying to look for lower cost alternatives to GLC-T (or
>>> SFP-GE-T), GLC-SX-MM (SFP-GE-S) and  GLC-LH-SM (SFP-GE-L). Also, any
>>> problem with using non-Cisco SFPs (even after enabling "service
>>> unsupported-transceiver")?
>>
>>You can buy "Cisco coded" SFPs from a significant number of vendors,
>>at much better price than Cisco. We have bought such SFPs from, among
>
> Yep
>
>>others, Zycko. We never had a problem using SFPs not purchased from
>
> We buy the ProLabs ones, from hardware.com
>
> They're excellent.
>
>>Cisco - but buyer beware, there *are* definitely lower quality SFPs
>>out there. YMMV.
>
> Ho ho. We once paid a not-inconsiderable amount for a try of "real" Cisco 
> SFPs that turned out to be fakes.
>
> Beware of fakes - as well as having crappy lasers, sensors and build 
> quality, many of them have duplicate serial numbers and two such SFPs WILL 
> NOT work in most Cisco kit, "service unsupp" is no help.
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