[c-nsp] Cheap 10G between 7600 and Procurve 5406zl

[Lincoln Dale]

On 17/03/2010, at 12:54 AM, Marian Ďurkovič wrote:
> [..] Thus, the massive rush towards SFP+ might at the end of the day turn out 
> to be a serious flaw, [..]

you list downsides without giving fair balance to the upsides.

like many things engineering, its often not a case of something being better on all counts or being all things to all people.
rather its a constant tradeoff between competing goals.

certainly if you are most focussed on long-distance optics or DWDM then indeed SFP+ is probably not for you.

on the other hand, within (say) a datacenter environments, SFP+ offers benefits above what other transceiver types could offer:
 - SFP+ enables 10G densities that would not be possible with other transceiver formats.
 - SFP+ being the same form-factor as SFP means that one can often build a switch with both 1G and 10G transceivers that can be intermixed
 - enables incredibly cost effective 10G in the form of CX1.

its not realistic to include 10GBaseT in any comparison at this point due to power/heat/PHY latency although that will, of course, improve over time.

from a switch design standpoint if you are designing a switch that could be used in many places in the network then reality is one probably needs to support multiple transceiver types if you want to address all requirements.  nothing new here.  its no different to having to do copper (RJ45) ports as well as transceiver ports.


cheers,

lincoln.