[c-nsp] Galvanic eletrical / optical fiber switchers for lab. Anyone know where to buy???

[Saku Ytti]

On (2011-01-07 12:04 -0500), Keegan Holley wrote:

> The APCON is all wire to wire.  I think you can also do dissimilar port
> types, for example SONET to ethernet, but you should check their website for
> what they currently offer.  My box is actually a bit dated, but I am happy
> with it.

Both of the APCON and MRV solutions are 'intelligent', i.e. they understand
the signal. Which means you can do cute things like patch fibre to copper,
setup port monitor etc.

However, as we are today using manual patching in lab, and we don't need to
upgrade the patch panels when 40GE, 100GE, 400GE are released, we would
prefer not to lose this ability.

Are there 'stupid' automatic patch-panels, which are truly wire-to-wire,
completely agnostic to the signal, as long as signal works in the media you
have. So you'd need to specifically buy CAT6, SM, MM 'linecards' to the
patch panel, but after that everything goes. So the lifetime would be
comparable to your pure physical patch-panels.

-- 
  ++ytti