[c-nsp] Twinax trivia check (was Re: Is there such a thing as a 10GBase-T SFP+ transciever)

[Jeff Kell]

On 2/2/2014 5:49 PM, Murphy-Olson, Daniel E. wrote:
> Most of the switch vendors have an "official" compatibility list, but I've found that generally the most common compatibility issue is active vs passive twinax. 
>
> Brocade edge switches and nics are normally active only, which seems to come up a lot - because most short cables are passive unless they are brocade branded.  >5m is normally the cutoff for passive twinax.  Pretty much everything else I've encountered supports passive.

But when these twinax cables are "SFP-to-SFP" connector, you'd think
they would be more forgiving about the copper details between them, and
just conform to the SFP+ attributes at the business ends. 

Still somewhat of a mystery, as there is no proper "twinax" standard
like there is with 10G-SR, LR, LRM, ER, etc.

Jeff