[j-nsp] XFP and XENPAK

[Ruslan A. Magomedov]

Hello,

Did somebody try to have LW XENPAK working in 10Gig Ethernet PIC. I am asking
this question generally because LW is not mentioned in the PIC specification

http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/hardware/m-series/m320/m320-pic/10-gigabit-ethernet-pic-with-xenpak-m320-router.html#ten-ge-xenpak

Thank you in advance

Best regards,
Ruslan

Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 13, 2007 at 02:59:34AM -0700, Benny Sumitro wrote:
>> Hi List,
>>
>> Is there any differences between 10GE interface using XFP and XENPAK in 
>> Juniper?
> 
> Besides the obvious differences of size/form factor and fiber connectors, 
> XENPAK and XFP are very different technologies on the backend.
> 
> The biggest difference for the end user is that on XENPAK the framer is 
> located on the optic itself, which essentially makes that optic "hard 
> coded" for a particular media and framing. XFP implements the framer on 
> the host board, making the optic itself media agnostic (not to mention 
> cheaper to produce). You can take the same XFP and use it for 10GE LAN 
> PHY, 10GE WAN PHY, OC192, even 10G fibre channel. Generally speaking this 
> means that any vendor producing anything less than an extremely low-end 
> device can easily implement LAN/WAN PHY framing on the board, and control 
> it via a simple software switch. I can only speak to the 10G XFP cards on 
> the MX960 specifically, but they implement LAN/WAN PHY support about as 
> well as you could possibly hope for (with full SONET alarms when in WAN 
> PHY mode). With XENPAK, you have to change out the entire optic, and you 
> usually end up paying a huge premium for "LW" optics (and good luck even 
> trying to FIND EW).