Over the years, Ethernet technologies have evolved rapidly and amazingly to meet the never-ceasing requirements of higher bandwidth and faster data transmission speeds for high quality network applications, such as live video and video download with high resolution. Through this great evolution, Ethernet technology standards have been designed, like 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE).
After IEEE Standard 802.3ae- 2002 for 10GbE was ratified several years ago, some enterprises have begun to deploy 10GbE in their data centers to support bandwidth-needing applications. Before deploying 10GbE, as matter of fact, there are many things that should attract your attention. Here this article lists two important things you need to consider for a reliable 10GbE deployment: 10GbE cabling choices, and 10GbE transceiver types.
10GbE Cabling Choices
Along with the technological revolution, cables used for transmission also experienced progressive development. There are two physical media available for 10GbE transmission: fiber and copper.
10GbE Fiber Cabling Choices
Fiber cables fall on two classifications: single-mode fiber (SMF) and multi-mode fiber (MMF). In SMF, there is only one path for light, while in MMF light flow through multiple paths. SMF is intended for long distance communication and MMF is used for distances of less than 300 m. Commonly used 10GbE ports designed for SMF are 10GBASE-LR, 10GBASE-ER and 10GBASE-ZR, and the ports specified for MMF are 10GBASE-SR and 10GBASE-LRM. It’s of great importance to choose these ports 10GbE transmission when link lengths matter. For example, you can choose a J9150A transceiver when the required distance is less than 300m. In a word, the form factor options depend on your link lengths.
10GbE Copper Cabling Choices
As the structured cabling techniques become mature, copper cabling technology also grasps the chance to develop itself. And more and more people start to choose copper cables as the medium for 10GbE transmission. 10GBASE-T and SFP+ direct attach cables (DAC) standards symbolize copper applications.
10GBASE-T, or IEEE 802.3an-2006, is a standard released in 2006 to provide 10Gbit/s connections over unshielded or shielded twisted pair cables, over distances up to 100 metres (330 ft). It requires the Cat 7 or Cat 6A to reach 100 meters, but can still work on Cat 6, Cat 5E, or even Cat 5 cable when reduced distances are required.
SFP+ DAC is the latest standard for optical transceivers, and it connects directly into an SFP+ housing. In SFP+ DAC cabling assembly, no optical transceiver is used at each end. A cable was invented with each end physically resembling a SFP+ transceiver, but with none of the expensive electronic components. This creation is known as DAC. Actually, besides 10GbE applications, DAC is also considered as a cost-effective solution to replace fiber patch cables sometimes in 40GbE systems. Like QSFP-H40G-ACU10M, this Cisco 40G cabling product is the QSFP to QSFP direct attach passive copper cable assembly designed for 40G links.