40GBASE-SR-BD, Cisco propr. future IEEE standard

[Walter Dey]

During this weeks Insieme ACI announcement, they also introduced a new transceiver: 40GBASE-SR-BD, running 40 g over one MMF pair of fibre (100m distance). 

see eg.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps13386/white-paper-c11-729908.html

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps13386/white-paper-c11-729493.html

I assume that for the moment, this is a Cisco proprietary solution. Is there any initiative, to standardize this within IEEE ?

Walter.

[Lucien Avramov]

Yes, this offering is Cisco exclusivity and support is planned for all the Cisco QSFP 40GE capable devices. The benefit is to provide native 40GE over the standard MMF medias.

Cisco is in an ongoing effort with the standardization organizations, and standards are a longer term process, in which having industry adoption helps the efforts.

I recommend you to not wait and take benefit of this technology.

[Robert Burns]

Walter - Ensure you know that BiDi optics are not Cisco propetary HW - however Cisco does have a lease agreement with the manufacturer over the next couple years to be the sole provider of these optics. 

Robert

[Leo Laohoo]

Nice find, Walter.

The biggest challenge now is platform.  What platform will support BiDi and how fast will it take for the IOS to integrate this feature.

I am suspecting Nexus 9K, 7K and 6K will take advantage of this.  I wonder if Cat 6500 will wind up supporting QSFP or not.

[Marvin Rhoads]

Hi Leo,

I'd expect it sooner on the 6800 series as they are designed for that port speed much more so than the 6500.

On the 6500, even the high end 6904 line card only gives you 4 ports (2:1 oversubscription) of 40 Gbps interfaces on a slot. For most implementations those line cards don't make a lot of economic sense.

[Leo Laohoo]

thanks Marvin.

[Peter Koltl]

So is it not proprietary as the unnamed manufacturer provides the chip to multiple vendors? 40GBASE BiDi transceivers are quite common at other vendors.

[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello Peter,

you are adding a comment in a thread of year 2013.

It is good news that this type of optics is now available for multiple vendors, it means this type of optics has been successful.

see the following link, the economic advantages of this optics in saving cabling expenses is evident

http://www.fiberopticshare.com/40gbase-sr4-vs-40gbase-sr-bidi-one-provides-higher-return-investment-roi.html

Hope to help

Giuseppe