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  As an extension of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) is a technology that multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber through the use of different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light.   A CWDM SFP (Small Form-factor Pluggable) transceiver is a hot-swappable input/output device that plugs into an SFP port or slot of a switch or router, linking the port with the fiber-optic network. It is a kind of optical-electric/electric-optical converter. With the transmitter on one end, the CWDM SFP transceiver takes in and converts the electrical signal into light, after the optical fiber transmission in the fiber cable plant, the receiver end again converts the light signal into electrical signal.   Being a kind of compact optical transceiver, CWDM SFP transceiver is widely used in optical communications for both telecommunication and data communication. It is designed for operations...

In today’s data center communications, individual streams routinely reach 10 Gbps speeds, and it is necessary to have 40GbE links to provide better performance. Such high-performance, high-density 40 Gbps network devices such as Juniper Networks switches, when equipped with LX4 optics, seamlessly enable this transition. This article introduces Juniper QSFP+ LX4 transceiver in details.   The Rise of 40 Gbps QSFP+ LX4 Technology Short-reach (SR) and extended short reach (eSR4) transceivers for 40 Gbps connectivity in a quad small form-factor pluggable transceiver (QSFP) mode use independent transmit and receive sections, each with four parallel fiber strands. For a duplex 40 Gbps connection, eight fiber strands are required, while QSFP SR4 uses Multipath Optical (MPO) 12-fiber connectors (MPO-12F). This IEEE standard technology must reach up to 400m using OM4 and provide future support for 100 Gbps speeds using the same cabling infrastructure. However, this technology requires...

People are always amazed by the fast development of optical communication. Fiber optic transceiver, a small-size but important component, can best represent the advancing of the optical communication industry. The form factor of optical transceiver has changed from GBIC for Gigabit Ethernet to SFP+ for 10GbE, QSFP+ for 40GbE and CFP or QSFP28 for 100GbE. It is not difficult to tell the differences among these transceivers. However, users may feel confused about the patch cable which is used to connect optical transceiver to the telecommunication network. This post will introduce how to choose the suitable patch cable for optical transceiver from the aspects of transmission media, transmission distance & rate, and interface.   Optical Transceiver and Patch Cable Overview Optical transceiver or optical transmitter and receiver (shown in the following picture) is a device that uses fiber optics technology to send and receive data. The transceiver has electronic components to...

  Although the 10 Gigabit Ethernet system has become the dominant deployment in telecommunication market, there are still many 1GbE infrastructures existing in today’s networks. SFP optical transceiver , as a critical component to support 1G data transmission, is also increasingly required in most Gigabit Ethernet networks. Many vendors, like Cisco, one of the most well-known and reliable company in telecommunication industry, have provided various types of SFP transceiver modules to the market. This post aims to introduce three common Cisco SFP module types for you references.   SFP Optical Transceiver Overview SFP (small form factor pluggable) transceivers are hot-plugable and compact optical transceivers which provide instant fiber or copper connectivity for SONET, Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and other communications standards. They are a cost-effective way to connect a single network device to a wide variety of fiber cable distances and types. With the existence...

The increasing demand for bandwidth and fast speed have driven the advent of 40G and 100G application on the market. As the increasing created data needs amount of cables and devices to achieve the transmission, which could be a headache for IT manager to create a high-density data center. To handle these requirements, MTP technology offers an ideal condition for setting up high-performance data networks in data centers. This post tends to introduce an indispensable device used in MTP system—MTP cassette and to indicate why should you use it in your network.   What Is MTP Cassette? MTP cassette is a modular module which is used to break out the 12-fiber MTP connectors terminated on trunk cables into simplex- or duplex-style connectors, then the simplex- and duplex-style jumpers can be used to patch into transceiver terminal equipment ports, patch panels or client ports. The MTP cassette is made of simplex or duplex port adapters across the front and one or two 12-fiber MTP c...

  Data transmission with higher density and bandwidth has become the trend under present networking environment. With 40 Gigabit Ethernet commonly deployed in most data centers, various network devices designed for 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) link are available on the market. Among them, 40G QSFP+ transceivers play an important role in driving the bandwidth to a mounting point. There are mainly two interfaces adopted by 40G QSFP+ transceivers —MTP/MPO and LC. What is the difference between these two interface types? This article will have an analysis of the 40G QSFP+ transceivers with LC interface and 40G QSFP+ transceivers with MTP/MPO interface.   40G QSFP+ Transceivers With LC Interface From the figure below, we can easily understand the working principle of 40G QSFP+ transceivers with LC interface. In the transmit side, 4 channels of 10G serial data streams at different wavelengths are passed to laser drivers. The laser drivers control directly modulated lasers (DML) w...

Currently, utilizing WDM technology to deploy the optical network has received widespread attentions, which enables higher capacity for data transmission. However, the technology is also limited by the transmission distance. When deploying a long WDM system, the signal power would still become weak due to the fiber loss. In order to address the issue, using EDFA amplifier to directly enhance the WDM signals would be a good choice for current and future optical network needs. The optical network combining WDM technology and EDFA module together can transmit multiple signals over the same fiber, at lengths up to a few hundred kilometers or even transoceanic distances. To better know how does EDFA amplifier work in the long WDM system, let’s learn the EDFA amplifier knowledge and analyze the performance of WDM system bonding with the EDFA module.   Introduction to EDFA Amplifier   EDFA amplifier, also referred to as erbium-doped fiber amplifier, is basically composed of ...

As 40G network has been widely applied in today’s data center cabling system, 40G QSFP+ transceivers gain great popularity among data center managers. And for short data transmission distance, 40G QSFP+ SR4 transceiver is preferred. This article is going to focus on 40G QSFP+ SR4 transceiver and share several cabling solutions for 40G QSFP+ SR4 with you.   Overview of 40G QSFP+ SR4 Transceiver 40G QSFP+ SR4 transceiver is a parallel fiber optic transceiver which means it uses four fibers for transmitting and four fibers for receiving at the same time. Designed with MTP/MPO interface, 40G QSFP+ SR4 transceiver is used together with multimode fiber, such as OM3 and OM4. Working on wavelength of 850 nm, 40G QSFP+ SR4 transceiver can support 40G fiber optic transmission with the link length up to 100 meters over OM3 fiber and 150 meters over OM4 fiber. For application, 40G QSFP+ SR4 transceiver can be used for 10G to 40G and 40G to 40G connections. Here is a figure of 40G QSFP+ ...

  Network technology has been developed rapidly and many data centers are utilizing 40G network to satisfy their needs for high density cabling and high speed data transmission. When it comes to 40G network cabling solutions, MPO fiber optic cable assemblies are most used by data center managers. This article is going to introduce three cabling solutions for 40G network—cabling with no conversion component, cabling with conversion module and cabling with conversion harness.   Cabling With No Conversion Component For cabling with no conversion component solution, in fact, it is a Base-12 MTP connectivity solution. The 12-fiber MTP trunk cables are deployed in the whole 40G connectivity. But in this cabling solution, four fibers are not used. Apart from this, there will be additional cost associated with the purchase of additional fibers. Though this solution does notuse 33% of the installed fiber and may require more cable raceway congestion, it does have the advantage o...

  In the process of migrating to greater bandwidth 40G and 100G network, MTP cabling system which provides high density and high performance plays an important role. Whether to use 12-fiber or 24-fiber MPO cable has been a hot topic in higher speed networking migration. In my previous blog Choosing 24-Fiber MPO/MTP Cabling for 40/100G Migration, we have indicated that MPO 24 fiber cable is more suitable for 40G and 100G network. Besides, with active equipment planning to use a single 24-fiber MPO interface for 100G and the channel currently requiring 20 fibers, many IT managers are also considering the use of 24-fiber MPO solutions. However, before choosing 24-fiber MPO cable, there are some facts that should be noticed.   The Higher the Fiber Count, the Higher the Loss Optical loss budget is a big concern among data center managers, and due to limitations in the protocol, standards now require a total connector loss budget of 1.0 dB for 40G and 100G, but a 24-fiber MPO...

  As bandwidth demand continues to grow, network service providers are looking at 100G Ethernet network to accommodate the constant traffic surge. This new technology translates into greater speeds and a possible network infrastructure upgrade to compensate for various challenges that do not apply to slower networks, such as 10G, or 40G. 100G Ethernet provides high-speed connectivity while protecting current network infrastructures that requires broad expertise and wide-range testing to qualify the state of the fiber, perform fiber characterization and assess the integrity of data transmission over long-haul and ultra-long-haul networks. In response to 100 Gigabit Ethernet, many famous telecommunication companies, like Cisco, have delivered industry-leading, standards-compliant, 100G pluggable transceiver modules, such as single-mode QSFP-100G-LR4 for the transmission distance up to 10 km and multimode QSFP-100G-SR4 for the transmission up to 100 m. How about single-mode 100G modul...

It’s common to see in modern society that many enterprise networks must support a wide range of installation environments located indoors and out. Considering this, a wide range of media converters and power supply options are important. And with the great benefits of fiber optic cables being accepted widely, PoE media converter seems to be a better choice for enterprise networks. Today this article intends to explain what PoE media converter can bring for managers and its applications.   PoE Media Converter Basis PoE media converter is a type of fiber-to-copper media converter. It enables enterprises to power their network devices over the existing copper connections. With its PoE injector, PoE media converters can power devices like IP phones, video conferencing equipment, IP cameras and Wi-Fi devices over copper UTP cabling. Besides, they are available in a variety of multi-port configurations, including dual RJ-45 and dual fiber ports, and they can support fixed fiber co...

  In comparison with the long-haul DWDM network that uses the thermo-electric coolers to stabilize the laser emissions essential, the CWDM network is a more economical solution that features wider wavelength spacing, allowing the wavelength fluctuation of uncooled directly modulated laser diodes (DMLs). But on the other hand, the CWDM network exists the limitation for the uncooled DMLs’ output power and the additional loss of CWDM Mux Demux and optical add/drop modules. These make the CWDM loss budget limited to < 30 dB and the CWDM reach within 80 km. Moreover, when the insertion loss of the dark fiber is higher than our expectation, a decreasing transmission distance may occur. Hence, here offers the Raman amplifier (see the following figure) to extend the CWDM network reach, as an ideal solution.   What’s Raman Amplifier?   Raman amplifier, also referred to as RA, is a kind of optical fiber amplifier based on Raman gain, which is used for boosting optical s...