40/100GbE Is Alive And Well

Almost one year has passed and I can still feel the excitement surrounding the first 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) plug-festsponsored by the Ethernet Alliance. This excitement is because of the contrast from the initial perception to the results of the event.

Back in 2010, a number of leading vendors got together for first time to see if this new 40/100GbE would work in a multi-vendor environment. The decision was made to keep it a closed-door event as no one was certain how much “interoperability” would actually occur. It turned out that plug-fest was a great success. Since then, confidence continues to grow, and a series of public multi-vendor demonstrations around 40/100GbE have been carried out as a result of arrangements by the Ethernet Alliance. CommScope has been very active in these events. From the closed-door plug-fest to the public demonstrations, the industry is delivering a message to end users that 40/100GbE is very much alive and well.

This 40/100GbE technology has a significant impact on cabling infrastructure.

That’s why Cabling Installation and Maintenance invited CommScope to discuss this topic at recent webinars. Using multimode fiber as an example, 40/100GbE shifts the fiber cabling from serial to parallel. Today, you see LC connectors at the end of a fiber channel. Tomorrow, you will see MPO connectors from end to end. From LC to MPO, this is the shift from serial to parallel. Another impact from 40/100GbE is the fiber density increase—40 GbE uses eight fibers in a channel and 100 GbE uses 24 (four are left dark).

With high-speed applications running over high-density fiber cabling, my first thought is that you probably want to use pre-terminated cabling, such as SYSTIMAX® InstaPATCH® 360. Using pre-terminated cabling will not only save you time during deployment, more importantly it will provide you with the consistency of factory-grade installation quality.

Today's 1 or 10GbE Network

My second thought is that the migration from serial to parallel fiber cabling needs to be deliberately considered. Figure 1 illustrates today’s 1/10GbE network. The standard B polarity scheme (a.k.a. Key-up Key-up mechanism) allows end users to migrate to 40/100GbE by reusing the MPO to MPO trunks (see Figure 2 and 3).

Tomorrow's 40GbE Network

Tomorrow's 100GbE Network

In my opinion, this method provides you peace of mind—your infrastructure is ready for 40/100GbE, whenever and wherever you need it.