The Impact of Different Fiber Optic Cable Types on Data Centers

SFP affects the speed and compatibility of fiber optic cables

Many applications in today's data centers require 10Gb of bandwidth for data path interfaces. When the data center is migrating from copper media with 10Gb bandwidth to fiber media, most network administrators have encountered the problem of too low fiber transmission speed. To connect more than 330 feet of cable-this is the maximum length that copper wire can support, many people use fiber optic cables with SX--type transceivers or light guides. SX-type optical cables made by our fiber optic products supplier are common in small pluggable formats and can be laid for distances of nearly 700 feet.

The small pluggable format has become a standard configuration for 1Gigabit Ethernet connections. However, one such module can only provide up to 1.25Gb of bandwidth. To break through this limitation, SFP+ modules with the same format but supporting 10Gb Ethernet are required. In many cases, if there is a switch compatible with SFP+ modules that support low-speed SFP modules, it will cause (in the network segment) many 10Gb capacity switches to be backwards compatible with 1Gb SFP modules.

There are many types of fiber optic cable provided by TUOLIMA, such as outdoor optical cable, air blown fiber cable, drop core fiber optic.

Choose the appropriate type of fiber optic cable

Today, most switch platforms are based on SFP+, that is, switches can usually support various types of SFP and SFP+ optical cables. At 10Gb speeds, SR fiber can usually be shared by 10 applications and can support standard multimode fiber with a range of more than 1,000 feet, making it an ideal choice for 10Gb applications in data centers.

Today, when the form factor of SFP is common, the switches and optical fiber type modules are independent of each other. As long as the fiber optic cable types match, the factor of the module form is not important. And that makes it possible to connect different forms of 10Gb platform modules with different types of platforms.

When connecting different modules, make sure to have the appropriate type of fiber optic cable. Because different form factors will require different fiber optic connectors. Older modules rely on SC-type connectors, while brand new modules, such as SFP and SFP+, rely on LC-type connectors.