What is an SFP and How is it Used?

by www.fiber-mart.com

We have two switches who desperately want to talk to each other but the walls of their switch cabinets are restricting conversation and they are located 7 feet away from each other. Luckily there is a transceiver that can help us out: the small form-factor pluggable.

 

The small form-factor pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable transceiver used for data communication applications.  These small metal devices plug into a special switch slot and support communication over either fiber optic or copper networking cable.

 

Types

 

To select the right transceiver, you will need to base it on the type of cable you are using, copper or fiber.  To communicate over fiber optic cable, make sure you select a transceiver that matches the slot bandwidth and speed of the device you are connecting to (1Gbps or 10Gbps) and your cable’s connector type (LC or SC). To communicate over copper, select a transceiver with an RJ-45 Ethernet port. Some transceivers support specialty applications such as Infiniband (sometimes used in high-speed storage networks). Make sure you understand your application requirements first, then select your transceiver accordingly.

 

Optical Transceiver options

 

GBIC- Originally named Gigabit Interconnect. Typically used for the Cisco 2900 & 3900 series switches, 10/100 megabit.

SFP- Originally named Small form factor pluggable. Commonly used for the Cisco Catalyst 3560 & 3760 series switches amongst others. These SFPs will support Gigabit uplink connection

SFP+- Higher throughput with an enhanced version that will give you 10G uplink capability.  Commonly used for 3560x & 3750x series switches amongst others.

 

Benefits & Why You May Need One

 

These SFP transceivers are hot-swappable and have the capability to allow modifications which can be added after the initial purchase. These transceivers can also be deployed in “mix-use” environment of single-mode/multi-mode SFPs and a variety of hardware providing a flexible and customizable solution. If you are looking to have your switches communicate at a faster rate, installing an SFP may be useful. If you are looking for a little more speed in your transfer rates, you will need to have a switch or expansion module that supports 10GbE to use a 10GbE SFP+ transceiver, but not all switches/modules support that.

 

From the looks of it, these SFP’s fits the bill for all of our switches and/or routers to communicate with each other. If you are in the market to buy any type of SFP, check out CablesAndKits as we offer a variety of options from Cisco Original, and compatible options.

 

Three Types of 1000BASE SFP Overview

by Fiber-MART.COM

A Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot swappable, input/output device that is used to for both telecommunication and data communications applications. SFP is responsible for converting between the electrical and optical signals, while allowing both receive and transmit operations to take place. SFP transceivers can be leveraged in a variety of high-speed Ethernet and Fibre Channel deployments. SFP is also sometimes referred to as mini Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) because its small form factor and both provide similar functionality.

 

This article mainly introduces three basic types of 1000BASE SFP transceivers: 1000BASE-T SFP, 1000BASE-SX SFP, and 1000BASE-LX/LH SFP.

 

1000BASE-T SFP

 

This SFP transceiver for copper networks operates on standard Category 5 unshielded twisted-pair copper cabling for links of up to 100 meters (~330 feet) in length. These modules support 10 Megabit, 100 Megabit, and 1000 Megabit (1 Gigabit) auto-negotiation and auto-MDI/MDIX. MDI is Medium Dependent Interface. MDI-X is Medium Dependent Interface Crossover.

 

1000BASE-SX SFP

 

This SFP transceiver is used only for multimode fiber networks. It is compatible with the IEEE 802.3z 1000BASE-SX standard, and it operates over either 50 microns multimode fiber links for a distance of up to 550 meters (~1800 feet) or over 62.5 microns Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)-grade multimode fiber for a distance up to 220 meters (~720 feet). It can also support distances of up to 1 kilometer (~0.62 miles) over laser-optimized 50 microns multimode fiber cables.

 

1000BASE-LX/LH SFP

 

This SFP transceiver operates over standard single-mode fiber-optic link spanning distances of up to 10 kilometers (~6.2 miles) and up to 550 meters (~1800 feet) over any multimode fiber. It is compatible with the IEEE 802.3z 1000BASE-LX standard. 1000BASE-LX/LH SFP transceivers transmitting in the 1300 manometers wavelength over multimode FDDI-grade OM1/OM2 fiber require mode conditioning patch cables.

 

In different situations, you may need to choose the different SFP. If a network engineer needs to use an existing switch in a new role in a campus network, the engineer could simply buy a new 1000BASE-LX SFP to replace the old 1000BASE-T SFP and reduce the extra cost of buying a new switch. For example, when using a switch so that it connects only to other switches in the same building, the switch could use 1000BASE-T SFP and copper cabling. Later, if the company moved to another location, the switch could be repurposed by using a different GBIC that supported fiber-optic cabling, and different connectors, using 1000BASE-LX to support a longer cabling distance.

 

In order to make your network achieve peak performance, choosing different SFP is necessary. The transmission distance and compatibility need to be considered. fiber-mart, a leading and professional fiber optic SFP transceiver module provider, has a large inventory of 1000BASE-SX SFP, 1000BASE-T SFP and 1000BASE-LX/LH SFP. It is always your primary option.