Checkpoint 3: Optical Fiber Standards for Fiber Infrastructure Deployment

To reinforce the expanding cloud ecosystem, optical active component vendors have designed and commercialized new transceiver types under multi-source agreements (MSAs) for dissimilar data center types; standards bodies are incorporating these new variants into new standards development.

For example, IEEE 802.3 taskforces are working on 50 Gbps- and 100 Gbps-per-lane technologies for next-generation Ethernet speeds from 50 Gbps to 400 Gbps. Moving from 10 Gbps to 25 Gbps, and then to 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps per lane, creates new challenges in semiconductor integrated circuit design and manufacturing processes, as well as in high-speed data transmission.

Getting ready for new fiber infrastructure deployment to accommodate these upcoming changes, there are four essential checkpoints that we think you should keep in mind:

1. Determine the active equipment I/O interface based on application types
2. Choose optical link media based on reach and speed
3. Verify optical fiber standards developed by standards bodies
4. Validate optical link budget based on link distance and number of connection points

The first blog published on March 23, 2017 – we are discussing these checkpoints, describing current technology trends and explaining the latest industry standards for data center applications. This blog covers checkpoint No. 3: verifying optical fiber standards developed by standards bodies.

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