MACsec SFP

Tue Jun 24 08:55:31 UTC 2014

On 24-6-2014 10:21, Saku Ytti wrote:
> For this solution to be marketable, it needs to be extremely cheap, as 
> you're essentially competing against cheapest consumer grade switches 
> to subrate a port. These ports would not be revenue generating, but 
> almost invariably MGMT ports to legacy equipment, issues like QoS are 
> not relevant, price point is. From switch POV, packets would be lost 
> on-link when rate exceeds, and TCP would then decrease rate. So SFP 
> would need to implement rudimentary buffering and packet dropping. And 
> as always, it's best if there is some way for these to work without 
> any configuration, as the moment you need to configure 1 thing, you 
> need to develop provisioning system and potentially also configuration 
> backups, which may in some organizations make solution prohibitively 
> expensive compared to using small switch from existing vendor, which 
> is already supported by systems

So basically a 1G connection to the switch, buffering with frame drop, 
and a tri-rate RJ45 connector? Sounds like something that could easily 
be built into our Chronos platform 
(http://www.aimvalley.com/portfolio_item/chronos-smart-sfp-tstransparent-synce-sfp/). 
We'd just have to remove the SyncE, and add the 10/100 Mb support.

Probably the most complex part is to build a business case for it to 
pitch to our management. Would anyone be willing to email me a price 
indication, and perhaps an indication of how many of these products 
would be needed? No obligations of course; just to get an idea of 
whether a business case can be built?

Kind regards,

Pieter Hulshoff