Hi-Rise Building Fiber Suggestions

Wed Feb 26 16:56:42 UTC 2020

On 2/26/20 11:43 AM, Filip Hruska wrote:
> Some NICs don't support SM optics, so even if you would like to run SM 
> everywhere, it's not necessarily possible depending on the equipment.
> For example, I had issues with some SolarFlare cards which happily take 
> 10G-SR MM but won't take 10G-LR SM.

Is this because they're dumb, or is there some serious reason?  AFAIK, 
the electrical side of the SFP+ is the same for all 10G-R PHYs.

My philosophy has generally been that all fixed infrastructure installed 
in this era might as well be single-mode.  If I'm just dropping a patch 
cord in a raceway or similar, I'll use multi-mode in many cases.  On the 
fixed side, I have enough trouble convincing folks that APC and UPC 
plugs are different let alone trying to explain why you can plug SM 
optics into MMF and it will (generally) work while the other way around 
does not beyond a few meters and, since SMF can't be gotten rid of 
entirely in fixed infrastructure, I'll take the normalization where I 
can get it.
-- 
Brandon Martin