Things to Know About 100 Gigabit Ethernet
Today’s Data Center
To better understand the impact of the transition from active equipment ports to MPO technology on data center design, it is necessary to understand how data centers are designed today. Figure 2 shows a typical data center infrastructure designed in accordance with the TIA 942 standard using a pre-connected approach.
It is important to mention that the active equipment port
s in many data centers are designed to use twin-core LC modules or MPO-twin-core LC breakout jumper connections, while 12-core MPO modules are used to implement trunk cables to each LC module or Interconnection of breakout jumpers. We will focus on the application of this approach in deploying 40G/100G systems.
100G Standard Terms
The HSSG formulated the 40G standard to meet the high-increasing bandwidth demand caused by server computing, and the 100G standard was formulated to support the switching, routing, and aggregation of the core network. In 100G network, CXP becomes the active device OM3/OM4 multimode fiber transceiver interface, and CFP becomes the single-mode fiber transceiver interface. The 100G multimode optical fiber transmission system will use MPO technology in 24-core optical fiber with “10 transmissions and 10 receptions”. Each of these 10 channels is used to transmit 10G rate, and the parallel behavior is 100G. The transmission of single-mode fiber will be realized by WDM technology with a two-core connector.
The 100G network transmission media defined by the HSSG include:
(1) 100GBase-SR: 10-100m OM3; 125m OM4-10Gx10 core.
(2) 100GBase-LR4: Dense wavelength division multiplexing -10km single-mode -4x25G works at 1300nm wavelength.
(3) 100GBase-ER4: Dense wavelength division multiplexing – 40km single mode – 4x25G works at 1300nm wavelength.
(4) 100GBase-CR10: 7m/ copper cable -10x10G.
100G Evolution Road
Even though 100G systems will generally use 24-fiber MPO fiber connector ports, 12-fiber MPO modules will coexist for a long time on the road to 100G evolution. After removing the MPO module and replacing it with an MPO adapter panel, the system will require a “hybrid” patch cord to complete the link, with 2 12-pin MPO connectors on one end for connecting the trunk cable and the other end with 1 x 24-pin MPO connector for connection to active device ports. As mentioned earlier, 24-cell MPOs are not widely used.
However, it can be expected that more and more users will be willing to deploy 24-fiber MPO in their network as the technology gradually becomes a mature standard, and infrastructure providers are also expected to provide a total solution based on 24-fiber MPO technology.
We believe that when 24-fiber MPO is deployed in trunk wiring on a large scale, 24-fiber MPO patch cords will be used for trunk wiring and active equipment connections, just like cross-connects in the main distribution area. At this time, the active equipment’s connection The 24-fiber MPO interface will then be defined.
100G Polarity Management
The polarity management in the 100G network is slightly more complicated than that in the 40G network, because at this time the number of optical transceiver channels has increased from 4 in the original 40G to 10 in the 100G. In addition, on the ferrule end face of the 24-core MPO fiber optic connector, the ports for “receiving” and “transmitting” optical signals are in different “columns”.
