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I remember attending Cisco Live back in 2017. The theme for the week was disruption; there were large stands and a big emphasis on software. Meanwhile in a small corner of World of Solutions there was a single guy with 100G optics, and no-one was paying any attention. It struck me how we get excited about all the latest marchitecture and pay very little attention to the science behind the chips and optics.
This was fine when we were scrambling around an old cardboard box of SFPs to find the 10G-SR that you need to bring up a new link. But in some environments today, we’re pushing light through 800G and 1.6T optics which are expensive and business critical. A conversation with some friends at ATOP Corporation recently opened my eyes to the importance of sourcing reliable, high-performance optics with traceability through the whole manufacturing process.
The old myth is that all optics are the same, manufactured in the same factories, and just the label is different. While this may be true in some cases, it is certainly not true in all. There are several layers to the industry including the original manufacturers, re-labellers, and third-party compatible suppliers. The re-labellers and third-party compatible vendors make use of the Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) on the optic.
EEPROM as the name suggests, allows re-labellers and third-party compatible vendors to re-code the optic to specify themselves as the vendor, set their own serial number, the manufacturing date, transceiver type, wavelength, speed, and supported protocols. In some cases, the re-labeller may set the vendor to be Cisco, Juniper, or Arista, to make them compatible with their networking hardware. There is nothing technically wrong with this of course and it is very standard for the industry. However, it does present some challenges that become more critical at the high-end of 400G, 800G, and 1.6T.
Rewriting the EEPROM means that you cannot trace the original manufacturer of the optics. Furthermore, the re-labelling vendor may also change manufacturers between shipments providing the end-user with inconsistent quality. The companies relabelling the optics will include the major networking vendors and the well-known third-party compatible vendors. The major network vendors will typically have rigid standards which they enforce on their upstream manufacturers. This will also be the case with many third-party compatible vendors but not always, and the challenge is that you don’t really know where they’ve come from.
ATOP Corporation designs, builds, and validates their own optics, and works directly with the end customers. This provides traceability of the manufacturing process, accurate ESG reports, and a reliable supply of high-quality, high-volume, modern optics that are utilised in environments such as service provider, HPC, and AI infrastructure.
www.atoptechnology.com