Re: CWDM equipment (current favorites) (fwd)

[alex () pilosoft com]

On Mon, 30 Oct 2006, Deepak Jain wrote:

> A few years ago, NANOG had a discussion regarding various CWDM vendors.  
> Repeatedly MRV was brought up as a good option for metro-area LAN type
> applications.
There's been some discussions more recently, such as (coauthored by yours 
truly):
http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0606/pdf/lightning-talks/4-pilosov.pdf
http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0610/presenter-pdfs/pilosov.pdf

> Since then, I have actually touched some of the MRV product line
> personally and found it (and their customer support)... less than ideal.  
> (not comparing to anyone else, and no one is really ideal).
>
> The bigger problem was that the devices seem to be less than intuitive,
> but rock solid once they are working. (which is what everyone praised
> them for).
Passive CWDM gear is pretty much all created equal as far as intuitiveness
in how to connect it (assuming gear is non-broken). You have muxes, you
have SFPs/GBICs, and you plug GBIC output into the mux input. :)

As far as the SFP/GBIC quality, I think MRV is very good. At one point, 
(maybe even still) Cisco OEM'd MRV gbics under their brand (and with 
attendant 1000% markup). You can also look at cubo and infineon optics, 
good quality at reasonable price.

Be wary about chiwanese vendors - quality is questionable: high DOA rate,
output light level and input sensitivity vary from one module to another. 

Pricewise, you might find that cubo isn't *that* much more expensive than
chiwanese gear. Also, there's market (like, again, from yours truly) of
the new-in-box MRV gear, which may also be an option.

> We need to place a new order for some new fiber builds and were
> considering some other vendors. Especially in the nx2.5G and nx10G (are
> CWDM x-cievers even available in 10G yet?) range. Anyone have any new
> favorites?
2.5G are only slightly more expensive than 1G - if you have OC48 gear that
is SFP-capable, by all means, use that.

10G CWDM is *rumoured* to exist, but I don't think there are any
production ones yet. Feel free to correct me. 10G is all DWDM, and so far 
very pricy.