Hello.
I'm looking to try out the optical networking(I foresee a need to connect two buildings several hundred meters apart with fiber).
I've never touched SFPs at all.
Some questions before I spend my dogecoins on network gear.
1. Do I get this right that FC SFPs (2,4,8,16 etc) are INCOMPATIBLE with ethernet-type adaptors/switches? Because I see them in large quantities on ebay for much, much lower prices than *GBase-LX SFPs. I just wanted to buy some transcievers(1 gig) for experimenting and some used switches and adapters just to play around with but it's not gonna work as ethernet?
2. Suppose I have QSFP-something faster mellanox or something with speeds of 40-50GB/s ethernet. Can I connect this faster adapter with a fiber into a much slower, 10GB/s or even 1GB/s transciever on the other end(assuming both sides are mode-compatible and lw length compatible)? For instance, mellanox docs specifically state speeds of 50,40,25,10,1. Do I understand it right that it will auto-negotiate with the other side? Basically, QSFP-something connected to SFP/SFP+ with a fiber. Will that work? In general?
A little bit off-topic, is FC SAN alive at all? I know it's alive like 5.25 HDDs, but does anyone here see NEW installations of it in production environments? Can't you get a much better performance with just about any other tech nowadays?
I'm looking to try out the optical networking(I foresee a need to connect two buildings several hundred meters apart with fiber).
I've never touched SFPs at all.
Some questions before I spend my dogecoins on network gear.
1. Do I get this right that FC SFPs (2,4,8,16 etc) are INCOMPATIBLE with ethernet-type adaptors/switches? Because I see them in large quantities on ebay for much, much lower prices than *GBase-LX SFPs. I just wanted to buy some transcievers(1 gig) for experimenting and some used switches and adapters just to play around with but it's not gonna work as ethernet?
2. Suppose I have QSFP-something faster mellanox or something with speeds of 40-50GB/s ethernet. Can I connect this faster adapter with a fiber into a much slower, 10GB/s or even 1GB/s transciever on the other end(assuming both sides are mode-compatible and lw length compatible)? For instance, mellanox docs specifically state speeds of 50,40,25,10,1. Do I understand it right that it will auto-negotiate with the other side? Basically, QSFP-something connected to SFP/SFP+ with a fiber. Will that work? In general?
A little bit off-topic, is FC SAN alive at all? I know it's alive like 5.25 HDDs, but does anyone here see NEW installations of it in production environments? Can't you get a much better performance with just about any other tech nowadays?