[Techtalk] Re: Somewhat OT: Fiberoptic networking HOWTO?

Raven Alder raven at oneeyedcrow.net
Wed Mar 24 11:04:28 EST 2004


Heya --

	I am soooo behind on mail.  You may have solved some of these
issues by now.

Quoth Charlotte Oliver (Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 05:17:11PM -0500):
> I am in the position at work of getting to design a network for a new
> building that my office will be moving into.  We will have several IDF
> closets that will be connected to one another via fiberoptics.

	What a cool job!  Do you know about the physical peculiarities
of handling fiber?  (In short, you are not going to have to worry as
much about electromagnetical interference, but be very careful when
cornering as it is easy to snap the glass fiber in the cable, and
splicing is trickier than with cat-5 by a lot.  You generally have to
buy a Really Expensive Kit and get trained.)
 
> I've been looking for a good HOWTO that could explain some of the
> following questions:
> 
> How are SFP\GBIC\miniGBIC ports different?  Which one do I need?
> SFP seems to require a transciever for fiber-optics.  Why?  Is it
> converting a signal?  Is it true that it can use Cat5?
> Which fiber is rated to which distance?  How fast does it really
> transmit at?
> What's multimode about?
> What type of cable do I need where?
> 
> I think I know the answers to these, but would love a guide explaining
> it all -- does anyone have any recommendations?  Books are good too,
> since they'd be on the company!

	Price out different switches with different vendors.  The sort
of fiber ports you want is going to depend greatly on your budget and
desired capacity.  Make sure you get a service contract that includes
hardware replacement in case of failure.  Do NOT get the transmit and
receive leads confused... firing a laser into a laser is Bad.  (Some
equipment is designed to fail safe, others will zorch and die if you do
this.)

	Check out http://www.lightreading.com/ for all sorts of
networking goodness (they have router bakeoff performance testing, too).

	Regarding multimode vs. single mode:
http://luxlink.com/faq/multi_or_single.htm

	If your company is picking up the tab, consider "Understanding
Fiber Optics"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0139561455/103-1565696-1318231?v=glance

and the "Fiber Optic Installer's Field Manual"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071356045/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/103-1565696-1318231?v=glance&s=books&st=*

	As per switches, I've had good luck with Alteons and with
Extremes.  I honestly have not noticed a great performance difference
with different sorts... manageability and interface friendliness, VLANs,
features, et cetera are probably bigger considerations.  I'd need to
know a *lot* more about your network and its design to make more
specific recommendations than that, though.

Cheers,
Raven
 
"See what happens when you treat women like pieces of meat?
 Kapow, your network's broken, and you're fired!"
  -- RavenBlack, on using gender as a weapon during pen-testing


More information about the Techtalk mailing list