
Transceivers: The Device Between the NIC and the Network - lelf
http://dtrace.org/blogs/rm/2019/09/12/transceivers-the-device-between-the-nic-and-the-network/
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KaiserPro
THis brings back the horror of trying rationalise SFPs during an office move.

A bunch of new kit, some new fibre, and my boss forgetting the difference
between LC and SC connectors.

Add to that, our supplier trying to palm off knockoff SFPs (SFPs are normally
hardware locked to a specific vendor, despite them being made at the same OEM.
This allows them to add a markup of >$300)

In the end I found an OEM SFP that worked with all our kit, and all our fibre
and replaced them all with that. Anything shorter than 2 meters was swapped
for a twinax (A coax cable with inbuilt SFPs) because they are more tolerant
to being poked through things.

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scohesc
I seem to remember when I was at a small ISP helping plan fiber optic
networks, that fiberstore.com had a promotion going on where if you bought
enough of their gear and made good reviews, they'd send you a free SFP
reprogrammer which would somehow allow you to change vendor-locks on existing
SFPs to let you take say a Cisco branded SFP and use it in an HP Aruba switch.

It seems silly to me how there's all these standards for the transceivers, but
vendors still lock people in with hardware codes, etc.

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CameronNemo
Cisco recently purchased a fairly large fiber optics firm, so these days could
be limited if they opt to implement greater integration between their devices
and the optics.

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azazel75
"Before Ethernet was common, BNC coaxial cables were used on some NICs as
well"

Yes, at that time Ethernet was coaxial as well, the 10Base2

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ngvrnd
For fun, look up "vampire taps"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_tap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_tap)

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jdofaz
This brought back memories of the easy to accidentally detach transceivers for
old Macintosh computers and LaserWriter printers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Attachment_Unit_Interfac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Attachment_Unit_Interface)

