
The Octal Small Form Pluggable (OSFP) implements 400Gb Ethernet - walrus01
https://osfpmsa.org/
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CaliforniaKarl
I think this needs to be suffixed (2017). The latest spec version (1.12) is
dated August 1, 2017. And there isn't any newer press release.

That being said, Mellanox did in 2018 announce a static demo of an OSFP module
([http://www.mellanox.com/blog/2018/04/first-showing-
mellanox-...](http://www.mellanox.com/blog/2018/04/first-showing-
mellanox-400g-sr8-osfp-transceiver/)), but I don't see any products listed.
Nor do I see anything from Cisco.

So, my guess is that QSFP-DD has won. Either that, or (if OSFP does have
better heat dissipation) OSFP will only be used in long-haul applications.

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walrus01
It's far too early to say either has won, considering 400Gbps will be used
heavily for coherent (QPSK, 8PSK and 16QAM) inter city long haul things, the
extra heat dissipation may be necessary for longhaul DWDM applications.

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austincheney
Super bad name. One of the most popular routing protocols is OSPF.

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userbinator
Seeing "octal" and "pluggable" together evokes images of tube sockets; before
I clicked the link, I was expecting connectors more similar to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_socket#Octal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_socket#Octal)
being used for Ethernet.

The actual "meat" of the site for the more technically inclined is here:
[https://osfpmsa.org/specification.html](https://osfpmsa.org/specification.html)

...where you find that "octal" does not mean it has 8 pins, but instead 8
separate differential pairs for data.

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tatersolid
Should have used 8SFP to avoid confusion with OSPF (which also is a terrible
name in its own way)

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wmf
It's kind of annoying that there are OSFP and QSFP-DD for 400G. And Arista is
supporting both which doesn't reduce the confusion any.

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walrus01
From my point of view, it looks like OSFP is a bit more "conservative" design,
its larger body size means they can fit more heat dissipation and a larger
heatsink attached to the receptacle. From optics vendors and manufacturers who
were concerned about being able to fit the same functionality and reliability
into the same mechanical dimensions of a QSFP28 (QSFP-DD). But still small
enough that 36 can fit in a 1RU front panel.

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ajross
We're basically out of acronyms. I clicked on this thinking looking for
details on high bandwidth router configuration protocols.

~~~
walrus01
Yes, I can see where this is definitely going to confuse a lot of people at
different parts of the OSI model (OSFP at layer 1, OSPF at layer 3).

