Best Fiber Cable

[Chris Pohlad-Thomas]

I wanted to check to see what is the recommended fiber cabling to use in our situation. We currently have on each end of a link the following:

• SFP-10GBase-LRM
• C3KX-NM-10G

We obviously want to run 10GB across this link. The cables we are looking at are:

• 62.5 micron multi-mode duplex OM2
• 50 micron multi-mode duplex OM2

We are presently using the 50 micron cable, but can't get the connection to come up.        

[Tom Randstrom]

A couple of answers to the following questions will help provide an answer.

What is the link length of the present OM3 fiber?

Has this fiber path been tested so you know the attenuation (light loss) you should expect? 

Are there any intermediate patch/splice locations along the fiber path? If so, what type of connector/splice is being used. 

Look forward to the answers.

Thanx!

Tom

[Chris Pohlad-Thomas]

It's actually OM2 (pretty sure) and it's 15 meters aqua. It has not been tested as it is such a short link, but the cable was purchased brand-new. We run it under our raised floor from the network rack to the server rack.

[Tom Randstrom]

If it is OM2, then you will need mode conditioning patch cords so that it will work (see info on provided link for part numbers.

The benefit to using OM3 or OM4 fiber is you can use a standard SFP-10G-SR optical transceiver and reach 300M (OM3) and 400M (OM4). 

[Marvin Rhoads]

Chris you should just buy a 15m OM3 jumper and that should work fine for you. You can get one for about USD 20 from any number of suppliers.

You should be able to check the light levels you're receiving on the non-working connection by using the Digital Optical Monitoring (DOM) feature of that transceiver - "show interface ___ transceiver detail"