can I use a 10G copper gbic for the 10G Fibre uplink on Cisco 9300L?

[nickyyi]

Good day,

I have a Cisco 9300L-24T-4X switch. It has 4 x10G uplinks. I wanted to link it to a host with a 10G baseT gbic transceiver. I purchased a Cisco SFP10G-T-X transceiver. But the switch gives an error of "The inserted SFP module with interface name ... is not supported". I checked Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix website and found cisco SFP10G-T-X does not support Cisco9300L switch at all. (Actually according to the matrix website, Cisco9300L does NOT support any 10G Copper transceiver. It only supports optical transceivers.) But the the most strange thing is that when I use a 3rd party gbic transceiver (same SFP10G-T-X model), I was able to connect it to a host 10G baseT port fine through a cat 6A cable. ( I just need to add two commands to enable 3rd transceiver support on the cisco 9300l switch). 

This doesn't make sense to me. Of course, I would prefer to use the Cisco SFP10G-T-X transceiver we purchased if it's possible but I don't understand why according to Optics Compatibility Matrix (cisco.com) Cisc9300L does NOT support any 10G copper transceiver at all, while a 3rd party transceiver seems to be fine.

Did anyone encounter this issue?

Any suggestion or help on this is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Nick

[marce1000]

  >...I don't understand why according to Optics Compatibility Matrix (cisco.com) Cisc9300L does NOT support any 10G copper transceiver at all, while a 3rd party transceiver seems to be fine.
   - Well it's not mentioned in the datasheet for the C9300 series neither ; so officially it is a product limitation  , often 3party solutions can work , I guess 'without warranty' !

 M.

[Leo Laohoo]

That will depend on several factors: 

• Brand of the 3rd party optics
• Remaining power allowance of the switch.

[nickyyi]

Hi Marce1000 and Leo,

Thank you very much for helping on this. I still find it's odd that C9300L does not support any 10G copper transceiver officially at all, while 3rd party's seems to be fine. Well, I guess that's just the way it is from Cisco then.

Thank you again!

[Leo Laohoo]

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@nickyyi wrote:
I still find it's odd that C9300L does not support any 10G copper transceiver officially at all, while 3rd party's seems to be fine.

---

When the first 9300 came out, SFP-10G-TX was not supported.  Even though big customers were provided "in the roadmap"  responses by their Cisco accounts team, the firmware was not rolled out until 12 months later.  By that time, several customers went to FS[.]com and got their optics which works the first time without any issues.  

The aside from the "long lead times" from Cisco devs and the cost of Cisco-branded optics, people were more inclined to use 3rd party optics because they work the "first time" regardless the firmware version loaded on the platform.  To use Cisco-branded optics, the platform will need to reboot to load the firmware and, if there were bugs associated with the firmware used, more firmware upgrades are needed.  Hence, the growing trend to use 3rd party optics continues.

[Tom Randstrom]

It's possible that during qualification testing of the C9300L system with a 10G copper transceiver, the power draw, heat dissipation or other parameter of the transceiver resulted in non-compliance to stated system requirement. Thus it may have been excluded to allow the platform to be released to production. 3rd-party transceiver vendors only need to meet MSA specifications, without worry about the operational parameters of the complete system they are being installed within.   

[Joseph W. Doherty]

Ha, something I had not bumped into, i.e. being unable to use a Cisco optical transceiver in 3rd party unsupported mode.  (Likely most using 3rd party transceivers, rather than Cisco's, is for reduced price, not because you could only use 3rd party.)

"Why?"  Is an interesting question.

As @marce1000 points out, using 3rd party optics are w/o warranty, including if the device has some "issue" which using such an optic, we'll not try to correct such an issue until the non-approved transceiver is removed.

@Tom Randstrom provides very possible/plausible reasons why Cisco own 10g copper transceiver might not be supported.  Tom's listing of possible exclusion reasons, implies that "approved" optics are not going to cause any issues, but they do support them.

But, another reason might be, just doesn't see a need to provide a supported copper transceiver for these switches.  Your particular switch model, doesn't support a 10g copper transceiver, but other 9300 series models might, and others in the overall serial also support 10g copper using a RJ45 ports.

In other words, Cisco might not see the market's need for 10g copper transceivers big enough, on some models of the 9300 series, especially the 9300Ls, worth their time supporting even their own 10g copper transceivers.

The above, though, is conjecture, and it's not unknown with a later IOS release, hardware previously unsupported, becomes supported, or they release a V2 version, which is supported.

[nickyyi]

Hi Marce1000, Leo, Tom, Joseph and everyone here.

Thanks again for helping on this. Well, from what your gentlemen said, it is what is. (Cisco does not come with their own  10G copper transceiver for this 9300L model, either not seeing the need for it or for some other reasons. But 3rd party's seems working fine under the condition of "at one's own risk".  And some other models of the 9300 series do support their own 10g copper transceivers. Well, I will just have to accept this and go with the 3rd party's transceiver then.

Thank you all again for your time and answering my question on this.