Solutions Guide
Pluggable Optics
for the Data Center
Pluggable Optics for the Data Center
The data center ecosystem is going through unprecedented growth and innovation as new players,
new business models and new technologies converge. One of the key trends is the growing importance
and evolving landscape of fiber optic technologies enabling new architectures and enhanced levels of
performance in the data center.
Fiber optics is no longer an optional technology, or only reserved for the toughest interconnect problems.
Bandwidth, port density and low-power demands now require fiber optics. And fiber optics is now a
pervasive, high-volume, low-cost set of technologies that make it an easy choice for switch interconnect
and server I/O.
Finisar is investing heavily in the data center. Our 10G, 25G, 40G and 100G fiber optic products are enabling
the highest bandwidth, highest density, lowest power and lowest total cost interconnect solutions on the
market today. And we are already working on 200G, 400G and beyond. We are ready to partner with you to
push optical interconnect technologies even further to enable unprecedented scale, bandwidth, flexibility
and efficiency to the modern, highly-interconnected data center.
Extend Your Data Center Reach
Finisar optical products span all Ethernet data rates currently
deployed, from 100Mb/s to 100Gb/s, and we’re leading the
market with our 25G Ethernet optical transceivers for next-
generation servers and switches. Our QSFP products support
link distances of up to 400 meters over multimode fiber,
well beyond the IEEE Ethernet standard. We also support
distances over single mode fiber of up to 20km on 100G
QSFP28, 40km on 40G QSFP+ and 80km on 10G SFP+. And
if you need to connect your data centers over metropolitan
or regional networks, our OIF and CFP2-ACO modules can
support distances beyond 500km.
Increase Density and Consume Less Power
Finisar understands the importance of heat management in
the data center, and has been at the forefront of providing
next-generation lower power dissipation optical products.
Our 100G QSFP28 optical transceivers (SR4, LR4, CWDM4, and
SWDM4) support a maximum power dissipation performance
of 3.5 Watts.
Our 40G and 100G Quadwire Active Optical Cables provide low-
power dissipation settings which the host system can utilize.
We are the market leader in the supply of 12x10G and 12x25G
on-board optical Tx/Rx modules, or BOAs. On-board optics enable
increased port density while minimizing power dissipation.
Re-Utilize Your Legacy Multimode Fiber Plant
Most data centers today are still architected around 10G
Ethernet, focused on 10GBASE-SR links over OM3/OM4 duplex
multimode fiber. As data center operators migrate from
10G to 40G and 100G, they want to maintain that existing
fiber infrastructure. However, SR4 interfaces require ribbon
multimode fiber, and LR4 requires duplex single mode fiber,
neither of which are present in the existing duplex multimode
fiber plant. Finisar today is supplying QSFP+ LM4 transceivers
which allow the use of duplex multimode fiber for 40G
Ethernet links, and has introduced SWDM4 solutions which
provide cost-effective duplex multimode fiber links for both
40G and 100G Ethernet.
Move beyond 100G to 200G / 400G
Finisar has been the market leader in 100G Ethernet modules,
supplying CFP modules to service provider router and
transport deployments since 2010. We have now expanded
our 100G product offering to include various types of CFP2,
CFP4, CXP and QSFP28 modules, for telecom and also the
emerging data center and enterprise 100G applications.
However, we’re not stopping there. We currently have a
leading role in standardization activities and are already
developing our next-generation Ethernet products, which
will support 50G, 200G and 400G data rates in modules like
CFP8, QSFP56, and QSFP-DD. These products will meet the
performance demands of high-performance data centers for
many years to come.