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I'm designing a network and have 2 cabinets on each floor, and I'm thinking of using FCoE switches in both cabinets so that I can connect them with fibreoptic cable. I think I can easily find switches to do this.

The switches I'm interest in use B-Series SFP+ transcievers. What type of fibre optic cable do I need to connect these 2 switches? A 4-Gbps throughput should be fine for this network design.

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The main reason for connecting using fibreoptics was to avoid interference from electrics in the ceilling and also for the high speed. Maybe FCoE was not the best soloution? i just need to connect to cabinet switches fibreoptically

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Don't confuse FCoE with a "standard" fibre ethernet connection. FCoE, as the name implies, delivers fibrechannel over ethernet rather than over traditional fibrechannel connections, allowing for "converged" networking. Fibrechannel is typically used in storage networks, not general computing.

If all you're wanting to do is link to cabinets with fibre, you do not need FCoE. You just need two switches with multimode transcievers and then standard multimode cable with appropriate connectors for the transcievers. Typical new gear these days are SFP form factor transcievers and LC ends on cables.

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  • Im trying to do some research into transceivers, do u know the name of any that will do the job?
    – Max Carroll
    May 28, 2013 at 20:41
  • Most switch vendors will sell their own branded ones. Optospan is a vendor we go to when we can't get first party. In terms of specific SFPs, the Cisco 1000BASE-SX is a standard 1Gb multimode SFP. Hopefully that's a starting point for you.
    – Mark
    May 28, 2013 at 20:55
  • awesome that's exactly what i need, thanks i can now progress
    – Max Carroll
    May 28, 2013 at 21:00
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If you're utilizing the HP B-Series SFP+ transceiver, then you will be using native Fibre Channel, not FCoE. Just to clarify.

If you wanted to use FCoE, you should use a compatible 10GbE ethernet transceiver.

I have run both just fine over laser-optimized 50 micron, but this will depend on distance.

A little more detail in your question would have been better.

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  • going to research these ideas and get back
    – Max Carroll
    May 28, 2013 at 20:32
  • I think for the implementation I described your answer is perfect, i think i will change my implementation to use of a transciever because the FCoE seems overkill in hindsight for my small application
    – Max Carroll
    May 28, 2013 at 21:14

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