10G Fiber Networking - SFP+ Transceiver and Fiber Optical Cable

100G and 400G networking is the people want, but 10G networking is more realistic and widely installed. The technology of fiber optic transceivers and fiber optic cables used in 10G link is very mature.

10 Gigabit Ethernet Technology

There's a bunch, but let's stick to the practical stuff you might actually want to use, and leave out stuff like old XFP transceiver or CX4. The modern stuff you want to use boils down to just two: SFP+ transceiver and 10GBASE-T.

SFP+ is a technology that allows an engineer to put one of several different modules into a switch or network interface card. An evolution of older SFP technology, it is usually backwards-compatible with SFP. An SFP+ module is essentially a transceiver that talks to the switch and requires a "device driver" of sorts, so you need an SFP+ module that is compatible with the switch or Ethernet adapter.

SFP+ is available in various flavors. The ones you're likely to use:

-SR optics, which are short range, and when used with OM3 (aqua colored) fiber, can run for up to 300 meters. This is usable for any distance shorter than 300 meters.

-LR optics, which are longer range, and when used with the proper single-mode fiber, can run up to 10 kilometers.

Also available is SFP+ direct attach cable, where two SFP+ modules have been permanently connected together via twinax cable. These are essentially patch cables for SFP+. The downside is that sometimes you run into compatibility issues, especially when you have two SFP+ endpoints from different manufacturers who both engage in vendor lock-in. The upside is that they're cheaper and more durable than fiber optics.

10GBASE-T is the copper 10G Ethernet standard. SFP+ has somewhat lower latency and reduced power consumption compared to 10GBASE-T. One of the biggest caveats here, though, is that once you go down the SFP+ path, you probably want to stick with it. There's no easy switching away from it except to do a forklift upgrade.

10GBASE-T is much more familiar to most end users, this uses RJ45 modular connectors on Category 6 or better cable. Category 6 will typically reach up to around 50 meters. This was basically a worthless standard up until recently, when several manufacturers have started to create less-expensive switches that support 10GBASE-T.

While it is tempting to think of your entire network as 10G, in most cases this is at least a several thousand dollar exercise to make happen, factoring in the cost of a switch, Ethernet cards, and cabling. For cabling, the multi-mode OM3 and OM4, single-mode fiber optical cable are always the preferred options.