Typical warranty for generic DWDM transceivers

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1

Dear nanog group

We are currently evaluating the use of generic third party optics (SFP+ and
XFP) for 40Kms and 80Kms applications from vendors like NHR and Champion
One and I was wondering if someone in the group has experience using optics
from these vendors. My concern is about quality/reliability. They are
suppose to provide lifetime warranty, however as far as I know the life
time for DWDM optics is between 3 to 5 years.

Could someone share their experience with using generic optics for DWDM
applications?

Thank you

2

Not sure what you mean by "generic optics"? If you mean manufactured by
Joe's Optics and Fishing Bait company and sold on ebay for special low
rates, then the question is: are you in a position to test these units in
advance to the extent that you're going to be happy with their reliability?
Otherwise why are you trusting your entire business to this?

Personally, I'm not in that position, so I buy third party transceivers
from a respectable vendor with good quality service. This works very well
for me. Cheaper transceivers are only cheaper when you take their lifetime
cost into account. If they have quality issues, or cause more downtime, or
require more amplification, or cause mobo overheating issues due to poor
thermal characteristics, or if you need to spend a lot of time testing and
characterising the transceivers before deployment, then they are probably
not going to be cheaper.

I could buy these transceivers on ebay, but I don't want the hassle of
having to deal with links flopping offline and transceivers burning out
regularly. No doubt plenty of cheap white-label vendors are completely
fine, but I'm not going to invest my time/money or anyone else's time/money
in trying to find out which, because for my requirements it's cheaper to do
this than to use ebay.

Nick

3

We are currently evaluating the use of generic third party optics (SFP+ and
XFP) for 40Kms and 80Kms applications from vendors like NHR and Champion
One and I was wondering if someone in the group has experience using optics

Neither of these build anything, just resell.

When going 3rd party you might want to make sure you know

a) who builds the lasers
b) who builds the microcontroller
c) which software release there is in the microcontroller
d) exhaustive spec sheet for each part, not just 'n km' but dispersion
   tolerance, temperature range, minimum/maximum light levels etc, spread
   (especially in DWDM)

And you might want to ensure in your contract that as long as you are using
given SKU to order part, you are always getting the same equipment.
If you do run into trouble, then you will know exactly which parts are
affected.

Many brokers shop around and when you order part it's always something
different.
Now 99% of them will still work, regardless how badly you handle your
procurement.

from these vendors. My concern is about quality/reliability. They are
suppose to provide lifetime warranty, however as far as I know the life
time for DWDM optics is between 3 to 5 years.

We've been rocking DWDM core since 2006 and I can't recall losing single
XENPAK. We just this year migrated to new core using flexoptix (eoptolink)
10G DWDM XFP.
I had no trouble finding buyer to those 7 year old DWDM XENPAKs.

Could someone share their experience with using generic optics for DWDM
applications?

Positive. I actually prefer 3rd party, especially flexoptix, because they
provide us very simply to use eeprommer so we can save in sparing and can
deliver customers optics on very short notice, which their equipment will
experience as original part.
With 1st party I'd need to have part for each vendor we use, and each part
customer might use, essentially everything. And even more importantly, 1st
party often does not sell at all optic I might need, like CWDM or BX.

4

I am biased. My wife sells 3rd party optics at SubSpace Communications, but I think our data is valuable.

She has sold many thousands of optics, all with lifetime warrantys. Many of them to very large and clueful organizations, many of whom are represented here on NANOG. Of those thousands sold, I can count less than 20 that have been returned.

I've also worked for VARs in the past, and work with several of them today, selling new OEM branded optics. I've found a MUCH higher percentage of OEM optics having to be returned to the manufacturer.

Of course, take my report with a grain of salt.

5

Not at all: No one is gonna stop buying Cisco cause a Cisco optic died.

Third-party manufacturers don't have that built in cushion, so it's not
unreasonable that they might pay the higher degree of attention to
reliability that your off-the-cuff statistics imply.

You do want to go third-party, though, not fourth-party or below. :slight_smile:

Cheers,
-- jra

6

FWIW, I've never had an issue with third party optics.

Particularly if they're OEM Finisar, JDSU, etc...

7

The vendor-locked optics issue cause more trouble than it is worth. There
really needs to be some kind of "aftermarket" ruling on network equipment,
something along the lines of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermarket_(automotive)

Tim:>

8

I've had interoperability issues with first party optics with first party equipment that isn't seen with 3rd party.

I do wish more people would put pressure on their vendors on this topic.

Simple text in your RFP/RFI requiring all SFF-8472 fields to be usable, sticking their "stuff" in their part of the EEPROM, but basing operations on the MSA fields not their own elements.

- jared