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Solution Overview

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Preserve Your Investment with 40-Gbps Cisco
QSFP BiDi Transceiver Solution

What You Will Learn

As a result of data center consolidation, server virtualization, and new applications that require higher data

transport rates, lower latency, and better link utilization, the data center network is shifting to 10 Gbps at the access

layer and 40 Gbps at the aggregation layer. High-performance and high-density 10- and 40-Gbps network devices,

such as the Cisco Nexus

6000 and 7000 Series Switches and Nexus 5600 and 7700 platforms, are now available

at attractive prices for this transition. However, to support 40-Gbps connectivity, data center architects are

challenged by the need for a major upgrade of the cabling infrastructure. This can be expensive and disruptive to

allow data centers to adopt and migrate quickly to the 40-Gbps technology.

Cisco recently launched a new 40-Gbps bidirectional optical (BiDi) module, providing another option in addition to

the 40-Gbps Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP) optical modules. The 40-Gbps BiDi optical module

supports 40 Gigabit Ethernet over one pair of multimode fiber (MMF) cables while allowing 40 Gigabit Ethernet to

be deployed using the same infrastructure as 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-SR). This innovative 40-Gbps QSFP

BiDi technology offers customers a no-cost fiber migration.

This document introduces the 40-Gbps Cisco

QSFP BiDi Transceiver and demonstrates its cost savings of at

least 50 percent compared to non-BiDi QSFP 40-Gbps deployments.

Challenges with Existing 40-Gbps Transceivers

Existing short-reach (SR) transceivers for 40-Gbps connectivity in a QSFP form factor, such as QSFP SR4 and

QSFP CSR4, use independent transmitter and receiver sections, each with 4 parallel fiber strands. For a 40-Gbps

connection, 8 fiber strands are required. Both QSFP SR4 and QSFP CRS4 use MPO 12-fiber (MPO-12F)

connectors. As a result, 4 fiber strands in each connection are wasted. Figure 1 shows the existing short-reach 40-

Gbps QSFP solutions.

Figure 1. Concept of Existing 40-Gbps Transceivers (MMF)