Cisco Cisco Prime Network Services Controller Adaptor for DFA White Paper

 

 

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Figure 3.    Bidirectional Transmit and Receive Concept of Cisco QSFP BiDi Transceiver 

 

Investment Savings with Cisco QSFP BiDi Transceiver 

A structured cabling system is commonly deployed in data center networks to provide a flexible and scalable 

cabling infrastructure. Structured cabling uses short patch cords to attach devices to a patch panel and then uses 

fiber trunk cables either to consolidate the cables in a central location for additional connectivity or to direct the 

cables to another patch panel, to which the remote devices are attached. Figure 4 shows a simple example of a 

structured cabling design how it is used today for 10-Gbps links. 

Figure 4.    Simple Example of 10-Gbps Structured Cabling 

 

The case study below shows how Cisco QSFP BiDi technology can remove the cost barriers that hinder migration 

and expansion of the existing 10-Gbps cabling footprint to 40-Gbps infrastructure to provide a higher data rate in 

the data center network. 

This case study examines a simple high-performance, low-latency, two-tier folded Clos unified fabric design 

(Figure 5) that provides 1536 10-Gbps host ports on its leaf layer. Its spine layer is composed of six Cisco Nexus 

7000 Series or Nexus 7700 platform models or Cisco Nexus 6004 Switches, and its leaf layer consists of 32 Cisco 

Nexus 5672UP Switches, each with six 40-Gbps links toward the spine layer. Between the leaf and spine layer, 

there are a total of 192 40-Gbps links.