* Ethernet Alliance tests interoperability on 10GBase-LRM
The Ethernet Alliance this week announced multi-vendor interoperability tests of 10GBase-LRM optical interfaces.
The Ethernet Alliance also said that it has added seven new members: Avago, Excelight Communications (a subsidiary of Sumitomo Electric), Fiberxon, Opnext, Picolight, SwitchCore, and Washington University.
Several of the new members have already gone to work. Excelight, Fiberxon, Opnext, and Picolight joined Finisar, Fujitsu and Intel to participate in the interoperability tests. The tests were conducted at the Cisco Photonics Labs in Monza, Italy, in mid-September.
10GBase-LRM is the recently completed IEEE specification, also known as 802.3aq, expected to be published this month as a standard. The standard provides for running 10 Gigabit Ethernet over FDDI-grade fiber-optic lines, often used between data-center switches and workgroup switches.
The Ethernet Alliance was formed at the beginning of this year as the final Ethernet-related industry group to push for Ethernet in any areas of networking it’s not already in. Part of its function is to facilitate interoperability tests.
The 10GBase-LRM tests evaluated several optical transceiver form factors – X2, XFP and SFP+, according to the alliance. In the tests, 10 Gigabit was run over 220 meters of 62.5-micron multimode fiber and 260 meters of 50-micron multimode.
The Ethernet Alliance hailed the results of the tests as proof that 10GBase-LRM is ready for the market, ready to push 10 Gigabit to wiring closets everywhere with smaller and cheaper form factors than what had been previously available.
The alliance says more information on the interoperability demonstration will be available in a white paper on its Web site later this month.
