Dell Precision 7740

The C form-factor pluggable (CFP) is a multi-source agreement to produce a common form-factor for the transmission of high-speed digital signals. The c stands for the Latin letter C used to express the number 100 (centum), since the standard was primarily developed for 100 Gigabit Ethernet systems.

The CFP transceiver is specified by a multi-source agreement (MSA) between competing manufacturers. The CFP was designed after the small form-factor pluggable transceiver (SFP) interface, but is significantly larger to support 100 Gbit/s. While the electrical connection of a CFP uses 10 x 10 Gbit/s lanes in each direction (RX, TX). The optical connection can support both 10 x 10 Gbit/s and 4 x 25 Gbit/s variants of 100 Gbit/s interconnects (typically referred to as 100GBASE-SR10 in 100 meter MMF, 100GBASE-LR10 and 100GBASE-LR4 in 10 km SMF reach, and 100GBASE-ER10 and 100GBASE-ER4 in 40 km SMF reach respectively.)

DWDM or Dense wavelength division multiplexing is a technology that puts data from different sources together on an optical fiber, with each signal carried at the same time on its own separate light wavelength. Simple Technology have all DWDM frequencies available for Cisco DWDM, Force10 DWDM, Foundry DWDM and Adtran DWDM. XENPAK DWDM and X2 DWDM available.

A GBIC (Gigabit Interface Converter) is a standard for optical transceivers. A GBIC is commonly used with Gigabit Ethernet and Fiber channel.

A GBIC will offer a standard, hot swappable electrical interface and with GBIC, one gigabit Ethernet port can support a wide range of physical media, from copper to long-wave single-mode optical fiber, and GBIC supports lengths of hundreds of kilometers. This means a GBIC is very flexible in use.