Moxa EDS-518A ring: are third-party SFP modules blocked or only unsupported
I am specifying a fibre ring for a customer's plant network and the switch choice is already fixed: Moxa EDS-518A. The BOM went out with generic 1G optics, because our stock room is full of them, and now the customer's own engineer insists that only Moxa-branded modules may be fitted.
- switches: Moxa EDS-518A, four units in a ring
- planned optics: generic 1000BASE-SX/LX SFP, industrial temperature range
- Moxa parts the customer wants instead, both from the extended-temperature line:
SFP-1GLSXLC-T
SFP-1GLXLC-TWhat I have done so far:
- read the Moxa product FAQ, where the answer is flat: Moxa switches take Moxa-supplied SFP (GBIC) parts and nothing else;
- went looking for any sign of an actual check inside the switch itself, something that identifies the module, a command to override it, a word on what DDM shows with someone else's optic. Nothing of the sort is writtn down anywhere.
So which is it in practice? Does the EDS-518A actaully refuse a non-Moxa SFP, or is this a support and qualification statement that I can argue about at the design review? If anyone has run generic optics in this family, what did the switch do with them: ignore them, link without DDM, or work normally?
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Comments 2
Policy, not a lock, or at least Moxa never describes a lock anywhere I can find. Their FAQ says what you already read and then stops: the switches are qualified with parts that come from Moxa, anything from the aftermarket is off the supported list, and what a port physically does with such a module is never spelled out.
That silence is your actual problem at the design review. There is no vendor text you can point at to predict one outcome over another, so you cannot promise the customer anything, and if the ring starts misbehaving in a year the argument is yours alone.
For a plant ring with a real SLA behind it I would take the Moxa part numbers the customer named and move on. Those are the extended-temperature parts, which is what a cabinet wants anyway, and the delta against generic optics is smaller than one unplanned site visit.
Same fight, different vendor. On one project the designers specified Cisco switches and purchasing sourced the optics elsewhere, with no chance to test or recode anything before delivery. I went looking for an official "third-party SFPs are prohibited" document to wave around, and there is no such document.
What exists is the transceiver compatibility matrix: if the part is not in the list, it is unsupported, end of discussion. Next to it are the warranty terms, where using parts that are not original is listed as grounds for voiding cover. That pair is the vendor position, and it is enough to win a design argument.
Two things that helped: ask vendor support for a written statement about the exact part numbers you were handed, and keep in mind that even where a workaround exists, using it is an admission you are running unsupported hardware. IOS has the undocumented
service unsupported-transceiverfor exactly this, and it convinces nboody in an audit. Moxa does not appear to offer even that much on the EDS-518A, so I would not plan around an escape hatch.