We are moving the office uplinks from copper to fibre and the quote that came back has DrayTek-branded optics in every line. Before I start arguing about the difference against ordinary 10G modules I would like to know whether the hardware actually cares what sits in the cage, because the…
We are refreshing the core of a small office and put in a pair of Aruba CX 6200F. The link between the two switches is meant to be a 10G trunk on the SFP+ uplinks, and I cannot get either box to admit that 10G exists on that port. 2x Aruba CX 6200F Switch Series, trunk on port 1/1/25 Cisco…
I look after a two-building site and the access switches were replaced with Aruba 2540s a while back. The fibre between the buildings has not been touched, but since the swap the uplink refuses to come up. Aruba 2540 on our side, ports 51 and 52 used for the uplinks Aruba J4858D 1000SX in the 2540…
Bringing up a 10G uplink from a PA-3220 to a new core switch. The module went into a free cage on the firewall, the switch side is configured and waiting, and the interface simply refuses to come up. The port LED blinks, which is what made me assume the module was at least being powered. Palo Alto…
Bench work: re-coding a small batch of SFP+ modules so they carry the vendor string and part number the customer's kit expects. The edit itself is trivial in a hex editor, the write goes through, the read back matches byte for byte what I wrote - and the host still throws the module out. generic…
I look after a small office network and put in a DrayTek VigorSwitch FX2120 to get a 10G core. Both 10G links, to the router and to the NAS, came up on their own within seconds. What I cannot do is get a single 1G device onto the switch through the SFP+ cages. Switch: DrayTek VigorSwitch FX2120…
We are a small regional ISP rebuilding the optics budget for next year. Every 10G spare on our shelf is coded for exactly one platform, so the spares pool is roughly three times larger than our failure rate justifies. The idea on the table is to buy re-codable modules and code them ourselves as…
Commissioning a 10G handoff for a customer on a 3930 that was already on site. The module is Ciena's own, pulled from our stock, and the port does come up - but the operational state is UCTF instead of Ena and the uncertified transceiver alarm sits there permanently. The acceptance test includes a…
I am putting together a switchless Fibre Channel setup at home: one box holds the storage and has to act as the FC target, the other two are plain initiaators. No FC switch in the middle, just direct cables between HBAs. Hardware: QLogic QLE2694 in the storage box, the one that should be the target…
I look after a small pool of FreeBSD boxes and I am adding 10G to one of them. The card went in, the machine boots fine, but the OS refuses to make an interface out of it. Server on FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p1, stock GENERIC kernel QLogic FastLinQ QL41112 dual-port 10GbE SFP+ adapter SFP+ optics in…
I run a backup storage system in a data center. A pair of DD9900 in HA, network ports on the NDC QLogic. After a reboot or reseating the module, port ethMa stops seeing the transceiver, and it's not a one-off - it's a stable, repeating pattern. Dell DD9900, DD OS 7.2.0.95, HA configuration NDC…
We run a pair of ThinkSystem NE1032 RackSwitch units as top of rack in a small colo cage. The Lenovo-branded optics we inherited only cover half the ports, so the rest got filled with generic SFP+ modules and a couple of short DACs out of the same batch we already use on other vendors' switches…
I look after a mixed Zyxel estate on one site and I am putting together a vrey basic optical health check for the fibre uplinks: temperature and Rx power per port, so I can see a link degrading before the users report it. What is involved: Zyxel GS1910, older access switch with SFP uplinks Zyxel…
We are adding capacity to a small FC fabric and bought compatible 16G short-wave SFP+ from an optics supplier instead of paying the switch vendor price. The switch refuses them. Brocade G610, Fabric OS 9.x generic-coded 16G SWL SFP+, correct wavelength and reach according to the label Brocade-coded…
Second hand HPE 5130 for the rack at home, and it arrived with four HPE JD092B X130 10G SFP+ SR modules in the box. I bought new OM4 LC patch cords, wired one SFP+ port to the 10G card in the server, and got absolutely nothing. HPE FlexNetwork 5130 24G PoE+ 4SFP+ EI (JG936A) 4x HPE JD092B X130 10G…
