Finisar Accelerates 10G Ethernet Server Connectivity

Finisar will demonstrate this new platform with industry leaders Chelsio, Force10, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Myricom, NetEffect, Neterion, and NetXenatatat at Supercomputing 2007 in Reno, Nevada, November 13-15, Booth #2818.

The Burden of Copper

Today, supercomputing clusters are hampered by the physical burdens of CX-4 copper cable. In addition to being large, heavy, power hungry and expensive, copper cable is limited to short distance connections, as data integrity deteriorates over long distances.

By comparison, the Laserwire cable assembly is a fiber optic cable so it is small, light, and much lower in power consumption. The fiber optic cable also allows a smaller bend radius, thus providing greater flexibility during the installation of computer clusters. The Laserwire electrical connector was specifically developed for high density applications and can support large cluster configurations, including 48 port 1U switches. The connector can also be mounted in space-constrained LOM (LAN on motherboard) designs.

“As 10 Gig servers become more prevalent in the data center, power and 10 Gig interconnect cost became a significant challenge, as does connecting these servers in a way that allows organizations to optimize their computing power,” said Stephen Garrison, vice president of marketing at Force10 Networks, one of the participants in the Laserwire demonstration at Supercomputing 07. “The Force10 S2410 provides high density 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity that enables organizations to directly connect to 10 Gig servers while Laserwire delivers the low power and low cost 'plug and play' interconnect that organizations need to efficiently utilize increased computing resources.”

Laserwire significantly reduces power in datacenter applications. When compared with 10GBase-T solutions, Laserwire consumes nearly 95% less power, resulting in lower heat dissipation and reduced cooling requirements.

In addition to the Laserwire cable and connector, the family will include transceiver adapter modules that will enable Laserwire to plug into traditional optical transceiver ports. This will allow system builders and data centers to use Laserwire in legacy systems for 10GbE connectivity.

“The Server Connectivity transition to 10GbE is still in its early stages with most 10GbE NICs shipped into midrange and high end Unix servers, networked storage systems and HPC applications, ” said Bob Wheeler, Senior Analyst with The Linley Group. “With the move of 10GbE into high volume server platforms, users need Laserwire to provide a viable interconnect solution to address the current copper issues of port density, power consumption and cost.”

“Laserwire is the answer to many of the physical challenges plaguing high-performance supercomputing clusters today,” said Jan Meise, director of strategic marketing at Finisar. “By incorporating Finisar’s two decades of expertise in the fiber optics industry, we have been able to develop a product that directly addresses end-user concerns to provide a lower cost, more power efficient alternative to copper cable. Additionally, we see Laserwire as having various practical applications beyond High Performance Computing, including Enterprise data centers, video, consumer and industrial applications.”