First time using fiber

phoeneous

Sort of embarrassed to ask this but it's my first time using fiber and I'm not sure about a few things.

I have two WS-C2960S-48FPS-L switches that I need to connect over a distance of about 500ft. I know max length for cat5/cat6 is about 328 ft so I have to use fiber. On my 2960's I have 4 sfp ports but the media type is 1000BaseTX. Does that mean even if I connect an lc/lc + gbic connector to the sfp port that I'll still be limited to 328ft? Or can I connect a 1000Base-SX transceiver to that sfp port and connect beyond 328 ft? Any help is appreciated.

AwesomeGarrett

Looks like we're going to have to change your certification status! LOL, just joshing. Gave myself a good laugh tho.

Yes, the TX is copper and still has the same limitations. You're going to need some fiber and SFP's or, external copper to fiber transceivers.

Although, if you're using TX SFP's, where do the lc connectors come in?

EDIT: Is your question whether you can connect your SX SFP's to the 2960? If so, then yes. Once you connect the SX SPF's you can run the command show inventory and you sould see the SFP's as part of the switch hardware if supported.

pevangel

You can't put a GBIC in the SFP port since it won't fit. You should grab a couple of 1000BASE-SX SFPs and LC-LC multimode fiber jumper. If you have a clean jumper, then it should work fine at 500ft.

EdTheLad

Don't go rolling your excess fibre into small coiled bundles. I remember a grad where i worked decided to take it upon himself to clean our lab. During our Monday morning meeting he took 10 mins to explain to us that we needed to keep the fibre's tidy and not obstructing other devices. He had taken photo's of his cleanup with do's and donts, large coils bad, small coils good lol. Was very funny looking at his face when we explained is probably ruined all the fibre.

Hondabuff

62.5 nanometer multimode fiber with LC ends. 2 1k GBICs run about $250 a piece if you want the Cisco ones. We just received our Cisco 3850 stack switches for a college stadium and the one switch is a 24 port SFP fiber switch. $5k in GBIC's for the MDF and 21 fiber runs. I have to wait for them to certify all the fiber cause couple of the runs are around 700' and a lot goes wrong pulling fiber. Make sure you turn on Unidirectional link detection on the switch. That way if the one of the TX/RX lines break it will show the link is really down.

phoeneous

AwesomeGarrett wrote: »

EDIT: Is your question whether you can connect your SX SFP's to the 2960? If so, then yes. Once you connect the SX SPF's you can run the command show inventory and you sould see the SFP's as part of the switch hardware if supported.

Yes, that was my question. I've never used sx sfp's before (nor fiber) so I wanted to make sure it'll work at 500+ feet before I start ordering the cabling and transceivers.

joelsfood

Bookmark this link for future reference

Cisco Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) Transceiver Modules Maintenance and Troubleshooting - Cisco

Go down to 2960 and you'll see these options for gigabit SFPs
GLC-SX-MM
GLC-LH-SM
GLC-ZX-SM
GLC-BX-D
GLC-BX-U

You'll want the GLC-SX-MM (MM is multimode). Page down to the description on that SFP, and you'll find:
Operates on 50 μm multimode fiber links up to 550 m and on 62.5 μm FDDI-grade multimode fibers up to 220 m.

pevangel

LX/LH or the BX optics with single-mode fiber jumpers are also valid options. They would be better options if you plan on doing 10G in the future so you don't have to do another run. Also, multi-mode OM4 cables are much more expensive than single-mode cables. You can probably get two Cisco LX/LH optics and a 200m single-mode jumper for less than a 200m multi-mode OM4 jumper alone.

Priston

Multi-mode optical fiber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Optical Fiber - Datacenter Operations