Not All Fiber Optic Transceivers Are Made Equal
Costly service interruptions caused by discount fiber optic transceivers and active cables recently prompted a Senior Network Engineer at a Top-Tier Data Center to “ban optics super-store vendor from the network forever.” They ran into some issues in their search for better fiber optic solutions for their data center that could have been avoided.
The use of fiber optic broadband has become the gold standard for moving data at high rates of speed across enterprises and throughout the global telecommunications and Internet infrastructure. As businesses upgrade their network systems and data centers to support the high-performance nature of fiber optic technologies, the need for quality components has become a paramount consideration. However, as one seasoned network engineer discovered, not all fiber optic transceivers are created equal, nor are they all capable of supporting high-availability, mission critical services.
Cost Savings, But at What Price?
To ensure as close to 100% uptime as possible and to mitigate the cost and risk of service interruptions, when many buyers go in search of fiber optic solutions they have made choosing OEM optical products their standard operating practice. Unfortunately, name brand fiber optic transceivers, transponders, multiplexers and cabling are subject to egregious mark-ups, resulting in list prices approaching or in excess of 1000% of the wholesale cost. At the opposite end of the spectrum are inexpensive “no name” optics, often mass produced offshore using substandard manufacturing practices, poor quality lasers and “reconditioned parts”.
Lower priced, discount optic components obviously carry the potential for unexpected failure. The costs associated with higher RMA rates and the risk of outages can be considerable, especially in larger, more complex infrastructures which require time-consuming troubleshooting to identify a problem component. With less assurance of reliability, are the $10 to $30 cost savings per unit really worth it when compared to the competitively priced optics now available from third-party market vendors such as OSI Optics?
We recently posed that question to a new OSI Optics customer, a Senior Engineer at a fast-growth colocation operator delivering interconnection services to major North American markets from 24 regional data centers.
With service level agreements of data centers typically guaranteeing 99.9% availability, reliability and maximum uptime is of paramount importance. Organizations such as the Uptime Institute and the International Data Center Authority (IDCA) develop and publish management standards and operational guidelines for cloud hosting entities and telecommunications companies to ensure maximum performance standards for their millions of customers. “We do a lot of metadata server hosting and run our own IP fabric for over 1,500 customers, so obviously we have a large amount of optics throughout our infrastructure,” Mr. G told us. A long-time executive at the firm, he has more than 20 years of data center management experience and provides oversight of all network management and hardware purchasing for the company’s largest East Coast facility.
With data centers in five states and two Canadian provinces, Mr. G says the company is in the high stakes business of running operations for over two dozen network service providers and cloud hosting entities, each of whom expect Six Sigma uptime.
“Just yesterday, one of the discount vendor’s DWDM optics was firing on the right channel, yet not performing. It was rated for 80 kilometers, but was firing like a 40-kilometer optic, about half what the label indicated. I suspect the [fiber super store’s] tolerances are a lot more loose than other vendors.”
~Senior Engineer of Major Colocation Entity
“Performance is our top priority but because we have a significant equipment budget we tend to shop price whenever its possible and prudent,” he comments. “Of course, third-party optics are considerably cheaper than direct buy, whether it be Juniper, Brocade or Cisco.”
Several years ago, the firm opened an account with an offshore, e-commerce optics supplier, one of the largest volume third-party vendors in the world. Boasting of low prices, in-house coding and fast delivery from several fulfillment centers, it seemed like an ideal fit.
“We shifted most of our transceiver and cable business to them and saw the cost factor move in the right direction,” Mr. G says. “One of the first issues we had with them occurred when we were upgrading a core router and they just could not get the coding right.”
In addition to an unacceptably high failure rate at edge-of-network installations, more problematic were transceivers installed in the firm’s backbone infrastructure.
“I have routinely had to replace one or two of their components on our backbone like clockwork and in fact I don’t have many of them left as I’ve gone ahead and replaced them before they can fail”, Mr. G adds. “Equally disturbing, it seems the cables have a lifespan of about two years.”
“You Get What You Pay For”
Over time Mr. G said the cost savings gained by using products from the fiber super store vendor was far outweighed by the risk factors, downtime, troubleshooting time, and even travel Expenses.
“I recently had to drive in to New York City to replace a component which ate up the entire day,” he says. “It’s an 80-mile round trip, then 6 hours of troubleshooting, $38 in parking and the cost of it pulling me away from other issues.”
The last straw was one memorable order which seemed to have more non-functioning transceivers than working.
“Unfortunately, over the past two or three years we’ve experienced an extremely high failure rate,” he recalls. “On one occasion we ordered roughly 300 optics, including some copper GLCTs. We started populating the network with them and when we reached around 100 units that we had a problem with, due to miscoding and other issues, we quit and sent the entire shipment back.”
After switching to OSI Optics, Mr. G has seen a marked improvement in performance and far less time chasing down problems.
“I usually buy optics ranging from 1Gig to 10 Gig and we will ultimately be migrating to 100 Gig. We plan to continue you count on OSI Optics as we move forward with our build-out. In all the time we’ve been buying from OSI we’ve had maybe one or two failures, very low.”
Thinking back on his experiences with “bargain-priced” optics he says the minimal cost savings per unit doesn’t add up.
“When you factor in the time and effort, being pulled away from other projects, it’s just not worth it. You can buy low quality optics for dirt cheap and you can stock a hundred of them but you never know whether it’s going to work or not. You get what you pay for.”
What’s the Real Warranty Coverage of a Deeply Discount Optic?
How willing are discount vendors to stand behind their optics? According to the website of the optics super store Mr. G once purchased from, the “limited” warranty falls far short of the expected lifecycle of their own products:
OSI Optics: Your Partner for Better Fiber Optic Solutions
As the market for fiber optical networking solutions continues to evolve, enterprises are exploring better value alternatives to OEM offerings for their higher bandwidth, mission critical network and data center needs. We’re proud to be setting the pace as an ideal partner for better fiber optic solutions with our branded OSI Optics transceivers, cables and accessories.
In addition to providing expert pre-sales consultation and technical support, our in-house Optical Engineers will evaluate your end-to-end optics requirements and develop a deeply discounted, bundled approach for you today. Your choice of optics vendor is a key factor in optimizing your IT budget and maximizing the performance of your infrastructure. Let’s get to work.
For immediate product and pricing information, call 1-866-602-4674 or visit our contact us page.
Original case study published June 2020, updated August 2022.