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Re: [802.3_100GNGOPTX] Addressing the SMF Objective this week



Mark,

Thanks for raising this important topic of a lack of consensus on a 500 meter solution.  I agree that 802.3bm is not gaining consensus and I've tracked it in my blog here that shows more high level results:

http://www.ethernetalliance.org/blog/2013/01/21/will-100gbase-lr4-be-the-only-ieee-100gbe-single-mode-link-type/

This lack of consensus is mainly the result of having several viable proposals and individuals sticking with their votes or proposals despite having little chance of meeting the 75% majority.  The biggest change this week may be that a couple of 500 meter proposals will fall off the list of options and the voters will change their votes in favor of a competing proposal.  I hope this consensus will lead to a standard in 802.3bm and we avoid one or two MSAs for the 500 meter solution.

I do not like the suggestion to put the 500 meter objective in another project (like the 400GbE Study Group) when this project has the objective already.  Putting the 500m objective in another project or MSA would delay the introduction of viable solutions for a considerable amount of time - probably 1-2 years.  

I believe that two proposals (PSM4 and CWDM) are technically ready to be deployed at a fraction of the cost, density and power of 100GBASE-LR4.  Cole_01_0513 predicts that LR4 CFP2 will be 147% more expensive than PSM4 in CFP4 or QSFP (3.2 for PSM4 vs 7.9 in LR4 CFP2) and I consider this a conservative estimate for PSM4.   IEEE voters agree that PSM4 is technically mature and PSM4 has been demonstrated in QSFP form factors while LR4 has not.  

Because we have viable solutions, I would like to see 802.3bm make the hard decision to standardize one 500 meter solution now.  You can put me in the "DO SOMETHING CAMP" instead of the "DO NOTHING CAMP".  The 802.3bm task force has a 500 meter objective and we have technology to meet it, so let's make a standard.

Thanks,
Scott 





-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Nowell (mnowell) [mailto:mnowell@xxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2013 4:53 PM
To: STDS-802-3-100GNGOPTX@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [802.3_100GNGOPTX] Addressing the SMF Objective this week

802.3bm Task force members,

I wanted to share some thoughts ahead of this week's meeting.

I've been looking at the progress we have been making towards the goal of adopting a baseline proposal to address the SMF objective.  When I look at the past series of straw polls (see attached), my conclusion is that, as a group, we have remained consistent with having 5 options all vying for support and none breaking away.  While a lot of attention has been focused on the relative support levels against each other, it is clear from the polls so far that our group is a long way from seeing any proposal reach the 75% criteria to be adopted as a baseline proposal.

The 75% criteria has been extremely beneficial historically in ensuring that we have market and industry alignment which in turn often drives  a commercially successful  adoption.  The total cost of ownership to everyone in the supply chain around a new standard is high, so we try to limit what gets adopted to what we have confidence in.  The nature of a standard ensures that we plan and expect to build, integrate, ship, operate this solution for many years and generations ahead.

When I apply this criteria, to the SMF objective proposals, I do not see that level of clarity yet.  This gives me two concerns:

First, that the group decides it has to pick one just for the sake of doing something.
Second, the group decides to do nothing and we lose the industry momentum and effort that has been put into developing a optimized solution for 100G SMF.

What I would like to propose, is that if no new substantive information becomes available at this meeting which significantly affects the level of support behind a proposal, that we look at how to continue this effort outside of 802.3bm (given that it is constrained by it's schedule to remain working on this topic).  One option that I would think worth considering is to move the investigation into the 400GE study group just starting.  This is very similar to what we did when the 40G 40km SMF  topic was incorporated into the 802.3bm project.  Undoubtedly, there would be some procedural things we'd need to follow to comply with 802.3 rules but this would provide us a path to continue working on a solution we know the industry wants us to provide.

I do not doubt that we will likely see commercialization happening on some of these current proposals and assume that MSAs or some other mechanism will ensure we have an interoperable solution.  I don't think that should affect what happens in the standard, and if we do end up developing a solution in a subsequent project, then industry adoption will definitely strengthen any proposals.

See you next week.

Mark