How will the advent of 400GB revolutionize the data center?

Recently, 400G Ethernet has become a hot topic in the communication industry. It is both an outlet and a challenge. Network equipment manufacturers have launched 400G switches, and optical communication products have followed suit with 400G optical modules. This article explores the impact of 400G switches and 400G optical modules on data centers.

First, let's take a look at the 400 Gbit/s optical module. Compared with four 100 Gbit/s optical modules, the 400 Gbit/s optical module consumes less power and requires fewer optical modules and fibers. The encapsulation type of the 400G optical module is OSFP or QSFP-DD. The QSFP-DD package is smaller (similar to the QSFP28 package of the traditional 100G optical module), which is more suitable for data center applications. The OSFP package size is slightly larger and is more suitable for telecommunications applications because it provides more power consumption.

The 400G switch provides not only higher bandwidth, but also more features, such as ultra-high speed policy, segmentation, and whitelist. Line speed data acquisition and system telemetry to achieve real-time visibility of data packets, data streams and events; Smart caching for big data or storage and machine learning workloads by dynamically prioritizing packets; Minimizes latency and prioritizes critical traffic on demand.

The emergence of 400G switches and optical modules can help data centers upgrade from 100G to 400G. Although 400G switches are bandwidth upgrades, at the same time, it is an overall improvement from hardware bandwidth, deployment, investment protection to SDN solutions and software programmability.