Notes and comments on Fiber Driver. This post will be very long, but well worth slugging through it.
I knew that Fiber Driver was a product with tremendous prospects, but what I saw and heard during the tour was amazing. This product has significantly greater potential than even I had thought.
First some review, for those of you not fully UP on it. Fiber driver is a rack mounted product in 1,4 and 16 slot configurations. It basically allows CONNECTING or CONVERTING just about anything to anything, through a continually increasing (now over 150) modules that fit into those slots. Here is a link to the product description:
nbase-xyplex.com
That alone would give this product tremendous prospects, as the internet and networking consists of a large number of data protocols (Ethernet, SONET, ATM, Fibre Channel, WDM, etc), transmission types (copper, fiber, wireless), and a tremendous (and ever increasing) number of POPs (Points of Presence) where equipment requiring connectivity exists.
MRV has competitors to Fiber driver, but none with the amazing breadth of CONVERT/CONNECT options that Fiber Driver offers, and none that have some key Fiber Driver modules.
BUT THERE IS MORE, SIGNIFICANTLY MORE!
First, let me define a few things
A POP (point-of-presence) is the location of an access point to the Internet. A POP necessarily has a unique Internet (IP) address. Your Internet service provider (ISP) or online service provider (OSP) has a point-of-presence on the Internet. The number of POPs that an ISP or OSP has is sometimes used as a measure of its size or growth rate.
A POP may actually reside in rented space owned by the telecommunications carrier such as AT&T or Sprint to which the ISP is connected. A POP usually includes routers, digital/analog call aggregators, servers, and frequently frame relay or ATM switches.
In addition, within buildings in Enterprises connectivity is provided through wiring closets or fiber "farms", where connectivity is made to each floor or adjacent buildings.
In Fibre Channel, devices are called NODES, each of which has at least one port to provide access to other nodes.
A fiber cable actually consists of a pair of fibers, with data moving in opposite directions across each fiber.
THE ADDED SIGNIFICANCE THAT I HAD MISSED BEFORE
Each of the data protocols has distance limitations and price/performance considerations. These limitations are what require so many POPs or closets or Nodes.
The distance limitation for standard Gigabit Ethernet is 550 meters - about 1/3 mile.
The distance limitation for Fibre Channel is only 100 meters node-node and the max optical distance is 10 Kilometers (6.3 miles).
Now, keep in mind that much of this distance limitation is used up while running up risers in buildings or in winding troughs under building floors. It is EASY to use up 550 meters just within a few floors of a building.
Obviously, these limitations require connectivity points (POPs, closets, farms, Nodes, etc). Connectivity points are EXPENSIVE to build and maintain.
What if you want to run GE (Gigabit Ethernet) speeds across buildings or a campus or between metropolitan branch offices?
What if you want to extend the Fibre Channel distance further to protect your data against common catastrophes, such as earthquake, fire, hurricane, or just between offices that are further apart than 6 miles?
What if you want low end WDM capability at vastly lower prices than current high end WDM equipment offered by other vendors?
What if you would like to use a SINGLE fiber in a fiber cable for BOTH send and receive, and use the other fiber for either backup or additional capacity?
Fiber Driver has special modules to do each of these things.
The Gigabit Ethernet Extender module allows up to 100 KM (63 miles) distance.
The Fibre Channel module extends the optical limit also to 100 KM. Both of these can be extended further by regenerating the signal, so the distances can grow SIGNIFICANTLY.
The WDM module allows 4 channel WDM for GE or OC-12, OC-48 for about $3,000 - tremendously lower than other WDM alternatives.
The Single Fiber module allows full duplex data transmission across a single fiber.
AND NONE OF THESE FOUR MODULES HAS ANY COMPETITORS AT ALL RIGHT NOW!!!
even better, THESE MODULES WILL NOT FIT/RUN IN ANYONE ELSE'S CHASSIS!"
Indeed CSCO has purchased a GE extender from MRV, and in the tour it was stated that both CSCO and COMS refer customers with these needs to MRV.
Think about this. Draw a 10" circle on a piece of paper, representing 100KM. Now draw a 1" circle inside the bigger one and touching the line of the bigger one. This represents 10KM. Fiber Driver allows direct connectivity from any point to any point within the larger circle, a major advantage in cost and connectivity.
Think about this too. Any customer that needs any one of those four functions has to buy from MRV (no competitors, remember?) at least two Fiber Driver chassis and two modules (for each end of the connection). Now, those additional empty slots will tend to get used too over time.
MRV is well aware of this too. They are about to launch a "major" advertising campaign, and they are considering setting up Fiber Driver as an Nbase-Xyplex DIVISION, like Red-C and Linux.
My advice here to them is DO IT. DO IT SOON, and DON"T SKIMP on the advertising.
Getting Fiber Driver installed in as many places as possible quickly could elevate it to an industry standard product, used by EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE!
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