Most network professionals will encounter a need to expand or provide a high speed connection to some type of equipment
. Most quality high speed switches provide small form-factor GBIC (Gigabit Interface Connection) slots that can handle any of a variety of GLC SX MM transceivers. This type of transceiver provides a gigabit fiber optic connection to your equipment allowing for excellent data transmission rates between your hardware.
The Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) Gigabit Interface Converter was developed by Cisco and is the current industry standard. The GLC SX MM is a hot-swappable device that plugs into a Gigabit Ethernet port or slot, linking the port with the network. SFPs can be used and interchanged on a wide variety of products and can be intermixed on a port-by-port basis.
When shopping for a GBIC it is important to note that some manufacturers, particularly Cisco, prefer that you use modules that are compatible with their equipment. It is often preferable to find either Cisco or Cisco compatible GLC modules when using them with Cisco equipment.
When a GLC SX MM transceiver is plugged into a standard SFP slot, the equipment generally auto-detects the device and the hardware will work immediately when the media is connected. This makes these type of modules truly hot-swappable in every sense of the word.
Compatible GLC SX MM transceivers operate on standard 50 m multimode fiber links up to 550 m and on 62.5 m Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)-grade multimode fibers up to 220 m. They can support up to 1km over 50 m multimode fiber cable.
For a list of excellent compatible SFPs check my GLC SX MM web site.