Meraki Twinax vs Fiber

[JDavie]

Hello, we are upgrading to a fiber connection from our ISP. They will DMARC into a switch they provide with SFP+. We currently use the Meraki "Twinax Cable with SFP+ Connectors" to connect our switches and router. Our ISP says that cable is not supported because they are not deploying a Meraki switch. As long as its just connecting two SFP+ ports, does this matter? Will the Twinax cable work fine, or is there a reason to patch with fiber?

[Inderdeep]

@JDavie : the supported devices are 

https://meraki.cisco.com/product/switches/switches-accessories/switches-accessories-twinax/twinax-ca...

[JDavie]

Thanks @indra. I would assume those devices are officially validated by Meraki, but I would imagine they would work with any SPF+ device? For example, I can use a ethernet cable I buy from Meraki anywhere to connect to anything as long as the device on the other end has the right port. I would assume this would work the same way? Or is there more too it?

[Russ_B · Accepted solution]

Personally, I would use fiber.  Depending on the hardware they are providing, it may not work by default with unsupported SFP+ modules.  I know some of the legacy Cisco equipment that I have used would put the port in an error disabled state if you used a non-cisco SFP.  There were ways to work around it, but I always try to avoid situations like that, especially when dealing with equipment that will be managed by another provider.  It helps avoid the "It's fine on our end, the problem must be the unsupported SFP+ connection you supplied" issue if there are problems in the future.

Russ

[JDavie]

Got it. Thank you for the explanation.

[cmr]

@JDavie in my experience it will either work first time, or it will not, we have some HP switches that just don't work with any DAC, but some Force10 ones seem happy with anything...