JOHN WILLIAMSON CMIS
Common interfaces reduce development effort and integration time, leading to faster market introduction of new technologies.
What are the challenges to further adoption?
Fibre Channel and coherent optics. Other additions are much larger like the addition of link training functionality and support for co-packaged optics.
continue to increase in speed. Co- packaging is a new area for CMIS and will likely evolve in the coming years. Support for Linear-drive Pluggable Optics (LPO) and Retimed Tx Linear Rx (RTLR) optics are being added. Work on transitioning the industry to higher speed management interfaces like I3C and Ethernet is on-going. Readers may be interested in two OIF CMIS-related White Papers announced in June 2024. One is a CMIS White Paper on Management of Smart Optical Modules and the other deals with CMIS-Based Out-of-Band Messaging for Link Training. OIF white papers are not standards but are intended to identify industry challenges, understand requirements and stimulate discussion on potential solutions. The outcome of a white paper may or may not lead to an OIF project.
JW
The transition to new interfaces and concepts will be the biggest challenge for CMIS. Such as
OIF
What are a couple of important OIF CMIS achievements/ milestones so far? Publishing the first version of CMIS under OIF was an important milestone. CMIS 5.2 was released
JW
convincing host and module vendors to add new interfaces like I3C and Ethernet to host sockets and modules across the industry and changing to a message- based solution. Finding a transition plan that supports the existing management interface and allows the industry to move towards future management interfaces will be a challenge.
OIF
quickly, showing that OIF’s process can meet the timing needs of the industry. CMIS 5.2 provided Fibre Channel enhancements that were important to that industry segment and showed that the OIF management track was servicing all types of optical modules. The CMIS interop demos and CMIS webinars have both been successful in sharing technical information on how CMIS works with the broader industry. Through these events, OIF has raised awareness of what CMIS is and how it works.
What work is currently underway on the spec and what is the future roadmap? CMIS 5.3 is in the final stages of being published and work is beginning to define content for
JW
OIF
the next version. Coherent-CMIS (C-CMIS) is about to start a new version adding support for 800G/1600G. Link training will be an active area in the coming years as electrical interfaces
How widely is CMIS being adopted and what plans are in place to further adoption? CMIS has been chosen as the management interface for nearly all new optical module projects in
JW
OIF
the past few years. CMIS is the management interface for the QSFP-DD and OSFP module form factors, which together represent the majority of the optical module market for 400Gbps and 800Gbps data rates. This is due to the strong technical underpinnings of the specification and the willingness of the OIF team to evolve the specifications to meet the needs of new technologies. Looking forward, OIF has been active
in preparing for the management needs of future optical modules.
Current contributions and projects are considering the addition of higher- speed management interfaces, including Improved Inter-Integrated Circuit (I3C) and Gigabit Ethernet. In addition, there have been multiple contributions and discussions about moving from a register-based interface to an object- based/message-based interface.
Ian Alderdice OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group – Management Co-Vice Chair and Ciena
Gary Nicholl OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group – Management Co-Vice Chair and Cisco
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| ISSUE 38 | Q3 2024
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