The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Mikrotik and SFP versus SFTP+ is always confusing especially as the text on their equipment and their documentation doesn’t show well which situations work.

Equipment text is further on, this is their text searchable documentation:

• [WayBack]: Supported Hardware: SFP+ modules – MikroTik Wiki tells this:

  • Brand	Model	Distance	Rate	Connector/Cable type	Wavelength	Tested with	Works / Doesn’t
    MikroTik	S+DA0003	3M	10G	Twinax Copper	—	All MikroTik products with SFP/SFP+ interfaces	Natively supported

   

• SplusDA0003: This is highly cost-effective way to connect two SFP/SFP+ devices (for example two units of CCR1036-8G-2S+) for very short distances…[WayBack] RouterBoard.com : SFP+ 3m direct attach cable

As usually, a long search in the forums reveals the background information:

[WayBack] SFP in SFP+ slot – MikroTik RouterOS: 10Gb SFP+ sockets are usually backward compatible with SFP, but this is not guaranteed.

There are two tricks involved to get an SFP connection between these devices working:

1. Use a plain SFP only or combined SFP/SFP+ port (an SFP+ only port will not work)
   • Note that most devices do not clearly mark on their outside which port supports what kind of speeds, so here is a small list (none of the documentation comes from text only searches on mikrotik.com or routerboard.com):
     

     Brand	Model	Left fiber port name	Right fiber port name	Left fiber port compatibility	Right fiber port compatibility	Documented at	Pictures
     MikroTik	CCR1009	sfp-sfpplus1	sfp1	SFP/SFP+	SFP only	Sort of documented: CCR1009_8G_1S_1SplusPC.pdf CCR1009-8G-1S-1SplusPC-151223131816.pdf CCR1009-8G-1S-1SplusPC-150202094150.pdf 1x SFP cage, 1x SFP+ cage, DDMI support	Desktop
     MikroTik	CCR226	sfp-sfpplus1	sfpplus2	SFP/SFP+	SFP+ only	CRS226_24G_2S_IN-140319094424.pdf CRS226-24G-2SplusRM-140617162338.pdf CRS226-140404140432.pdf CRS226-160209081925.pdf Two 10G Ethernet SFP+ cages (Mini-GBIC; SFP module not included), DDMI support. First port supports 1.25G/10G modules, second port only 10G modules.	Desktop Rackmount

2. 

   Turn of “Auto negotioation” and switch manually to “1Gbps” and “Full duplex” to get SFP to work in a combined SFP/SFP+ port

   Set at least one site to [WayBack] SFP module on SFP+ port on CCR1009 does not work – MikroTik RouterOS

–jeroen