{"id":101786,"date":"2026-11-11T11:16:37","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T11:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/optics.carritech.com\/?p=101786"},"modified":"2026-11-11T12:43:57","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T12:43:57","slug":"brocade-broadcom-compatible-optics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/optics.carritech.com\/it\/brocade-broadcom-compatible-optics\/","title":{"rendered":"Brocade compatible optics: the part numbers that now belong to three companies"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Brocade part number in a rack today can belong to any of three different companies. The XBR-<\/strong> e 57-<\/strong> codings on a SAN director went to Broadcom. The E-series<\/strong> e XBR-<\/strong> Ethernet codings on a data centre switch went to Extreme Networks. The LP32-<\/strong> optics on a host bus adapter arrived with Emulex, which Broadcom had already bought two years earlier. Three support organisations, one shelf of modules, and nothing on the module label to tell you which is which. Buying Brocade compatible optics starts with working out which of the three you are dealing with.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

That is what makes this range awkward to buy for, and it is why this guide exists. It covers what each Brocade and Broadcom part-number family means, which cage takes which speed, the four things that reliably go wrong — including one mapping in our own catalogue that we want you to check with us before you order — and the 107 Brocade and Broadcom coded optics Carritech holds<\/strong>, listed by speed from 155 Mbit\/s to 400 Gigabit.<\/p>\n\n\n

One number frames the rest: 33 of those 107 parts are Fibre Channel<\/strong>, split 14 at 16G and 19 at 32G. Brocade was the dominant name in storage networking for twenty years, and in optics terms that is still what the brand mostly is. If you are buying Brocade-coded modules, the odds are you are buying for a SAN, where the rules are not Ethernet’s.<\/p>\n\n\n

The part-number families, and what each one tells you<\/h2>\n\n\n

None of these strings describes the optical interface. What the prefix tells you is which catalogue the part was created in<\/strong>, which in turn tells you which company supports the hardware it goes into and which support matrix is worth searching.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\n
Family<\/th>Example<\/th>Origin<\/th>What to do with it<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>\n
XBR-000nnn<\/strong><\/td>XBR-000212<\/a><\/td>Brocade SAN<\/td>Six-digit SAN optic codings. The largest single family. Now Broadcom’s.<\/td><\/tr>\n
57-nnnnnnn-nn<\/strong><\/td>57-1000332-01<\/a><\/td>Brocade manufacturing<\/td>Appears on labels and in some inventory exports. Often the same optic as an XBR- number.<\/td><\/tr>\n
LP32-<\/strong><\/td>LP32-LW-OPT-1<\/a><\/td>Emulex, now Broadcom<\/td>LightPulse host bus adapter optics. Ordered against an HBA, not a switch.<\/td><\/tr>\n
E-series<\/strong> (E1MG, E25G, E40G, E100G)<\/td>E100G-QSFP28-SR4<\/a><\/td>Brocade IP networking, now Extreme<\/td>Descriptive: speed, form factor, port type. The readable family.<\/td><\/tr>\n
Bare descriptive<\/strong> (10G-SFPP-, 40G-QSFP-, 100G-QSFP28-)<\/td>10G-SFPP-LR<\/a><\/td>Brocade IP networking<\/td>Same scheme without the E prefix. Older campus and data centre codings.<\/td><\/tr>\n
AFCT-<\/strong><\/td>AFCT-91DRDDZ<\/a><\/td>Avago, now Broadcom<\/td>Component-level optics codings from the Avago line.<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n

The readable families are worth dwelling on, because Brocade did something unusual and useful: it named its Ethernet optics after what they are. E100G-QSFP28-LR4-10KM<\/a> carries speed, form factor, port type and reach in one string. E40G-QSFP-SR-BIDI<\/a> tells you it is a bidirectional short-reach 40G part before you have opened a data sheet. Compare that with the SAN side, where XBR-000478<\/a> e XBR-000412<\/a> are a 32G long-wave and a 32G short-wave module respectively and the numbers are four apart. Within one vendor you have both the best and the worst naming conventions in the industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

The 2017 split, and why it still matters when you order<\/h2>\n\n\n

You do not need the corporate history to buy an optic. You do need it to understand why one estate holds four unrelated codings for the same 10 Gigabit interface, and why searching a single vendor’s support site for a Brocade part number so often returns nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n