15 Dec
2025
15 Dec
'25
1:57 p.m.
On 15/12/2025 15:43, Mike Hammett via NANOG wrote:
*nods* Usually, I don't need lots of ports. Usually, just a few will do.
That's the annoying thing: they usually come with (and I'm exaggerating to avoid getting caught up in minutiae) two high-speed ports or 50, but rarely six, eight, or ten.
The reduced density is because they know most customers need tons of 10G and 100G, compared to tons of 400G. So the 400G real estate is optimized for 100G (and lower) breakout in a small(er) form factor, rather than native 400G scale. For that, they'll be pushing you to a chassis with a gazillion line cards they can sell beautiful licenses on. Mark.