Gigabit interface converter (GBIC) is a standard for

transceiver In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. The ...

s. First defined in 1995, it was used with

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use in ...

and

Fibre Channel Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to Server (computing), servers in storage area networks (SAN) in ...

. By standardizing on a

hot swap Hot swapping is the replacement or addition of components to a computer system without stopping, shutting down, or rebooting the system. Hot plugging describes only the addition of components to a running computer system. Components which ha ...

pable electrical interface, a single gigabit port can support a wide range of physical media, from copper to long-wave

single-mode optical fiber In fiber-optic communication, a single-mode optical fiber, also known as fundamental- or mono-mode, is an optical fiber designed to carry only a single mode (electromagnetism), mode of light - the transverse mode. Modes are the possible solutio ...

, at lengths of hundreds of kilometers. The

small form-factor pluggable transceiver Small Form-factor Pluggable connected to a pair of fiber-optic cables Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) is a compact, hot-pluggable network interface module format used for both telecommunication and data communications applications. An SFP ...

(SFP), also known as mini-GBIC, succeeds GBIC. Announced in 2001, it obsoleted GBIC.

Appeal

Flexibility is the benefit of hot-swappable transceivers like the GBIC standard as opposed to fixed physical interface configurations. Where optical technologies are mixed, an administrator can just-in-time purchase GBICs of the specific type for each link. This flexibility lowers fixed costs. However, if one port type such as copper predominates, a switch with built-in ports is cheaper and space efficient.

Standards

The GBIC standard is openly defined by the

Small Form Factor Committee The Small Form Factor Committee (SFF) is an ''ad hoc'' electronics industry group formed to quickly develop interoperability specifications (as a complement to the traditional standards process). The SFF Committee was formed in 1990 to define the ...

in document number 8053i. The first publication was in November 1995. A few corrections and additions were made through September 2000. Robert Snively of Brocade Communications was the technical editor. The original contributors were AMP Incorporated, Compaq Computers,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

, and Vixel Corporation.

References

{{Ethernet Hot-swappable transceiver