Ports and uplinks

A switch's ports fall into two roles, and the transceiver you fit depends on the role.

Access vs uplink

• Access ports connect end devices — often copper RJ45, or SFP for fibre to the edge.
• Uplink ports carry aggregated traffic to the next switch — higher speed, usually

SFP+, SFP28, QSFP+ or QSFP28.

A common pattern is a switch with many 1G/10G access ports and a few 40G/100G QSFP uplinks.

Breakout

A high-speed port built from several lanes can be broken out into independent lower-speed links — for example one 100G QSFP28 into 4×25G, or 40G into 4×10G — using a breakout cable or fan-out optics. The form factor and lane count decide what breakout is possible.

Stacking

Some switches join into a stack managed as one unit, sometimes over dedicated stack optics or standard uplinks.

Whatever the role, each fibre port reads its module's memory. Confirming a module's speed and identity with CodingBox before install avoids a port that silently stays down.