100G AOC Helps German Online Education Platform Build an Intelligent Computing Storage Network

Customer Background

As Germany’s leading online education platform, the customer is committed to building an efficient, stable, and scalable AI computing cluster to support its growing needs for educational content generation, intelligent recommendations, and large-scale data analysis. In 2024, the customer signed a framework agreement for the construction of AI intelligent computing infrastructure with a world-renowned network equipment supplier.

In this project, InfiniBand networks are used for high-speed interconnection within high-performance computing (HPC) clusters, while storage, management and office networks use the network provider’s products.

Customer Challenge

In the early stages of the project, the customer faced the following two core pain points:

• Limited brand compatibility: 100G AOC (active optical cable) from brand manufacturers can only meet the compatibility requirements of a single brand, resulting in limited deployment flexibility and increased procurement and operation and maintenance complexity.
• Length configuration is inflexible: The optional lengths of 100G AOC provided by brand manufacturers only have 1m, 2m, 3m, 50m and other options, and there is a lack of intermediate length options between 3m and 50m. This leads to the fact that in actual deployment, links above 3m must use 50m specifications, which not only causes cost waste, but also increases wiring difficulty and space occupation.

LSOLINK Solution

With its high performance, high compatibility and highly customized 100G AOC products, LSOLINK provides customers with comprehensive cable connection solutions, successfully solves the above pain points and helps them complete the efficient deployment of AI intelligent computing clusters.

Product: LSOLINK 100G AOC high speed active optical cable
Rate support: 100G~112Gbps
Form factor: QSFP28 to QSFP28
Working temperature: 0~70°C (commercial grade) / -40~85°C (industrial grade)
Wavelength: 850nm
Function support: CDR, DDM
Protocol: 100G Ethernet, InfiniBand EDR, OTU4
Bit error rate: 1E-12 (100 meters, no FEC)
MTBF: ≈520 million hours
Power consumption: <3.5W
Supply voltage: 3.3V
Compatible brands: Cisco, Mellanox(NVIDIA), Arista, Juniper, Dell, Huawei, H3C, HPE, Extreme, Brocade, Fortinet, NOKIA, Ciena and so on.

Product Advantages

Dual-brand compatible design: LSOLINK 100G AOC supports seamless compatibility between Mellanox and Dell switches/network cards, meeting customers’ mixed-brand deployment needs and reducing procurement and maintenance costs.

Flexible length customization: Provides any length customization between 1m and 100m, filling the gap between 3m and 50m, improving deployment efficiency and space utilization.

High performance and stability: It has low power consumption, low electromagnetic interference, and good heat dissipation capabilities, and is suitable for high-density and high-frequency computing scenarios.

Strict quality assurance: Through the LSOLINK quadruple quality firewall system, 100% compatibility is ensured, eliminating after-sales worries.

Applicable to a variety of protocols and scenarios: Compatible with mainstream network protocols, adaptable to various application scenarios such as data centers, HPC, cloud computing, and AI training.

Project Deployment Details

Based on the actual distance between the customer’s on-site switch and the server cabinet, LSOLINK has customized the following deployment plan:

A total of 1,036 100G AOCs have been deployed, fully covering the interconnection needs of storage, management, and office networks in customers’ AI intelligent computing clusters.

Results and Customer Feedback

Through the deployment of LSOLINK 100G AOC solution, the customer successfully achieved the following key goals:

• Achieve seamless connection between Mellanox and Dell brand equipment, improving network deployment flexibility;
• Significantly reduce cable redundancy and wiring complexity, and optimize computer room space utilization;
• Reduce procurement and operation and maintenance costs, and improve the cost performance of the overall project;
• Ensures the efficiency and stability of AI training and data transmission, supporting continued business expansion;

Customer technical leader Tim said: “LSOLINK’s 100G AOC not only solved our problems in compatibility and length configuration, but also provided excellent performance and stable performance. We are very satisfied with the cooperation process and the final results.”

Conclusion

As AI and high-performance computing become increasingly popular, flexible, compatible, and high-performance network connection solutions have become a key support for enterprise digital transformation. LSOLINK relies on its deep accumulation in the field of high-speed interconnection and provides customized, high-reliability 100G AOC solutions based on customer needs. It not only helps customers achieve technical goals, but also provides a replicable successful example for global data center construction.