As a programmer, I don't even know what we're looking at. A switch, I would guess, but I haven't seen hardware in years. In any case wouldn't "port 21 <bottom|top>" been better?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (1 children)

In the bottom picture it looks like the top "port" is just an air intake.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I had never seen a connector that looks anything like that, but I figured I was just behind the times (since it didn't look like Ethernet plugged into it to me)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Its not new tech but you'd most likely only see this in a datacenter or buildings with 10 Gb connections as this is fiber optic cabling. One would need an SFP to actually connect it to the port however. Also the tips of the fiber were probably scratched when installing it into the vent holes so the whole cable will probably be replaced and then fixed, so there are multiple failures here.

This is what an SFP looks like.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Thanks for explaining! I haven't set foot in a datacenter since probably 2008ish, heh.