In late 2011 blogger Howard Marks brought to light the fact that some 10G switches function properly only with proprietary cabling attached to them—typically the switch manufacturer’s own branded cabling. That can be viewed as a pretty dirty trick. Even trickier was Cisco’s response to Marks when he asked about the situation. He quoted a Cisco spokesperson as saying, “We have a very straightforward view on cables – we’re against them! We believe data centers should deploy as few cables as possible.”
