Key Findings
The Open Compute Project (OCP) has approved two new contributions aimed at enhancing telemetry for optical transceivers. Developed by the Optics Reliability Workstream—led by Chris Collins of Credo and Steve Manley of Oracle—these specifications provide an open, interoperable standard for optical transceivers and hosts to coordinate out-of-band communication.
Technical Details
The approved specifications consist of two primary components:
- Enhanced Telemetry Optics Product Software Specification: This allows transceivers and hosts to share Layer 1 (L1) telemetry, calculate a common link-health metric, and log significant link events. It supports configurable, automated responses designed to prevent, localize, and remediate link flaps.
- Transparent Remote Optical Transceiver Messaging with ePPS Design Specification: This defines the standard for optical DSPs to coordinate out-of-band communication across a live link without affecting traffic, serving as a critical component of the Enhanced Telemetry specification.
Background & Context
The Optics Reliability Workstream was established within OCP’s Networking Project in January 2026. The effort utilized Credo’s ZeroFlap host specification as its technical foundation and incorporated input from the broader OCP Community to reach the final specifications. The initiative addresses the challenges of scaling AI infrastructure to clusters containing hundreds of thousands of optical links, where brief disruptions can stall training runs and degrade cluster returns.
Significance & Outlook
By turning optical transceivers into intelligent diagnostic endpoints, these standards provide operators with the visibility needed to address link flaps in environments where direct access is limited and disruption costs are high. James Kelly of the OCP Foundation noted that the true impact of these specifications will depend on ecosystem adoption. Further information is available via the OCP Academy’s Optical Connectivity and Reliability for AI Infrastructure learning plan and the OCP Networking/OpticsReliability documentation.
Source: https://www.aol.com/articles/credo-oracle-advance-optical-transceiver-140000000.html
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