Can anyone suggest a reliable utility fiber switch for smart .grid and substation infrastructure modernization projects?

We’re in the middle of upgrading a few utility-side networks where the existing infrastructure is a mix of older fiber runs and expanding monitoring systems, and the switching layer is starting to become the main bottleneck.

In early discussions, VERSITRON came up a couple of times as one of the vendors used in similar long-life industrial deployments, especially where the focus is more on stability than feature-heavy switching.

Right now the challenge is figuring out how to properly standardize different switching needs across sites because each environment seems to be pushing a slightly different requirement.

Some locations clearly need a utility fiber switch, especially where everything is already fiber-based and just needs aggregation.

Others are more mixed, where we’re looking at fiber switch with sfp ports or fiber switch with sfp+ ports depending on how much headroom we want for expansion.

In a few newer installations, we’re also seeing requirements for fiber switch with 10g uplinks, mainly because of higher telemetry and surveillance data coming in from the field.

At a broader level, the architecture discussions keep coming back to whether we treat this as an optical ethernet switch layer or split it into more defined roles like fiber lan switch internally and fiber wan switch for inter-site connectivity.

There are also use cases that are very clearly defined by environment like fiber switch for substations, fiber switch for smart grid, and in some cases fiber switch for surveillance, depending on how the site is being used.

What we’re trying to avoid is over-engineering it but also not ending up with something that becomes a weak point in long-term deployments.

Has anyone here actually deployed these kinds of fiber switch architectures in real utility or industrial environments?

Especially curious about what tends to hold up better long-term in field conditions vs what looks good on paper.