Tracing the development of MSA organization since GBIC MSA specifications were defined, MSA process has helped accelerate the acceptance of modules such as SFP+, CFP and QSFP-DD transceivers over the past two decades, allowing optical transceivers to support greater bandwidth of 400G. Some approved fiber optic transceiver multi-source agreements are listed in the table below.
| Name | Brief Description | Applications |
| GBIC | Gigabit Interface Converter | Designed for Gigabit Ethernet, SDH/SONET (2.5Gb/s) and Fibre Channel (4Gb/s); Superseded by SFP |
| SFP | Small Form-factor Pluggable | Designed for Gigabit Ethernet, SDH/SONET (2.5Gb/s) and Fibre Channel (4Gb/s) |
| XENPAK | Fiber Optic Transceiver for 10Gb Ethernet | Superseded by X2 and SFP+ |
| X2 | Fiber Optic Transceiver for 10Gb Ethernet | Superseded by SFP+ |
| XFP | 10 Gigabit Small Form Factor Pluggable | Designed for 10G. Supports 8Gb/s Fibre Channel, 10Gb/s Ethernet and Optical Transport Network |
| CSFP | Compact small form-factor pluggable | A version of SFP supporting 1.25G Ethernet/SDH/SONET/Fiber Channel |
| SFP+ | Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus | Designed for 10 Gb/s. Supports 8Gb/s Fibre Channel, 10Gb/s Ethernet and Optical Transport Network standard OTU2 |
| QSFP/QSFP+ | Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable 40G | Supports Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand and SONET/SDH standards up to 40GB/s and 100Gb/s |
| CDFP | 400 Form-Factor Pluggable | Supports 400Gb/s (16 × 25G) |
| Micro QSFP | Micro Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable | Designed for 100G Ethernet, expected for 200G applications |
| CFP | C Form-Factor Pluggable (100G) | Optical transceiver form factors supporting 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s; Define CFP, CFP2 for 10G, 40G, 100G and 400G CFP4 for 40G and 100G, and CFP8 for 400G |
| SFP28 | Small Form-Factor Pluggable 28 | The third generation of SFP interconnect systems, designed for 25G applications |
| QSFP28 | Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable 28 | Designed for 100G |
| QSFP-DD | Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable Double Density | Supports 400Gb/s (8 × 50G) |
| OSFP | Octal Small Form Factor Pluggable | Support 400Gb/s (8 × 50G) |
