Communication systems having pluggable optical modules

An apparatus comprising:

• a housing capable of being mounted in a rack, wherein the housing comprises a front panel;
• a vertically oriented switch card, comprising one or more vertically oriented application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) mounted on the vertically oriented switch card;
• a two-dimensional arrangement of plug ports, wherein each plug port is configured to receive a pluggable optical module perpendicular to the two-dimensional arrangement of plug ports and each plug port having a horizontal dimension and a vertical dimension, the horizontal dimension being greater than the vertical dimension;
• and
• a two-dimensional arrangement of channel intakes, wherein each channel intake is positioned adjacent to at least one of the plug ports of the two-dimensional arrangements of plug ports, each channel intake receives air and directs the received air through a respective channel that extends through the vertically oriented switch card towards an interior of the housing capable of being mounted in the rack,
• wherein the vertically oriented switch card is spaced at a first distance less than 12 inches from the front panel and the vertically oriented switch card is at a first angle relative to the front panel, the first angle is in a range from −60° to 60°.