Through initial days of my career when dealing with Fiber connections the local tech support guys used to mention GBIC,SFP, SC,LC,model numbers etc and i used to have a hard time understanding as Cisco courses doesn't stress much on this or i did not get in deeper.
The industry-standard Cisco Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) or Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) Gigabit Interface Converter is a hot-swappable input/output device that plugs into a Gigabit Ethernet port or slot, linking the port with the network. There are different models of GBIC's and SFP's which can intermixed in combinations of 1000BASE-T, 1000BASE-SX, 1000BASE-LX/LH, 1000BASE-ZX, or 1000BASE-CWDM interfaces on a port-by-port basis.
Now what is the difference between them?
After looking at couple of documents explaining GBIC's and SFP's, my understanding is the difference is only in size.GBIC's are larger and used to occupy more space and hence SFP came into existence.
Which one should be used? If your device supports GBIC, example 45XX you will have to go for a GBIC's and if your device supports SFP's like 3750's you will have to go for a SFP. These days all the latest devices would have SFP's normally.
Fiber connectors is one other important topic, Mostly SC and LC are the two types which are used in common. Depending on the device/GBIC's used a connector should be selected. There are scenario's where you will need a SC to LC cable. Example SC from 2960 and LC from 3550.
Here are few reference's for further reading, which also list most of the GBIC's and SFP's and compatibility matrix.The last link explains fiber connectors in detail.
Cisco Gigabit interface converter
Cisco SFP Modules
Compatabilty matrix
Fiber connectors
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