cabling
the ‘next generation’ of data centre
infrastructure, into many.
The ‘next generation’ label
Before we go any further, I want to
take issue with the apparently idle
use of the term ‘next generation’.
One of the many skills data centre
professionals have had to hone over
the last 5-10 years is separating
the instructive from the nonsensical
whenever technology is talked about.
As this gets harder I’m sure I’m not
the only one who gets fatigued by the
use of ‘next generation’ to describe
new breakthroughs.
In the Star Trek TV series, ‘The
Next Generation’ is literally just that
– a completely new ship, crew and
capabilities working to much the same
objectives as the last. If someone
were to offer you the next generation
of personal transport, you’d expect
a driverless car or a jetpack, not the
same familiar family saloon with some
slightly remodelled bodywork.
To my mind something that’s
truly ‘next generation’ should
immediately compel you to buy it.
In its present usage, it’s a little too
clear cut to describe the rapidly
changing landscape of solutions and
technologies that enable you to evolve
your data centre evolution at your
own, often very fast, pace.
Standards, standards – my
kingdom for some standards
Whether you’d call their efforts ‘next
generation’ or not, the transceiver
manufacturers have certainly hit
a rich seam of innovation of late.
Each has plunged headlong into a
race to achieve the fastest possible
speeds, pursued by the insatiable
performance demands created by
the hunger for faster, higher scale,
cloud delivered services.
The idea of 10GE as some kind
of data centre bandwidth panacea
is now a distant memory. Analysts
at Dell’Oro predict 20 per cent of all
server port shipments will be 25GE
by 2018, with 40GE and 50GE ports
accounting for a further 18 per cent.
We’ve already seen the first 100GE
shipments over the last 12 months.
Higher server-switch links pass
their burden on to aggregated switchswitch links. So when you look at
40GE switch ports sales, you can see
these grew at twice the rate of 10GE
in 2015 – by Dell’Oro’s estimate –
and 100GE faster still. By 2018, with
100GE ports overtaking 40GE, the
next milestone will be in the industry’s
sights: 400GE.
You want choice, well now you’ve
got it. Take your pick from 10, 25,
40, 50, 100 and 400GE speeds –
all are here or soon to be on their
way. But for the poor unfortunates
who must integrate this technology
inside the data centre, the lack
of commonality is quite alarming.
Standards haven’t been able to
keep pace with the white heat of
innovation. The most logical migration
is anyone’s guess. On what basis
should data centre operators make
their choice of vendor?
safe in the knowledge that their
networking infrastructure won’t let
them down. Achieving that boils
down to deploying an infrastructure
that covers all eventualities, without
having any costly, time consuming or
disruptive upgrades.
Flexibility has never been more important
in data centre cabling.
Why 8 is the magic number
A new kind of
cabling flexibility
There’s so much choice for data
centre operators in terms of
applications or which technology
to adopt, it’s becoming less and
less clear which infrastructure will
support this. Flexibility has never
been more important in data centre
cabling. Not so much flexibility of
the ‘bend-it-round-your-finger’
variety, but flexibility in terms of
enabling data centre operators to
determine their transceiver strategy,
The overwhelming majority of data
centres have relied upon 2-fibre
serial standards (notably Base2) – to aggregate multiple fibres to
gain higher speeds. Applying this
technology makes use of LC duplex
connections, so that no infrastructure
upgrades are necessary. A lot
of innovation has focused on
continuing this pursuit of 2-fibre
solutions to achieve incrementally
better performance, reusing
installed bases of LC terminated
fibre cabling and connectors.
25