FEATURE: CABLING STANDARDS
How long should cabling
infrastructure last and how many
generations of equipment should
it support?
As mentioned, the standards state a
minimum of two iterations of technology
upgrade, therefore realistically the
minimum lifetime is around 10 years.
The 25 year warranty should be seen
as a guarantee that this will be possible.
NARENDER VASANDANI, RCDD,
TECHNICAL MANAGER MIDDLE
EAST AND INDIA AT SIEMON
As cabling dictates how fast a
network can operate, is there a
particular standard those installing
cabling infrastructure should look for
in terms of speed?
The Internet of Things and Big Data
have a significant impact on the
cabling infrastructure in data centres
as both are key drivers for increased
transmission speeds. 40 Gigabit
per second (Gb/s) and 100 Gb/s
speeds are now required to transmit,
process and store the vast amount
of data generated by the IoT and
the IEEE P802.3bs 200 Gb/s and 400
Gb/s Ethernet Task Force is nearing
finalisation on the specification of a new
generation of applications, which will
support 200 Gb/s and 400 Gb/s speeds.
www.intelligentcio.com
However, this minimum period of use will
probably increase when you consider that
10G over Copper is seen as a notional
ceiling and all future developments for
higher bandwidth is happening with
existing standards compliant fibre.
All major cable manufacturers
are required to make their cable
to minimal standard compliances
for each grade. How do these vary
Looking towards the future, the Ethernet
Alliance predicts in their Roadmap
that Terabit per second (Tb/s) Ethernet
transmission speeds will be required in
some environments by the year 2020!
To support these higher speeds, optical
fibre cabling is certainly best suited for
data centre switch-to-switch backbone
links to the core and to the storage area
network (SAN). However, the availability
of multiple fibre applications, standards
and technologies can pose a challenge
for data centre managers who need to
manage costs and ensure low latency,
high bandwidth connections and
scalability now and in the future.
For those looking to upgrade their
entire backbone data centre cabling,
the choice falls between multimode
or singlemode optical fibre cable
with multimode remaining the more
common choice for up to 100m links
due to lower cost for the required
active equipment. However, data
centre managers need to carefully
evaluate the capabilities of different
multimode systems (e.g. OM3 and
OM4) optical fibre cabling systems to
ensure support of current and future
topologies and requirements. Emerging
singlemode optical fibre applications
may be the better solution for those
looking to future proof for 400 Gb/s.
For example, the nearly-finalised IEEE
P802.3bs standard will include an
implementation to cost-effectively
support 400 Gb/s over singlemode
optical fibre cabling to 500 metres
(400GBASE DR4).
How can those looking to install new
cabling infrastructure ensure their
cabling meets future standards?
between the grades currently
being installed?
Most manufacturers have strict Quality
Assurance procedures during production
to ensure compliance with the standard.
Excel Networking’s third party verification
certificates ensure that our product does
not vary beyond the acceptable tolerance
limits as stated within the standards;
there is no major variance from these.
With data centres swiftly moving towards
40 Gb/s, 100 Gb/s and beyond, new
8-fibre MPO/MTP solutions provide the
most effective support of next generation
optical fibre applications. The most
commonly deployed high speed optical
fibre applications include 40GBASE-SR4
and 100 Gigabit 100GBASE-SR4, which
are based on 8 optical fibres with 4 fibres
transmitting and 4 fibres receiving at
either 10 Gb/s or 25 Gb/s.
For data centres that are looking to
migrate to higher speeds but already
have traditional 12-fibre MPO/MTP
solutions installed, the use of conversion
cords or modules provides the most
cost effective option. These cords and
modules transition two 12-fibre MTPs
to three 8-fibre MTPs for connecting to
40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s equipment and
enable 100% utilisation of the available
optical fibres. However, any new plug
and play fibre deployments will greatly
benefit from an 8-fibre MPO/MTP
solution. Using 8-fibre MTP backbone
cabling and 8-fibre MTP jumpers for
40/100 Gb/s equipment connections
achieves 100% fibre utilisation without
the need for costly, complex conversion
cords or modules.
What and why is the recommended
category of cabling required to meet
modern standards?
At the data centre ‘edge’ where
server to switch connections are
made, category 8 cabling is certainly
a recommended solution. Connection
speeds in this part of the data centre
continue to migrate beyond 10 Gb/s
and category 8 cabling was developed
in response to the need for Ethernet
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