CABLING & CABLE MANAGEMENT FEATURE SPEED HOLDS THE KEY
As Corning Optical Communications explain, the huge growth in the volume of data, an explosion in the number of connected devices, plus the need to address IT requirements, has increased demand for more storage, processing power and network performance
A
high performance network that can respond rapidly to any demand
placed on it is imperative to any business today. However, because of this the demands on data centres have increased with the pressure to deliver the speed and scalability required. Therefore, new solutions are constantly
on the radar of data centre managers. For some it’s a case of always playing catch-up with their data centre infrastructure, while for others it’s dealing with the reality of quickly running out of space, capacity or power. When this happens the options available include upgrading facilities, building a new private data centre, or leasing co-location facilities. Regardless, fast and flexible provisioning has now become the prerogative. This means that the traditional, construction- based data centre model with its long lead times simply won’t be able to keep up. Wherever the applications are hosted and delivered, the data centre of today needs to be more efficient, scalable and able to respond quickly to changing business needs as well as being able to cut down on capital and operating costs.
TIEING IT ALL TOGETHER When it comes to the infrastructure inside the data centre, it is the physical cabling systems that tie together all the switches, servers, storage and other IT assets. The cabling infrastructure needs to stay well ahead of applications, networking, server and storage equipment upgrades, else it becomes a big obstacle to deployment. Given that businesses need to be very competitive and agile, the key questions that need to be asked are what can the cabling infrastructure do better? What does better look like? And, how can it improve data centre efficiency? Firstly, data centre project
implementations increasingly have to meet tight deadlines and a rapid time to operation. In these situations it is important for manufacturers to provide short lead times. The need for a high performing, reliable network is a must so data centre operators, owners and
Above: when it comes to the infrastructure inside the data centre, it is the physical cabling systems that tie together all the switches, servers, storage and other IT assets
managers should look for 100% factory tested cabling solutions, which provides consistent quality. Once the cabling hardware is delivered, a structured cabling solution needs to support the flexible provisioning of cabling trunks throughout the data centre. New cabling trunks should be able to be quickly added, interconnected and easily routed to the new IT equipment racks. Installation and configuration processes should also be made simple to avoid the need for different components, configurations or lengthier moves, adds and changes. Where fibre rich cabling
infrastructure is used, Universal Polarity wiring in the fibre optic modules and reversible adaptors can provide fully managed optical polarity of
the fibre links that helps reduce moves, adds and change costs by up to 25% versus tool oriented solutions. A high performance, reliable
cabling infrastructure must support a high availability profile,
not only during installation, but over time as it grows to support new
Above: every business today demands a high performance network that can quickly cope with any request placed on it. This has the knock on effect of placing the data centre under increased pressure to be able to deliver the speed and scalability required
capacity and applications. Over time, after many moves, adds and changes, data centre entropy builds-up, therefore, fibre patching frames, cable baskets and ducts become overcrowded leading to tight bends, pulled connectors and trapped cables which degrade optical link performance, or result in the loss of circuits. So, the use of low profile bend insensitive optical fibre cable is a must to beat entropy. Such cables exhibit up to a tenfold reduction in bend induced loss over conventional multi-mode fibre.
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INCREASING DEMANDS Virtualisation technologies applied to higher performance server and storage clusters provide increased capacity and computing efficiency, but also drive a migration to higher networking speeds within the data centre. Independent research suggests a 100% year on year growth for switches that enable 40G and 100G speeds, which will become the norm by 2017. The majority of spending in 2017 is predicted to come from systems offering 40G Ethernet for secondary network connections and 100G Ethernet for links within the data centre and the network backbone. Looking further down the line, the standard for 400G is being worked on. Therefore, any cabling infrastructure put in place today needs to be designed to support future applications and equipment deployment without disrupting data centre operation, let alone ‘rip and replace’. The growth in 40G and 100G
connectivity within the data centre means that the fibre density will also increase exponentially. Traditional fibre panels accommodate up to 96 fibres in 1U of rack space, so any increase in fibre would require far greater floor space. To mitigate any fibre fuelled explosion in rack space, structured cabling for 40G and 100G speeds needs to provide a much higher density of fibres per 1U. Finally, the deployment of a fibre rich cabling infrastructure also plays a significant role in contributing to the improved energy efficiency in the data centre. In summary, today’s data centres need to be more efficient, scalable and able to respond quickly to changing business needs. Data centres all rely on the physical cabling infrastructure to support connectivity and application access. Such infrastructure solutions need to be designed to support a need for speed. Once in place, the cabling infrastructure must accommodate rapid provisioning and efficient scalability for future data demands and the changing needs of businesses.
Corning Optical Communications
www.corning.com/opcomm T: 0800 2676 4641
Enter 212 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING | NOVEMBER 2014 23
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