FOCUS on MODULARITY
MODULAR CABLING/DIRECTORY
“From a development point of view, cabling systems and their full design are not really considered at early design stage which is a big problem. Cabling should be considered early because of the way cabling is put in place. In relation to design, it is very important,” Wilkie says.
“With modular design, you have to be looking around at the pre-terminated options all of the time, you have to work out your requirements regarding lengths, if you are going to run with copper or fiber – this should all be thought out at an early stage.”
HOW CABLING BECAME MODULAR Tyco Electronics program manager for the EMEA region Luca Rozzoni says this issue of copper vs fiber is critical for the concept of modularity. “If we look at the data center today, this concept of modularity becomes very critical. Even if we look at storage or server technology, modularity
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really translates into consolidation, and that is a big cost constraint on the physical infrastructure,” Rozzoni says.
“So from a physical infrastructure standpoint, providing the availability to support these new trends and also modern applications, such as live video streaming and on-demand as well as communications in general, which require low latency, can really put a system like fiber and copper in a very critical position.”
Rozzini says modularity, from a cabling standpoint, means being architecture agnostic. Cabling must meet all architecture requirements to be truly modular in its design, so it can scale out with the data center.
“We talk about end of row, middle of row and top of rack and so on, but the ability of infrastructure has to be such that no matter what type of architecture is or will
be implemented, the physical layer has to support it and provide that ability to change, migrate and evolve from one to another,” Rozzini says.
Furthermore, modular cabling must be able to work with the speed of rollouts. Members of the cabling market, from Tyco, Nexans and ADCKrone and most other major cabling players are now moving towards pre-terminated cables, which can easily plug and play into ports, providing two or three connections, or 6-8 with one single link. Preterminated cabling changes the speed of installation, following the ethos of modularity surrounding simplicity.
As Rozzini says when it comes to cabling for modularity, the investment must focus on products that you know you can rely on in the short term and over the next 10-15 years. “Physical infrastructure with modularity can change in no time, that is the key element.”
APC by Schneider Electric provides protection against some of the leading causes of downtime, data loss and hardware damage: power problems and temperature. It is a global leader in network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI) solutions.
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With a 50-plus year history of leadership, Tyco Electronics is a US$10.3 bn global provider of engineered electronic components for thousands of consumer and industrial products; network solutions and systems for telecommunications and energy markets; undersea telecommunication systems; and specialty products.
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With energy as the basis of its development, Nexans is a global player in the infrastructure, industry, building and Local Area Network (LAN) markets. As a worldwide leader in the cable industry, it offers an extensive range of cables and cabling systems to raise industrial productivity, improve business performance, enhance security, enrich the quality of life, and assure long-term network reliability.
www.nexans.co.uk
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www.datacenterdynamics.com
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