FEATURED TECHNOLOGY: SPONSORED CONTENT
À LA MODE
Keely Portway takes a look at the future for multimode fibre and the opportunities it presents to the data centre market
THERE IS STILL A SIGNIFICANT FUTURE FOR VCSEL-BASED MULTIMODE LINKS AS A LOW-COST, LOW-POWER, HIGH DENSITY SOLUTION
M
ultimode fibre has long been the mainstay of data centre networks due to its ability to provide an economical system for high-speed
connections between servers, switches and storage. Multimode fibre is known for the host of
benefits it offers the data centre market – and beyond. For example, if it has a larger core size than single-mode fibre, it can guide multiple modes and more easily capture light from a transceiver. This means it can decrease alignment costs and, while the cost of multi-mode fibre itself is arguably higher, cost savings are made in the long run due to the lower cost connectivity, installation, lower power consumption and ongoing maintenance and usability. In today’s market, however, where higher
data rates are the holy grail – it is predicted when 5G is finally released, it will increase bandwidth twenty-fold – there have been discussions surrounding whether multimode fibre will be able to cope. These have included speculation as to whether the largest hyperscale data centres are expected to adopt only single-mode fibre going forward.
26 FiBRE SYSTEMS n Issue 26 n Winter 2020
Not so fast But should the industry be hasty in its rush to migrate? John Kamino, product manager, and Mabud Choudhury, standards manager at OFS Optics, do not necessarily think so. Kamino explained: ‘In general we’ve seen a lot of discussion about the direction that data centres are taking and people are asking whether there are any technological advantages remaining for multimode fibre. We believe that multimode technology continues to evolve and is able to support higher speeds. It’s still the most economic choice for many short reach applications in the data centre.’ Choudhury agreed: ‘The data centre
market is growing, particularly in the cloud space. With cloud computing there’s an assumption that, the largest providers are pushing the higher data rates and longer reach, and tending to use single mode. Some of those assumptions have valid points, but it is incorrect to say that all hyperscale cloud providers only use single-mode when many still use multimode. On-premises data centres, hybrid cloud implementations, multi- tenant data centres, and some of the largest
www.fibre-systems.com @fibresystemsmag
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40
