How to Create More Capacity in Data Center

With the ever-increasing demand for more computing power and data center servers, data center manager have the responsibility to chart a data center capacity plan and determine what strategy will accommodate business needs best. Of course, they could just expand to large facilities (upgrading to the advanced switch and fiber enclosures). However, not all IT budgets are increasing, and many users just cannot afford the extra money. Therefore, people are turning to high-density and cost-effective infrastructures. To support these applications, this article will introduce a broad selection of high-density connectivity and high capacity cable management devices.

• High-Density Patch Panels

High-Density (HD) fiber patch panel solution is the most convenient approach for solving the problem of limited capacity in a data center environment. And it provides a flexible way to connect devices of different generations of equipment quickly and easily. HD patch panels consist of a panel enclosure and modular HD cassettes, which can connect a fiber network feed (via multi-strand or MTP cable) and segment it into standard LC connections in order to interface with 10Gbps devices. The following image shows a fiber adapter panel with 12 LC duplex single-mode adapters.

HD fiber patch panels feature the following advantages:
Flexibility: They can connect different generations of equipment such as 10Gb, 40Gb, 100Gb in a simple panel-cassette system with different connector types.

Ease of Installation: No tools are required to install the cassette in the panel enclosure. Each cassette features factory terminated connectors that reduce the time and labor required of field connector terminations.

Cost-Effectiveness: High-density and ease of installation provide a low initial investment cost. Flexibility, adjustability and reliability provide a high ROI. What’s more, network reconfiguration is highly adjustable due to the modular cassette system.

• High-Density Patch Cords

As cabling density increases along with the deployment of higher network speeds, HD patch cords deliver a robust design to withstand the rigorous of daily use. Cables that can offer a smaller overall diameter improve cable management by installing in dense patch cord trays that take up less space. They also provide better airflow to maintain consistent operating temperatures, reducing the likelihood of failure or downtime.

Finger access to each patch cable, furthermore hinder the cable management and makes the cable installation become more difficult. To ensure easy access, high-density patch cords are easy to remove through the use of a flexible pull-tab fiber optic cable just as seen in the above picture. This cable type has the same component and internal structure as the traditional patch cords (e.g.SC FC patch cord), except the a tab attached to the connector, which makes it easy for cable management. These tabs can help increase cabling density and maintain reliability, preventing you from accidentally loosening surrounding connectors as you access the patch cord you need.

MPO/MTP trunk cable is the another example of the HD patch cords. These cables are the foundation of easier, faster and better pre-terminated fiber connectivity solutions, as it allows tighter trunk cable bends for slack storage and routing. With the high-density trunks in your data center solution, less space is consumed and installation is easier.

• High-Density Fiber Enclosures

Fiber enclosure makes full used of the spaces in data center by combining most of the fiber optic connections in strong standards modules, providing solid protection of data center links and increasing cabling density. Therefore, data center managers can get easy access to fiber connections and easy cable management. Accordingly, the cost for data center installation and maintenance can be effectively reduced.

Fiber enclosures are usually available in 1U, 2U, 3U, 4U. The 1U rack mount fiber enclosure is the most commonly used one on the market. Now 4U or larger rack mount fiber enclosures are also becoming popular driven by the increasing of fiber counts in data center. Except standards rack mount fiber enclosures, a lot of data centers or server rooms use customized fiber enclosures for their special requirements.

FS.COM FHD Series rack mount fiber enclosures are available in 1RU, 2RU and 4RU rack unit options. With optional FHD cassette modules or adapter panels in single-mode, multimode, or 10G multimode versions, users can install, maintain, and upgrade their cabling systems in a more flexible and cost-effective way. In addition to rack mount solution, our FHD series products also support wall mount type which can meet the cabling demands on fiber industrial environments.

Conclusion

High-density optic solutions enable data center operators to maximize the amount of active equipment and cables in a data center by minimizing the foot print of the networking infrastructure. Besides the above HD optical products, there are also a range of HD products including the high speed interconnect optics, cable assemblies, cable management hardware. If you want to know more about the HD products from FS.COM, please have a look at our website.

Some Basics About Migration to 40G Ethernet

Fiber optic links are vital for providing the bandwidth and speed needed to transmit huge amounts of data to and from a large number of sources. Recently more bandwidth is greatly needed to support the use of virtualization and improved space utilization in the data center. 2010 witnessed the ratification of 40 and 100 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) standard, since then leading switch manufacturers offered 40 GbE blades and more than 25% of data centers have implemented these next generation speeds. It is anticipated that by the end of this year, more and more data centers will follow suit. Therefore today’s article will provide an effective solution to help you migrate from current data center applications to 40/100 GbE.

10G OM3/OM4 Connectivity in the Data Center

The IEEE 802.3ae 10G standard released in 2002 included 10GBASE-SR OM3 guidance that can operate at 850nm with duplex fiber serial transmission. Even though duplex fiber implied duplex LC connectivity throughout the channel, 12F MPO terminated cables emerged as a primary choice for deployment in data-center backbone applications. The 12F MPO terminated trunk cable provided the highest fiber packing density to maximize pathway and space utilization in ducts, raceways, and patch panels. For example, 46C3447 is IBM BNT 10GBASE-SR SFP+ that operates over OM3 cable for a distance of 300m with LC duplex connector. An MPO connectorized backbone cable typically is terminated in patch panels using one of two methods that break-out the 12F MPO to six 2F duplex LC (Figure 1).

Standards From 10GbE to 40/100GbE

Similar to how transportation highways are scaled to support increased traffic with multiple lanes at the same speed, the 40 and 100 GbE standards use parallel optics, or multiple lanes of fiber transmitting at the same speed. Running 40 GbE requires 8 fibers, with 4 fibers each transmitting at 10 Gbps and 4 fibers each receiving at 10 Gbps. Running 100 GbE requires a total of 20 fibers, with 10 transmitting at 10 Gbps and 10 receiving at 10 Gbps. Both scenarios call for using high-density multi-fiber MPO style connectors.

According to IEEE 802.3ba standard, multimode optical fiber supports both 40 and 100 GbE over link lengths up to 150 meters when using OM4 optical fiber and up to 100 meters when using OM3 optical fiber. It is important to note that single-mode fiber can also be used for running 40 and 100 GbE to much greater distances using wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) for most data center applications of less than 150 meters. Copper twinax cable is also capable of supporting 40 and 100 GbE but only to distances of 7 meters. Take EX-SFP-10GE-DAC-1M as an example, it is Juniper SFP+ passive copper cable, which is ideal for 10G interconnect application for a link length of 1m.

Migration From Duplex Fiber Transmission to 40/100G Parallel Optics

Based on a MPO system, migration from 10G to 40G to 100G seems to be a simple and easy deployment. Starting with a 10G configuration, a base 12F MPO backbone cable is deployed between the 10G switches. As discussed earlier, modules or harnesses are used at the end to transition from the 12F MPO to LC duplex. These breakout configurations enable connectivity into the switch.

And when the switches migrate to 40G, the 10G module or harness is removed and should be replaced by a conversion module or conversion harness as shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4. Alternatively, an MPO adapter panel can be used. In any of these deployment options, the use of an MPO terminated jumper is needed to establish connectivity between the switches. For 100GBASE-SR4 networks all Figures 4-6 cabling is applicable.

Conclusion

To keep up with the path of future, MPO-based connectivity using OM3 and OM4 is the ideal solution for the data center, which makes the transition to 40/100G more easier and efficient. Fiberstore offers various types of 40GbE transceivers, MPO/MTP trunk cable, MPO/MTP harness cable, MPO/MTP cassette and other assemblies for your 40G network connectivity. For more information about our products, please contact us directly.