Cabling product standards and trends

In the early stage of operation, managers generally stick to the luck of "connecting" and do not pay much attention to the cabling of the data center. As a result, network connection errors are frequently caused, which may also affect energy consumption and heat dissipation, they still don't know why.

With the release of the network transmission standard 10 Gbit/s-T for 100-meter channel transmission. Internationally recognized Cabling Standards have defined the next generation of six types of cables. The TIA/EIA 568C standard in North America defines them as 6A type cables, which are what we call enhanced 6 categories; the European iso iec 11801 standard defines 6A cables as Class EA levels. Because of the high cost of 7 and 7 types of cables, there are not many countries currently using them.

At present, many data centers still use cabling systems that combine over five copper cables and 62.5/125 micron OM1 multimode optical cables. The standard North American Data Center TIA-942A, to be released, sets the minimum category of copper cables for Data Center cabling systems to Category 6, which is 10-Gigabit multimode OM3, OM4, or single-mode.

Speaking of optical fiber, as a new generation of cabling products, it is faster and less subject to external interference. But can optical fiber become the inevitable trend of next-generation cabling and replace copper cables? Xu Nan believes that although optical fiber is more advantageous in terms of speed and security, it will complement copper cabling systems in terms of future development trends. This is based on the following considerations:

1. Deploy all optical fiber systems. The overall network cost is much higher than that of copper cables.

2. the energy consumption of the optical fiber interface active device is high. It is recommended that optical copper be combined.

3. The speed of the copper cabling system can meet 10 Gigabit requirements

4. Security issues can be achieved through the shielded twisted pair Cable System

5. Currently, the popular PoE technology cannot be directly applied to optical fiber as the twisted pair copper cable

Data center cabling cannot be ignored

Cabling systems are an important part of the data center infrastructure and link to various key facilities. However, there is a lack of attention to cabling products. We often see that the cabling in the data center is messy. What is the cause of this phenomenon?

The first reason is that the cabling system only accounts for 10% of the total network cost and does not pay enough attention to it. The second reason is that the initial design of the cabling system did not consider the movement, increase, and change brought about by the rapid development of the network, as a result, the original cabling structure service does not adapt to changes in key facilities, resulting in cross-connection and disorderly connection.

However, when people find that network problems are largely attributed to the Integrated Wiring of the physical layer, they will realize that the cabling of the data center cannot only meet the connectivity requirements, the disordered cable management leads to disordered cabling in the data center, seriously affecting the network of the data center. As a result, more and more users understand that data center cabling is not "accessible", and products should have the following features:

1. Supports high-speed transmission performance to meet current and future needs

2. High Density, modularization, and pre-connection

3. Intelligent Management and remote monitoring

4. optimized cable management

With the increasing awareness of data center cabling, the demand for the cabling market also increases. At present, we can see more than 20 cabling brands in China, and AMAP and are the most popular brands in the market.

Xu Nan said that the current manufacturers of major brands all have anti-counterfeiting measures, and as people pay attention to wiring, fake goods will be rejected by users due to their poor quality, and six or more types of wiring products are gradually popularized. For counterfeits, due to insufficient technical capabilities and reduced profits, therefore, it involves less. Therefore, fake goods will not become a stumbling block to the development of the Chinese cabling market.

As an important part of the data center infrastructure, Integrated Wiring is receiving due attention because the cost is not equal to the importance level. If you do not care about the 10% network cost, i'm afraid it will cause 70% network errors. The TechTarget data center will continue to pay attention to cabling issues.