How to Apply multi-mode optical fiber connection in a data center (1)

When selecting a fiber optic cabling solution for a data center, whether in terms of policy selection or economic selection, if you can choose a solution with long service life, low construction costs, and low use costs, it will be the best result. An optical fiber system infrastructure can be used for at least 15 to 20 years, and will experience several generations of system equipment updates and at least two generations of data transmission rate growth.

Some parameters, such as signal delay, optical fiber bandwidth, connector type, mode noise, and connection performance, play an important role in determining the maximum annual usage of the optical fiber cable system; channel insertion loss is another important parameter that can affect the service life of optical products in the data center physical layer.

The TIA-942 standard defines a channel as an end-to-end transport path between two points where a specific application device is installed. The overall performance of the optical network depends on whether the performance of each channel meets the bit/error rate (BER) requirements specified by the transmission standard.

The maximum channel distance of a Multimode Optical Fiber depends on the bandwidth performance parameter and the maximum insertion loss budget of the allowed Channel. For example, for a 300 m 10GBase-SR link using an 850nm OM3 optical fiber, the maximum insertion loss allowed is 2.6 decibels. In this 2.6 decibels budget, 1.1 decibels are used for the inherent loss of the optical fiber itself, and the loss of optical fiber connections and/or connectors accounts for another 1.5 decibels.

The higher the data transmission rate, the stricter the channel insertion loss budget. In addition, each time the data transmission rate increases, the end-to-end transmission distance supported by multimode optical fiber is smaller and smaller. The channel insertion loss budget is getting increasingly strict and the channel distance supported by multimode optical fiber is getting shorter and shorter. When deploying a structured optical cabling network or a modular high-density MPO cabling solution, you should pay more attention to it.

Structured to achieve flexibility

Implementing a structured cabling system in a data center is very important for improving the efficiency and cycle of infrastructure cabling. A structured cabling solution, as recommended by TIA-942 standards, with its convenient device movement, addition, and MAC), optimizes the flexibility of the cabling system, to meet current and future network needs. 1.

: Structured Cabling solutions in data centers provide flexibility to meet current and future network needs

The primary distribution area (MDA) of the data center includes the primary crossover MC), which is the central wiring area of the data center structured cabling system. Backbone cabling is a star network extending from MC in the entire data center, especially to the HDA in the horizontal wiring area ). Similarly, horizontal cabling is installed from horizontal cross-connection in HDA to EDA in each device's wiring area using a star-type topology), or to the ZDA in the wiring area between HDA and EDA ).

A horizontal cross-join is not required. For example, data centers using fiber optics may implement centralization, rather than distributed electronic data networks. Centralized optical fiber cabling is one of the options for cross-connection in HAD to support some centralized electronic devices. Centralized optical cabling provides connections from data center EDA to centralized crossover by stretching optical cables, connector connections, or pigtails in HDA. When horizontal crossover is not used, the main crossover connection in the MDA is directly extended to ZDA or EDA.

Selecting a centralized fiber infrastructure may increase link distance, but may increase the number of connectors, which may lead to insertion loss for the entire channel. To meet future data rate requirements, you must consider the channel distance and insertion loss. However, in any case, before planning and constructing the fiber-optic infrastructure, we should carefully plan and fully consider it to reduce the possibility of network wiring maintenance and demolition.

For example, structured optical cabling has become an element for effective monitoring of the Storage Area Network SAN in the data center, even if a SAN has hundreds or even thousands of ports. However, implementing Structured Cabling alone may not solve problems in the data center. As more and more servers enter the storage area network, the limitations of traditional optical cabling solutions are exposed. In particular, the number of optical fibers required in a SAN is increasing from several hundred to thousands. Deploying newer, modular, and high-density cabling solutions in a structured cabling architecture is the best method, to meet the physical needs of data center manageability, scalability, and high reliability.