Introduction to the smart wiring management structure and application prospects (1)

What is the background of the emergence of the smart cabling system? What is the current development stage? How much space is there? It is necessary to introduce these issues in the smart cabling system that has just attracted users' attention.

"The main reason why smart cabling systems began to emerge in the 1980s S was that network administrators were struggling to manually record cabling link information, they also want to monitor the cabling system in real time. In addition, due to the user's increase and movement, the wiring change occurs during the use of the cabling system, which causes many errors frequently in the information of the manually recorded cabling system, resulting in many management problems. In this context, a smart wiring system with real-time management of the jumper of the distribution frame came into being ." Shen Lilong, marketing manager of Simon Asia Pacific, introduced the birth of the smart wiring system.

Obviously, the smart cabling system is designed to replace the inconvenience and error of manual management, and to facilitate the change of jumper. As a matter of fact, although it was born early, the real development is still a matter of recent years, and it is more recent to be accepted by users. Ye chunhui, manager of Molex enterprise cabling Department Greater China, said, "real-time cabling systems can simplify the process of moving, adding, and modifying MAC by using work orders generated by computers. The Network Ports supported by the smart cabling system in the network connection or communication room can monitor the progress of these work orders in different regions. The network administrator can determine the sequence of movement, addition, and modification, as this is closely related to the physical layout of the active and passive devices. Technical staff can get real-time feedback, precisely understand the implementation of the connection and plug-in, and check whether all connections are correct and functions are normal ."

It can be seen that the smart cabling system has a huge potential for development because it can solve application problems. As Shen Lilong said, the development of the smart cabling system has gone through the following stages: first, it is only for the Management System of the distribution frame to facilitate the Jumper and document recording; the second is to manage the entire cabling link. At this time, the management software can manage each link from the network device port and the work zone port; currently, the smart cabling system that manages network assets is ready for use. This system can include network devices connected to the cabling system and terminal devices in the work zone. The future development direction will be to fully improve the asset management function, so that the smart wiring system can become an important part of the entire network Asset Management.

What value can a smart cabling system bring to users? Do I still need the network management software?

The smart cabling system is the latest development of structured cabling documents and management systems, and its value is unique. Because traditional Cabling Management mainly involves writing records, workbooks, database management software, and other methods, one of the main disadvantages of these methods is that the workload of management personnel is huge, all data updates must be manually performed by the Administrator. In many cases, because the network administrator fails to update data in a timely manner, the data in the management database becomes invalid. Therefore, the administrator needs to spend a lot of time and energy updating records, which makes it difficult for the work. However, these methods cannot view the network connection status in real time. Similarly, although the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) allows you to view network traffic in real time, the network administrator can view the complete physical connection between communications only through the smart cabling system because it is physical layer management, it is also provided in real time. In other words, because the wiring system is at the bottom layer of the information system, and the wiring equipment does not have the smart communication function, traditional network management software cannot directly manage the devices at this level, this is the fundamental difference between the smart cabling system and the network management software and its value.

"Timely and automated Physical Layer Management is a rapidly growing market. The user's awareness of the need for integrated network management solutions is being strengthened. The smart wiring system can reduce the ever-changing network management pressure and minimize the network interruption time. This means that it will cause more network connection time and less cabling problems for network administrators. Network Management Application Integration and physical layer management capabilities on the SNMP platform provide network administrators with a wider view and control over the entire network ." Xu xianghong, Chinese technical director of the company, introduced the value that smart cabling systems bring to users.

Indeed, as enterprise cabling facilities become increasingly complex, management of cabling systems becomes time-consuming and laborious. Smart cabling systems can reduce the interruption time, achieve intelligent maintenance, and avoid Manual Document compilation, this frees network administrators from time-consuming and prone to human errors, greatly saving the management cost of information technology infrastructure. This is the greatest value of a smart cabling system. Ye chunhui also talked about the "additional value" of the smart wiring system from another perspective, which is both realistic and interesting. "Because cameras can be integrated, users do not have to worry about unauthorized movement, addition, and modification. By adding an optional event recognition function, you can implement many alarms. The system can also send detailed information related to any illegal changes via E-mail. In addition, the real-time cabling system can help protect against theft. It can take photos of people who are stealing between communication rooms and work areas ."

Increasingly rich functions

Is the smart cabling system software or hardware? What is the composition? Is there enough functionality?

Although the smart cabling systems of various manufacturers are quite different, the hardware and software components share the same characteristics. The hardware monitors the connection in the wiring room, the software records documents of all devices on the network.

"To achieve intelligent management of the cabling system at the physical layer, there must be a mechanism for Real-Time Detection of physical layer connections. Each Vendor uses different methods for data detection, however, the basic principle is very simple. It uses the principle of Circuit switches to enable the detection switch when the cabling link is connected, and cut off the detection switch when the cabling link is disconnected, the smart wiring system checks the switch status to determine the port connection status." Cai Li, product marketing director of the Taike electronic ampu Cabling System Department, briefly and intuitively introduced the working principle of the smart cabling system.

Generally speaking, the hardware part consists of analyzer, distribution frame, jumper, connection cable, distribution frame port sensing bar, etc. The software part is mainly proprietary software packages. Through close integration of hardware and software, collaboration can achieve intelligent management of the wiring system.

The following describes the smart cabling system of Tyco electronic amp. The system is still based on the traditional AMP Netconnect 110 modular cabling system.

Users can use any manufacturers of network products, the difference is that the system in the distribution frame each RJ-45 port added a metal sensor pad), jumper external added a metal needle, this metallic pin is in contact with the sensor pad of the 110 distribution frame, and the 110 distribution frame is connected to the network analyzer through an I/O cable. The network analyzer and iTRACS software can monitor the connection status between the distribution frame and between the network equipment and the distribution frame in real time and dynamically. The combination of AMPTRAC hardware and iTRACS software system makes up for the lack of physical layer links in the previous integrated network management system. It is a revolutionary method for network control and archive management, this unified infrastructure management system can automatically generate a complete physical topology of the network system in a telecom or data center, and automatically manage it through the real-time physical layer, provides real-time and complete network fault diagnosis and disaster recovery documents, and continuously records the addition, movement, and deletion of network cabling systems in real time.

It should be noted that not all smart cabling systems have external sensing devices or "metallic needles", the IMAX iPatch system is an example and can accept standard RJ-45 and RJ-11 jumpers.