Next Generation data center cabling (1)

Cloud computing, virtualization, streaming media, Iot ...... Today, the evolution of almost all IT technologies is inseparable from the demand for high-speed network transmission. Driven by this demand, network service capabilities have gradually become an increasingly important indicator in data center planning and construction. As you can see, the requirements for cabling systems have changed dramatically in the changes in data center construction standards.

Three major trends

The development of data centers is always subject to the limitations of physical space. There are only two ways to improve network service capabilities: Increase the transmission rate or increase the efficiency of space usage. For the design and construction of data centers, the industry has always followed the TIA-942 "Data Center telecommunications infrastructure standards". What can't be ignored is that this year's latest version of The TIA-942-A standard has made a big update to the infrastructure of the data center. In the new standard, the cable selection standard has changed to cat6 and cat6 twisted pair cables, OM3 and OM3 multi-mode optical cables, and LC and MPO Optical Fiber Connection hardware specifications have also been incorporated into the new standard.

It is not difficult to find that the bottom line of the current data center transmission rate has changed to 1 Gigabit. In fact, TIA-942-A standards only reflect the mainstream application in the industry. As the infrastructure for information communication, with the approaching 40G/G era, the demand for 10G copper cables in data centers is also increasing year by year. Industry experts tell reporters in some domestic and foreign standards, such as ANSI/TIA942, EN50173-5, ISO/IEC24764, GB50174-2008, according to regulations on the use of six and ten Gigabit copper cabling systems that meet the needs of 10 Gigabit network bandwidth, it is estimated that in the near future, the proportion of applications of the ten Gigabit copper cable will grow rapidly. In addition, the use of optical fiber will also increase under the influence of the "copper in and out" factor. In addition, as the area of the data center increases and the functional area increases, the transmission distance of the trunk subsystem cable increases and the data center needs more optical fiber cables.

In the new standard, the specification of the connected hardware undoubtedly shows the current design concept of high density data centers. Experts pointed out that after the approval of the Ethernet standard 802.3ba, bandwidth acceleration will drive the rapid development of cloud computing, streaming media, and IOT applications, and the demand for cost reduction through high-density deployment of data centers will be even more prominent. From the perspective of the development of wiring products, Wu Jian, Technical Director of the US company, believes that high density will form two major development trends: increasing the density of cables and increasing the density of wiring management. At present, optical fiber cables are capable of improving the density, because the optical fiber itself is very fine and the development of optical fiber connectors also shows diversity, such as the development of LC and the extensive use of MPO. According to the wiring density, the mainstream cabling systems can now achieve the density of 1 u48 copper cable or 1U 144-core optical fiber. In the future, management problems brought about by high density will become an urgent issue for cabling systems.

In addition to new regulations on the selection of cabling products, the new standards also update the management standards for infrastructure cabling and propose the goals to meet all management requirements of the data center, in particular, it makes clear some special requirements for the design and installation of data centers not involved in tag Management in previous standards. The new TIA-606-B telecommunications facilities management standards have made four levels of management requirements, not only increase the cabinet, Rack, distribution box, distribution frame, panel, port and cable management, the use of the smart distribution frame is also stipulated, so that the tag management of the data center is more standardized. In the past, cable management of data center infrastructure was generally conducted by means of manual drag-and-drop, detector detection, and tag management. Obviously, manual operations are neither reliable nor efficient for cable management. At the same time, the cost of equipment and inspection personnel is also a expense, and the efficiency of the detector is low, the scope of use is also limited to copper cabling system. In order to solve these problems, the intelligent wiring management system seems to be very popular in the past two years. However, some system integrators in the industry once told reporters that the promotion of the smart wiring management system is overdone, but its cost-effectiveness in practical applications is not high. problems such as high costs and poor stability have always plagued users, therefore, most users still call for comprehensive management. Because Tag management has functions such as identification and record, this method is still highly available for efficient management of data centers.

 

In WU Jian's view, the future development needs of data centers mainly include three aspects: First, transmission performance and reliability, second, high-density development, and third, modular and flexible deployment. These three requirements correspond to the development trend of IT equipment. However, some domestic users still do not pay enough attention to cabling planning and lack a long-term IT planning vision. This situation will undoubtedly restrict the future development of data centers.