Who is the best technology for connecting copper and optical cables to the next generation of data centers?

Who is the best technology for connecting copper and optical cables to the next generation of data centers?

In today's highly competitive computer industry, everyone is expected to gain a competitive advantage in terms of performance, efficiency, and cost. As many companies seek further improvements, the data center architecture is constantly under review. Although the rectification of many data centers focuses on network adapters and switch configurations, there is an extremely basic and effective way to improve the deployed data center, that is, rethink the interconnect cable.

The introduction of optical fiber cables has a longer transmission distance and reduces electromagnetic interference. This misunderstanding is caused by the fact that all aspects of the network should adopt this new technology. However, in data centers, copper cables are often the smartest to use, because copper cables provide significant advantages in capital expenditure, operating expenditure, performance and reliability. The following are some advantages of copper compared with optical fiber cables:

Distance

Copper cables can be expanded to several meters, depending on the network speed, which is usually more than enough for the internal interconnection of data centers. Whether it is a connection between servers in a single rack or between switches in a cluster, copper provides this feature: reliable and affordable transmission with the highest available bandwidth.

When it comes to capital costs, copper cable offers significant savings. Generally, the cost of passive copper cables is two to five times lower than that of fiber cables of the same length. In a cluster with 1000 nodes, hundreds of copper cables may be required, which means a savings of USD 100,000. If you switch to a larger data center, the cost saved is as high as millions of dollars.

However, the savings are not limited to this. Because the copper cable does not consume much power and its thermal design has low cooling requirements, it can greatly save the business expenses of the data center. If copper cables are used instead of optical cables, several hundred kilowatts of electricity can be saved.

Reliability and speed

One of the biggest advantages of copper cables is reliability, which is measured by MTBF. The MTBF of a passive copper cable is about 500 million hours-generally an order of magnitude higher than the optical fiber industry standard. Copper cables provide a major benefit for enterprise data centers that are crucial to reliable data transmission: Avoid downtime.

As data continues to increase and data is used for a wide range of applications, including drug discovery, traffic management, vehicle and aircraft design, social media, financial transactions, and national security, the demand for faster data transmission within the data center has increased significantly. High-performance computing, Web 2.0, cloud computing and storage infrastructure using 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps and 56 Gbps interconnection speed, and now has begun to migrate to 100 Gbps.

Vendors have demonstrated that copper cables with transmission distances ranging from 4 meters to 8 meters provide a maximum bandwidth of 100 Gbps, allowing data centers to enjoy previously unheard of interconnection performance and efficiency. The ability to continue using copper instead of using a Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) or a silicon-based optical fiber cable to achieve this speed provides a competitive advantage.

In an environment where a single advantage has a significant impact on the company's profitability, CIOs and network administrators need to pay attention to the fact that the data center architecture can provide all aspects of the advantage, which is crucial. The copper cable can support 100 Gbps at a distance of up to 8 meters, which is ideal for Data Center deployment environments and provides lower latency, better reliability, and lower power consumption, the cost is much lower than that of optical cables.

Although Switch configuration and network adapter are two main factors to consider when planning the data center architecture, cables are often forgotten, however, it can bring huge performance benefits and higher efficiency, while saving the budget through capital expenditure and operating expenditure.