VIEWPOINT
PLANNING FOR SUCCESS CINDY RYBORZ, MARKETING MANAGER DATA CENTRES EMEA, CORNING OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS, ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CABLE MANAGEMENT IN DATA CENTRES
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here is a lot we can do to future-proof data centre infrastructures and prepare for unexpected incidents – a key component is cable management, which is essential for the performance of the network. Well-organised cabling means easier moves, adds and changes (MACs), bend-radius control and troubleshooting in case of issues, particularly compared to unstructured “spaghetti” cabling. Today’s data centre networks are faced with constantly growing and changing demands. What seems like more than enough capacity today, will most likely not be sufficient for tomorrow. COVID-19 has of course provided a prime example of how suddenly and unexpectedly our networks can be tested and how data centres need to scale. To give an example, DE-CIX, one of 36
CXO INSIGHT ME
DECEMBER 2021
the world’s leading internet exchanges, saw a record traffic peak of 9.1Tbit/s in March 2020 representing an increase of 800 Gbit/s. To put this into perspective, imagine the simultaneous transmission of up to 200 million HD videos. During the US presidential elections in November 2020, the all-time peak rose even higher, to 10Tbit/s. Structured cabling helps to organise and manage cables, allowing better airflow and preventing loose cabling from tangling up, kinking, bending or even breaking fibres, all of which has an impact on the network performance. Crowded cable trays, pathways or ducts as well as clusters of loose hanging patch cords in densely populated server racks may also create “hot spots” impacting the performance of network components or having them fail, creating possible delays or downtime – something we of course want to avoid.
Structuring the network The deployment of structured cabling, of course, is not a new concept and data centre environments continue to move away from the practice of patching and connecting equipment from point to point or as it is installed. A more recent development, which is impacting approaches to structured cabling in large projects is the growth of massive data centres beyond the confines of a single building or data hall. These campus environments, with multiple buildings, require a high-fibre count cabling infrastructure, which can be a challenge to deploy. There’s a number of solutions available to meet such high-fibrecount requirements. While splicing may be sufficient for ribbon cables of up to 864 fibres, when connectivity requirements are pushing fibre counts to 3456 and even 6912 fibres, preterminated trunks or pigtails with
