Tag Archives: rack mount enclosure

Which Fiber Enclosure Fits Your Data Center Application?

Fiber enclosure, providing solid fiber optic links protection and easy & fast cable management, is becoming a must-have component in data center and server room fiber cabling. As data center cabling requirements are various, fiber enclosures also have a lot of designs. Selecting the right fiber enclosures can largely increase the working efficiency and decrease the costs of labor and time. Which fiber enclosure knows fits your data center requirements best? Here will introduce several most commonly used and affordable fiber enclosures that are used for data center cabling.

Fiber Enclosure Overall Design

There are two widely used designs of fiber enclosures in general: wall mount fiber enclosure and rack mount fiber enclosure. The functions of the two types of fiber enclosures can be literally understood. Usually, a wall mount enclosure can be installed directly on a wall for fiber cabling. A rack mount enclosure usually has an industry standard 19 inch wide rack unit (RU) design and can be installed on a rack for fiber cabling. For higher fiber count, the rack mount fiber enclosure could be 2/4/6/12RU or more.

fiber enclosure

The rack mount fiber enclosure also has two versions in general. One is a fixed one with a lid which can be removed from the enclosure for fiber cabling, the other one is a slide-out fiber enclosure. Currently, the most popular rack mount fiber enclosure is usually has a slide-out design, which allows customers to remove the whole enclosure from the rack and provides easier internal fiber connection access.

rack mount fiber enclosure

Fiber Enclosures With Different Front Panel

The front panel of a fiber enclosure is also very important which can directly affect the fiber count that an enclosure can provide and the cabling methods. To fit various fiber cabling environments and network applications, the fiber enclosure front panels come in a variety of types. Here will introduces several most popular fiber enclosures with different front panel designs.

fiber enclosure front panel
Fiber Enclosure With Fixed Front Adapter Panel

A fixed front adapter panel is usually a 19 inch wide fiber adapter panel which can be installed on the fiber enclosure to accommodate various fiber optic connectors. The port number and fiber adapter type will determine the fiber count and connector types that can be installed with the fiber enclosures. The following picture shows a 1U fiber adapter panel loaded with 24 duplex LC adapters which can provide up to 48 fiber optic connections. This fiber adapter panel can be installed on fiber enclosure working as the front panel.

12-duplex LC fiber adapter panel
Fiber Enclosure With Removable Adapter Panels

Driven by the requirement for higher cabling density and flexible cabling methods, the front panel of a fiber enclosure could be composed by several individual fiber adapter panels which could be loaded with the same or different types of fiber optic adapters. Meanwhile, these individual fiber adapter panels can provide various types of adapters and higher cabling density. Generally, up to three 12 duplex LC port fiber adapter panels with industry standards can be installed on a 1U rack mount fiber enclosure. However, a smaller version of fiber adapter panel is also provided. Up to four 12 duplex port fiber adapter panels can be installed on a 1U rack mount fiber enclosure.

fiber optic adapter
Fiber Enclosure With Removable MTP/MPO Cassettes

The fiber adapter panel that installed on the fiber enclosures required additional internal fiber cabling, which usually uses fiber pigtails. As 40G/100G fiber networks which use MTP/MPO interfaces are gradually being deployed in today’s data center, the cabling methods become more complex. To simplify the cabling methods, MTP/MPO cassettes are being introduced to the market. Up to three LGX MTP/MPO cassettes can be installed on a 1U fiber panel enclosure. With these cassettes, the internal cabling of a fiber enclosure could be eliminated. For higher cabling density, there is also a high density cassette. Up to four of the HD MTP/MPO cassettes can be installed on a 1U fiber panel.

MTP/MPO cassette

Conclusion

The above-mentioned fiber enclosures are the most commonly used ones in today’s applications. The cabling environments of every data center are different. Finding the right fiber enclosure means a lot. Excepted standard fiber enclosures, there are also a lot of customized fiber enclosures that are provided in FS.COM. The customer can design their own fiber enclosures in FS.COM according to their own applications.