Tag Archives: data center cabling

Pre-terminated Fiber Cabling in Data Center

pre-terminated fiber cabling

Fiber optic cabling and termination usually cost a lot of time and labor during the deployment of data center. Filed fiber optic termination is still being widely used in many data centers. However, with the data center increasingly depending on the high density cabling, fiber cabling and termination in data center becomes will cost more time and money if using the traditional field termination methods. Meanwhile, the fiber optic network is becoming more and more complex, which makes the data center cabling becomes more difficult. The risks of faults caused manual fiber termination will be increased. To solve problems caused by manual operations and meets the high density requirement of the data center, pre-termianted fiber cable assemblies are introduced in data center.

Advantages of Pre-Terminated Fiber Cable Assemblies

Deploying a data center by using field termination methods might need a few days or more. Engineers have to termination a lot of fiber optic links and connect them to the right ports. To ensure there are no wrong links and bad fiber optic splicing joints, a lot of checking should be done. However, pre-terminated fiber cable assemblies, using the plug-and-play designed modules and cables, can largely improve the working efficiency, increase cabling density and decrease the total data center installation cost. In addition, the factory terminated fiber cable assemblies eliminate the need of fiber optic splicing and provide higher performance compared with field terminated fiber optic cables.

MTP cassette application

Pre-Terminated Fiber Cabling Assemblies in 40G/100G Applications

The most commonly used pre-terminated fiber cabling assemblies for 40G/100G high density cabling applications are MTP/MPO fiber cable assemblies including MTP/MPO trunk cable, MTP/MPO harness cable and MTP/MPO cassette. These pre-terminated components can be directly connected to fiber optic network for data transmission. Making good use of these components can largely increase the cabling density and working efficiency in data centers.

MTP/MPO Trunk Cable

MTP/MPO trunk cable is a length of multi-fiber optical cable usually used for backbone transmission in data center. 12-fiber MTP/MPO trunk cable and 24-fiber MTP/MPO trunk cable used for 40G and 100G applications separately.

MTP/MPO trunk cable

There are generally two versions of MTP/MPO trunk cable—single-strand MTP/MPO trunk cable and multi-strand MTP/MPO trunk cable. A multi-strand MTP/MPO trunk cable combines several single-stand MTP/MPO trunk cables together. For example, a 72-fiber MTP/MPO trunk cable, as shown in the following picture, has 6 strands of 12-fiber cables combining together. Each strand is terminated with a 12-fiber MTP/MPO connector.

72-fiber trunk cable
MTP/MPO Harness Cable

MTP/MPO harness cable is a fanout version of MTP/MPO fiber optic cable. A MTP/MPO fiber optic connector is terminated on one end of this cable, the fanout end it terminated several other types of fiber optic connectors which are usually LC fiber connectors. This type of pre-terminated fiber optic cable is generally used for 40G to 10G transmission or 100G to 10G transmission. MTP/MPO harness cables also come into various types, the most commonly used are 12-fiber MTP/MPO to 6 duplex LC harness cable for 40G duplex transmission and 24-fiber MTP/MPO to 12 duplex LC harness cable for 100G duplex transmission.

MTP/MPO harness cable
MTP/MPO Cassette

MTP/MPO cassette is a specially designed box which contains one or more small version of MTP harness cables in side it. Generally there is one or more MTP fiber optic interface on the back rear of a MTP/MPO cassette and several LC interfaces on its front rear. It can be easily installed on the rack for easier cabling as shown in the following picture.

mtp-cassette-application

In this way, the fiber optic connections are protected in this box and more fiber optic connections can be added to the data center without worrying about space limitation. The most commonly used are MTP/MPO LGX cassettes. However, driven by increasing need for high density, the size of MTP/MPO Cassette is keeping decrease. HD MTP/MPO cassette (shown in the following picture) is also available in the market for higher cabling density.

HD MTP/MPO Cassette

Conclusion

The pre-terminated fiber cable assemblies help to accelerate the data center deployment, reduce costs and error, and provide great flexibility and scalability. MTP/MPO cabling system as one the most popular pre-terminated fiber cabling solutions can perfectly fit the 40G and 100G applications. The above mentions products is just a really small part of the pre-terminated fiber cable assemblies. If you need more details, please visit FS.COM where you can customize the pre-terminated fiber cable assemblies according to your applications.

Six Practical Cabling Tips For Better Managing Data Center

data centerAs we know, badly planned or unstructured data center cabling will usually cause more delays both in our daily work and when there is a issue in data center. Though there may be many professional team or engineers that know enough knowledge to manage the cabling in data center, or many companies will hire a network cabling service to help them do better cabling, cabling practices for data center cabling are often useful for everyone who works in a data center. Whether you choose a network cabling service or do it yourself, the following six tips for data center cabling you should know.

Tip 1. Choose the best quality cable according to your budget
As we know, there are many kinds of cables and connectors, even a variety of brands or manufacturers in the market, in order to satisfy the different demands in data center. So, you can choose more than one cable even with a same price for a same application. Certainly, according to the cable and connector materials, the better materials usually cost more but it doesn’t mean that you should buy the most expensive one. The best systems are the ones that work well for you. So you just choose the best quality one according to your appliction and location environment as well as your budget.

Tip 2. Make sure your cable can handle your data volumes
If you have enough budget, you could try to use fiber optic cables for your data center cabling as possible. With a variety of benefits, such as the greater bandwidth, higher speed, lower attenuation and greater distance etc., fiber optic cables are now used widely in many data centers all over the world. Nonetheless, copper cables also play an important role in data center cabling. About copper cables, there is a tip for your cable options. Cat3 cable is not recommended to buy since it will probably not support your data needs now, unless you have another applications that will need it. Cat5, Cat5e and Cat6 cable are different in the amount of data they can carry. If you and your team are not familiar with the capabilities of these cables, you should seek the advice of your cables vendor or network cabling service who will be able to advise you on the best solution for your needs.

Tip 3. If you expect to grow, fiber cabling may be worth the upfront expense
If you handle large volumes of data or need to cross long distances, or even expect to grow, fiber cabling is your best choice. The premise is to cost more than copper cabling. But you will find the benefits of fiber cabling soon and felt rewarded.

Tip 4. Measure your spans and double check your plan
It is known that cables become susceptible to distortion when they exceed the recommended length or span. In most time, when we measure the spans or make a plan, we may forget to include the entire length of the span, including the distance between building stories and around corners or obstructions as well as the linear distance. As a result, data quality and speed suffer. Thus, we should start with a detailed plan to ensure that the project specs call for the right cable quality.

Tip 5. Leave plenty of slack
Whenever possible leave plenty of slack in the cable to allow for changes or manage in the patch panels. Do not leave so much slacks or never over tighten, unless you want a mess of your cable room or cables stressed.

Tip 6. Labeling everything as possible
When the system of your data center is down, you or your team should be able to trace any faults immediately. Each cable or each device in your data center should be clearly labeled so you can find out the roots of the problem. Actually, there is not enough time for you to test cables at random to find a fault when the system is down.

Conclusions
Of course, the practical cabling tips are far more than these we have mentioned. The six tips above are just the basic ones. If you have an enough budget, you could hire a professional network cabling service to help you implement your data center cabling. If not, you may master the basic knowledge first and find professional consultation for your product selections or cabling skills as possible.