Attend our upcoming webinar, “Taking Your Network to 40/100G Ethernet,” to earn BICSI Credit!

We’re offering one BICSI Continuing Education Credit (CEC) for certifications in RCDD, RITP, DCDC, NTS, Installer 2 Copper/Fiber, Technician and Certified Trainer to attendees of next week’s webinar, “Taking Your Network to 40/100G Ethernet.”

Title: Taking Your Network to 40/100G Ethernet
Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EST

Presented by:
Josh Taylor, Senior Product Manager, CABLExpress

In this episode of Cable Talk, Josh Taylor explains some of the physical and application differences between multimode and singlemode fiber optic cables. Multimode is typically used in data centers. Singlemode is used in “long haul” applications due to the higher cost of the active electronics.

Fiber Optic Adapters in the Data Center

Fiber optic couplers (also referred to as “adapters”) are an often overlooked part of the fiber optic cabling infrastructure in the data center. To the untrained eye, they all seem to look the same – but there are some very critical differences in adapter quality that can drastically affect data center performance.

These adapters play the critical role of aligning the individual fibers in a cable to the fibers in another cable. If fibers are not properly aligned, then loss is incurred at that mating point. If too much loss is incurred, downtime is a distinct possibility.

What should a data center technician look for in quality adapters?

Data center technicians should look at the materials used to manufacture couplers.

Some manufacturers may opt to use a metal, sometimes referred to as Phosphor Bronze (PB, Phos-Bronze and/or Phoz-Bronze). This alloy is noted for its strength and rigidity for large boat propellers, springs and bolts. However, ceramic materials are ideal for manufacturing couplers. Ceramics are non metallic, inorganic and crystalline in structure. The crystalline structure of ceramic allows for a very rigid surface that will not deform.

Why does this matter? As we discussed, alignment is critical. A softer metal like Phosphor Bronze will deform over time, especially with repeated plug-ins. Ceramic will hold its original shape for much longer. This makes a coupler that has ceramic alignment sleeves far superior to Phosphor Bronze.

Insertion loss is the amount of light lost (measured in dB) from the origination of a signal to the reception of that same signal.

What happens if insertion loss is too high?

Too high of an insertion loss will lead to what is know as “channel errors” that can cause equipment to go down and possibly cause data center downtime.

Why is knowing insertion loss important?

It is important to know the insertion loss of the products you are using or considering purchasing. Be sure to ask for insertion loss specifications before purchasing cables. Pay attention to words like “typical” versus “maximum” insertion loss.

Some manufacturers will supply statistics in typical readings or averages. This should not be considered a number to use – you may end up getting cables that are well above the average.

Instead, you should look for the “maximum” insertion loss of a product. This allows you to know the highest possible loss amounts that you will incur.

We wanted to give you a sneak peak and the kind of resources you’ll find in our white paper, “Taking Your Network to 40/100G Ethernet.”

The chart above shows the evolution of Ethernet speeds and the IEEE standards that correspond with them. This chart also clearly demonstrates that as data center speeds increase, loss budgets decrease – from 12.5dB at 10 Mbps to 1.9dB for 100,000 Mbps (100G Ethernet).

This is a good resource to use when planning your migration to 40/100G Ethernet – without considering loss budget, the performance of your data center can suffer.