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data centre cabling

The need for high reliability and continued cost efficiency, has established a widely accepted cabling concept in recent years; well defined today in international standards like EN50173-5 or TIA942.

Data centres are split into four levels that help allocate the typical services and applications. The Client level contains devices like a server – be it desk top, rack format or even the modern blades – and all kinds of storage devices and systems like SAN or NAS, including tape-recording devices for backup purposes. Access switches are situated at the next level, made to couple and connect all devices from client level. The Core level in data centres forms the gate-way with firewall functionality, to the group of network service providers connecting the data centre to the outside world.

This scenario is closer to some data centre operators than many might think. ISPs are already facing bottlenecks in their data centre backbones, and desperately seeking a superior solution. Within the next 3 years, migrations will take place that the infrastructure design will need to cope with. Enterprise data centre operators recognized electronic mail as the key application to improving efficiency in their organization. The reported annual growth rate of email data traffic is around 25%. Data centre hosts see all these trends raised to a higher power. Hence upgrading is a relevant option to all data centre operators, it’s just a matter of time.

What’s needed to meet future data centre requirements in Copper cabling?

In highly concentrated data centre networks, at server level (Client), the key is to maximize utilization of available pathways, racks and spaces, rather than to go for maximum permissible channel length. The required channels of 20m to 60m average distances give room for optimized designs in cabling.

For this application, Draka has developed the new UCFuture program which contains slim cable designs based on existing work area cable standards, which are perfect for zone cabling in data centres because of these characteristics:

  • Up to 100% higher packing density in cable trays
  • Fully compliant with established cable standards
  • PIMF design to eliminate any Alien-Xtalk interferences
  • Full 10GBase-T performance over a channel distance of 70m

At Client level especially, bulky cabling forms a serious barrier to air ventilation, literally one of the hot topics in data centres due to growing packing density in server racks, and the need to offload the high amount of heat dissipated by all the electronics.

Slim designs at server level, like the blade technology, should be consequently transferred to slim cabling.

The advantages of this new cable design can be leveraged to most suitable slim-design connectivity products, which give new opportunities for extended customer-specific service concepts.

Minimum required transmission performance of cable and cabling is Cat6A and/or Class EA. The rationale is to ensure easy migration of services to 10GBase-T, for which cable standards based on various technologies were made. Using 10 Gigabit Ethernet in data centres puts the attention to additional aspects:

  • Products have shorter life cycles than in enterprise networks
  • The entire Infrastructure (building, electricity, access protection etc.) is much better defined than in office buildings
  • The packing density of installations is by far higher

Each of these factors promote the choice for future proof PIMF cable design, users of which enjoy high transmission performance headroom, along with its immunity against Alien-Xtalk. It’s the perfect fit to all the other devices and systems in a data centre.

Fibre Infrastructure requirements
Data centre backbones are already equipped with optical fibre technology. Optical fibre technology offers lowest attenuation, highest bandwidth, and longer link lengths. Thus supporting the highest data rates – a prerequisite for backbone data links. Within data centres it forms one of the most critical components due to the highly aggregated data traffic there.

As soon as 10 Gigabit Ethernet is on the agenda at client level, a data centre backbone, capable of 10GbE to link access and distribution levels, turns into a real bottleneck. Despite the fact that copper data cables can cover a distance of up to 100m at 10Gbit/s, the preference in this place should be laser optimized multi-mode fibre, according to the OM4 specification.

Today’s recommendation is clearly to take this a future proof solution, which is the only short-link technology that’s also part of the 40 Gigabit Ethernet, and likewise 100GbE Ethernet. It is based on multi-lane structures of OM4 or OM3 channel links. A data centre backbone in OM4 can therefore be easily expanded to the Next Generation Ethernet and secures investments for a longer pack-off time.

office network

The idea of a generic communication infrastructure in buildings, was created in the early 1990s resulting in the first EIA/TIA 568 standard in 1993, soon followed by its sister documents ISO/IEC 11801 and EN50173. Besides particular individual differences, these standards share the same intent to create guidelines for IT professionals, to keep pace with fast developing networking challenges.

The logic of this concept is to build a fully operational network in sufficient port density, to serve every potential network with client devices such as printers, right from day one. Resulting in quicker, more efficient, and cost-effective moves, adds and changes to an initially limited network.

Cabling classification

Network operators first need to establish what service will run on the network, and determine the performance level needed to make it available to all connected outlets. Performance is always a matter of teamwork – cable and connecting hardware have to meet similar requirements; improving just one of these is simply not sufficient. Over the year, several cabling classes have emerged which are listed below.

Each category has a set carrying capacity, for example:

Class Hertz Category Kbps
Class A 100 Khz Cat. 1 Telephony
Class B 1 MHz Cat. 2 128 Kbps
128 Kbps 16 MHz Cat. 3 10 Mbps
Class C+ 20 MHz Cat. 4 16 Mbps
Class D 100 MHz Cat. 5 100 Mbps
Class D+ 100 MHz Cat. 5e 1000 Mbps
Class E 250 MHz Cat. 6 1 Gbps
Class EA 500 MHz Cat. 6A 10 Gbps
Class F 600 MHz Cat. 7 10 Gbps
Class FA 1000 MHz Cat. 7A 10 Gbps+
“Class G” 1200 MHz MULTIMEDIA 10 Gbps+

 

However, operators should not only consider applications for today, but anticipate ever increasing network speed and make provisions for future applications. With the network lasting 15 years and longer, performance headroom is key to creating sustainability in networking. Typical network cables in use as well as the network user interface, we deal with so called ‘horizontal cabling’ which is often related to building floor levels. The dominating technology in this area is twisted pair cable. Thanks to its ease of installation, versatility over a distance of up to 100m including remote powering through power over Ethernet (PoE) it made it’s proved its worth in the 21st Century.

In riser and campus zones between floors or even buildings, networkers are faced with longer distances requiring fibre optic cabling. When it comes to data transmission cables, more and more users choose fibre technology. It’s the undisputed number one in today’s Local Area Networks (LAN) – structured cabling in campus and riser networks. The decision to use either fibre optic, or copper data cables as an ideal solution for horizontal networks, depends on many factors like application environment, previous network basis and future needs. Whatever you choose, with fibre optic data cables of the UCFIBRE series designed specifically to meet the requirements of all structural levels of local networks, you’re on the safe side for the future.

Transmission rates are developing exponentially, and new transmission protocols follow in ever shorter periods of time. 10 years ago, 1 Gb/s was state-of-the-art and only foreseen for communication between switches, servers and storage systems. Next-generation 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s are already here. Using MaxCap advanced optical fibres from Prysmian Group ensures that your network can be upgraded for new generations of networks, in all cases where the protocols are compliant.