INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling
What CIOs need to know
about cabling
/////////////////////////////
What issues do CIOs need to understand and address when
it comes to cabling? Nabil Khalil, Executive Vice-President of
R&M Middle East, Turkey and Africa, explains all.
A
cross industry verticals and
organisations of all scales, Digital
Transformation is now imperative
for business competitiveness. Applications
such as social media and Big Data,
new architectures such as dense server
virtualisation and IP Storage and the need for
mobile access to all applications have placed
enormous demands on network infrastructure.
CIOs must be aware that today’s networks
fundamentally differ from the highly over-
subscribed, hierarchical and costly legacy
solutions of the past. Increased adoption of
high-performance servers and applications
requiring higher bandwidth are driving
adoption of 10 and 25 Gigabit Ethernet
switching in combination with 40 and 100
Gigabit Ethernet. As a result, it has become
increasingly necessary to include network
fabrics, Software-Defined Networking,
hyperconvergence and software defined
storage technologies. The introduction
of Virtual Storage Area Networks (VSAN)
and Software-Defined Storage (SDS) is
changing network architectures in the
enterprise data centre.
Shifting storage into the server housing
means networks are consolidated. Cabling
density increases as a result, both on the
server housing and on the switch or router.
Increasing virtualisation means data traffic
between servers grows. At the same time,
there is a further increase in CPU and PCI
performance. As a result, data centres must
ensure their networks can cope with using 40
and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE).
From a cabling standpoint, all this has the
potential to add volumes of complexity
which promotes the need for simplicity,
www.intelligentcio.com
reliability and high-density. There are several
areas for CIOs to focus on to address these
cabling needs.
Hyperscale
Hyperscale data centres have an incredibly
scalable computing architecture which can
be managed like a single unit. Hyperscale
solutions allow CIOs to start out modestly
with lower investments and react to growing
demand. They can thus immediately
aggregate or extend their networks smoothly
without having to interrupt operations.
Hyperscale capability is based in particular
on there being an available mass of optical
fibres. High count fibre cables with more than
2000 or 4000 multi fibre cables are typically
needed to cover the connectivity requirement.
Fibre v copper
No one asks for a slower network and
while it is 10GbE that is being deployed,
all new implementations are factoring in
the need to include easy 40G and even
100G migration as a part of their future.
And for this, higher value cabling systems
such as fibre is the way forward. Fibre
systems facilitate the set-up of high-density
cabling systems for data networks with
parallel-optical connection technology.
Consequently, data centres can introduce
10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) or even 40 and
100 GbE as a bandwidth to connect the
fastest servers and switches to each other.
That being said, copper is still a good option
for horizontal links (10G) and with the new
Cat. 8, it will be able to provide 40G for 30
metres. So, it remains cheaper and sufficient
for small distances.
Nabil Khalil, Executive Vice-President of
R&M Middle East, Turkey and Africa
Density and modularity
With internal data centre traffic expected
to grow by 80% over the next three years,
there is a real risk of networks becoming
bandwidth bottlenecks. By moving from
traditional low-density cabling to high-
density structured cable solutions, CIOs can
implement physical network infrastructure
in a far more flexible manner. These systems
enable data centres to easily migrate to 25,
40 and 100 Gb/s networks and solve some
critical network challenges.
Automation
Automation benefits servers, storage and
switches, but the cabling that interconnects
it all largely remains a cumbersome, manual,
error-prone management mess. For this
reason, over the last several years, Automated
Infrastructure Management (AIM) has
become a strategic investment for optimising
resource usage and cabling documentation
in data centres. AIM eliminates stranded
capacity, facilitates end-to-end analysis
and agile infrastructure management
and aids predictive analysis and dynamic
infrastructure. Not only this, these solutions
improve the efficiency of operation and
administration and can result in reduction of
downtime by 30% to 50% n
INTELLIGENTCIO
65