Cabling Planner (November2013)

CABLINGPLANNER MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS

2013

ISSUE 013

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CABLINGPLANNER MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS

2013

ISSUE 013

Top of Rack - the right choice?

Like anything in IT, there are several considerations to mull over before choosing the cabling architecture for your data centre. While direct cable connection between switches and servers was once common, this practice is gaining currency again with the use Top of Rack equipment mounting options. A recent Cisco research paper which favours ToR architecture design says it simplifies and shortens cable runs and facilitates the replication of rack configurations. This rack-and-roll deployment model offers a solution by placing switching resources in each rack so that server connectivity can be aggregated and interconnected with the rest of the data centre through a small number of cables connected to end-of-row (EoR) access- or aggregation-layer switches. ToR switching allows oversubscription to be handled at the rack level, with a small number of fiber cables providing uniform connectivity to each rack. The advantage of this solution is that horizontal fiber can support different I/O connectivity options, including Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet as well as Fibre Channel, according to Cisco. Though ToR cabling is being touted as one of the ways to decrease cabling costs, there is a flip side to the coin. Industry experts say ToR can lead to poor port utilisation and have a negative impact on power and cooling. ToR is ideally suited for virtualised, high-density server environments but it can also actually negate the benefits of virtualisation, which is to decrease the number of server power supplies and to increase the operating efficiency ratios within equipment. Whatever the choice you make, it would be a wise decision for IT managers to undertake an overall study of the facilities and networking to determine as to what is the best option.

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F E AT U R E Tor

A new way to cable your data centre Top of Rack cabling architecture is an attractive option when it comes to cabling your next-gen, highdensity data centre environments. Will it be the end of structured cabling as we know it today?

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A

fairly well designed data centre is an imperative to keep your IT up and running. It needs to be energy efficient and be able to support continuous growth. The first step to build an efficient data centre is to build up the density of your server racks as it allows you to run existing workloads on smaller footprint and to create space for future growth.

The move to high-density, virtualised environments has made Top of Rack (ToR) cabling an attractive option for IT managers.

“Increasing bandwidth requirements throughout the data centre are driving a re-evaluation of all elements in a data centre and structured cabling in particular.

The deployment of 10Gb ports on servers

Paul Kish, Director of Systems and Standards, Belden

“Data centre network design has been undergoing rapid changes with the adoption of technologies such as server virtualisation.” requires switches with higher bandwidth and 40 or 100Gb switch ports to aggregate multiple servers. Until Category 8 cabling is ratified and available, a ToR architecture with fibre pushed out to each rack is the best and most scalable architecture to accommodate the bandwidth needed to support today’s applications,” says Samuel Huber, Product Manager, Molex, explaining the drivers of ToR adoption.

Paul Kish, Director of Systems and Standards, Belden, offers another perspective: “Data centre network design has been undergoing rapid changes with the adoption of technologies such as server virtualisation. As a consequence, data centre traffic has changed direction over the past few years from predominantly north-south (into and out of the data centre) to predominantly east-west (server-to-server within the data centre). A traditional three-tier switching architecture isn’t suitable for

large virtualised data centres. For one server to communicate with another server it may need to traverse a hierarchical path through two aggregation switches and one core switch, which adds to latency and can create traffic bottlenecks.”

David Hughes, Senior Technical Manager – MEA, Commscope, echoes a similar opinion: “With today’s highperformance servers and virtualisation, more applications can be delivered from a single rack of servers than ever before. In response, several switch manufacturers recommend a Top of Rack (ToR) configuration where smaller (1RU to 2RU) edge switches are placed in the top of each server rack (or cabinet) and connect directly to the servers in the rack via short pre-terminated small form-factor pluggable twinaxial cable assemblies, active optical cable assemblies or RJ-45 modular patch cords.

“ToR significantly increases the 2013 CABLING PLANNER 5

F E AT U R E tor

number of switches and reduces the initial amount of structured cabling. It is often recommended for its rack-ata-time deployment, ability to limit the use of copper cabling to within racks, support for east-west traffic and racklevel management capabilities. Both TIA 942-compliant structured cabling and ToR have advantages and disadvantages.

When selecting the cabling configuration to best meet the needs of the data centre, it is important to examine the impact that structured cabling and ToR have on overall total cost of operations, as well as other trade-offs.”

He points out that ToR architecture has existed in data centres for many years. You could argue that its popularity grew due to the time it has taken for the ratification and industry wide adoption of 10GBASE-T.

Samuel Huber, Product Manager, Molex

Now we are seeing more 10GBASE-T port shipments and hence more design flexibility and options, for our data centres.

Advantages of ToR cabling architecture Alberton Zucchinali, Data Centre and Services Manager for EMEA, Siemon, says the use of ToR cabling architecture allows for improved communication between two servers located in the same rack and easy rack-at-a-time deployment.

While EoR and MoR support east-west communication between multiple servers in multiple racks, ToR is ideal for when individual switches and servers need to be managed as their own entity based on application or by outside vendors.

This limits switch upgrades and changes to each separate rack. However, not all data centre environments want unsecure access to both switches and servers, especially when network administrators and server administrators are responsible for separately managing these two types of equipment.

Hughes adds that ToR architectures are typically used when deploying dense server environments that require several network connections per server.

This is commonly found in clustered environments, load balancing appliances, web search engines, or in virtualised environments that share processing of several separate physical servers located within a single cabinet.

“Intra- and inter-cabinet cabling is easier to manage as ToR switches, which aim to reduce connections, will see a cable management benefit with ToR architectures. Within the cabinet it is

“Increasing bandwidth requirements throughout the data centre are driving a re-evaluation of all elements in a data centre and structured cabling in particular.”

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Alberton Zucchinali, Data Centre and Services Manager for EMEA, Siemon common to find a vertical bundle of patch cords that are dressed properly and fanned out to each server port.”

In a ToR architecture copper cabling is reduced to whatever is required within the rack. Long runs of copper back to the core or other racks are replaced with fiber. “This provides space and weight savings for the infrastructure supporting the structured cabling as well as reduces the amount of heat generated in the cabling. Distance limitations for fiber cabling are much less restrictive than for copper cabling and in most cases is not a factor at all. 40 and 100Gb channels can be supported over OM4 cabling today,” says Huber.

ToR architectures are typically used when deploying dense server environments that require several network connections per server. This is commonly found in clustered environments, load balancing appliances or in virtualised environments that share processing of several separate physical servers located within a single cabinet.

“However, power constraints within the data centre and specifically at rack level, often limit the number of servers that can be supported per rack. Therefore, server switch port demand is typically lower than the switch ports available on a ToR switch – hence bad switch port utilisation.

For example, you may find that a typical ToR switch utilises only 60% (or less) of the ports available. The relative economics would need to be determined based on the actual design and type of servers that are deployed,” says Hughes.

Another factor that makes ToR attractive to data centre managers is the reduced need for structured cabling. “ToR configurations do indeed reduce the need for structured cabling in the data centre, limiting the use of copper cabling to within the racks and enabling high-speed, future proof fibre optic runs to each rack.

While this reduces structured cabling infrastructure costs, the additional cost of having a ToR switch in each rack (or two for primary and secondary networks), equipment maintenance and associated power supplies costs much more than structured cabling. The point-to-point cabling itself can cost more than twice that of deploying an EoR or MoR configuration with structured cabling. The increased number of switches can also increase power consumption, putting a strain on cooling requirements and reducing energy efficiency. It is important to note that even unused ports consume power,” says Zucchinali.

Hughes agrees: “ToR architectures require the least amount of physical layer cabling, but the highest electronics cost.

When deciding which architecture is best suited to provide an optimised TCO model, understanding cabling and electronics costs is important.”

Typical ToR switch utilises only

60%

(or less) of the ports available

“With today’s high-performance servers and virtualisation, more applications can be delivered from a single rack of servers than ever before.”

David Hughes, Senior Technical Manager – MEA, Commscope He adds that in a 10GbE data centre network study it was found that cabling CAPEX accounted for 5% of a total network spending in a ToR architecture and the network and server electronics accounted for 95%. It should also be noted that network electronics typically are refreshed at much higher rate than the underlying infrastructure.

Cabling infrastructure can be designed to support future data rates and can be used through technology refreshes thus extending the lifespan and reducing TCO. Huber from Molex says that the amount of copper cabling across the entire data centre is reduced to what is required in each rack. Everything between racks and back to aggregation and core switches becomes fiber. Pre-terminated MPO cables and connectors reduce the complexity of fiber

installation. That said, the fiber still must be installed using the principles of structured cabling to preserve the highest level of flexibility and maintenance. As Category 8 cabling solutions become available, the advantages of copper structured cabling will make copper a strong alternative for some data centre environments but the trend towards more fibre in the data centre should be expected to continue.

ToR is often touted as a replacement for structured cabling but in many cases, structured cabling must coexist with ToR to support central switching for KVM or other in-band or out-of-band management and data centre management and monitoring.

“Technologies such as 10GbCEE, 40/100GbE, FCoE, and 10G iSCSI are all dependent on high bandwidth media and structured cabling. ToR network architectures provide a solution adequate for today’s standards, but questions regarding growth and change within a data centre surround this approach,” says Hughes.

End-user costs for optical and electronic network equipment as well as cable media type play a role in the selection of a data centre’s cabling architecture; future technologies are dependent on selecting an approach that can support today’s and tomorrow’s data centre equipment. Although a “one-sizefits-all” approach is not recommended for all data centre connectivity infrastructures, zone-distribution cabling architectures, can offer the best balance to provide for today’s capabilities with minimal change required to support technologies in the future, he sums up.

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EXPERT VIEW Siemon

Big Cat sighted

With the term ‘category 8’ now born, we establish what the future may hold and ask industry expert Valerie Maguire of Siemon, to speculate on how the standards playing field may unfold.

N

etwork cabling typically represents just two to three per cent of an overall network hardware budget, and yet IT cabling is nonetheless expected to perform for at least 10 years, supporting two to three generations of active electronics. During that time it is expected to deliver a significant return on investment and offer both competitive technical advantage and strong lifetime value; not only faultlessly running today’s applications, but also supporting 10 Gb/s, 40 Gb/s and perhaps even 100 Gb/s data transmission in the future.

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Choosing the right cabling has never been more important, or more complex and so it’s useful to understand the options we now face, particularly in light of unfolding developments, such as the newly named category 8.

Setting the Standards There are multiple standards bodies that specify cabling standards e.g.

TIA (Telecommunications Standards Organization), ISO (International Standards Organisation) and CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization), but here we will

concentrate on the globally recognised ISO/IEC cabling standards. We will also consider IEEE 802.3, which is a working group that develops Ethernet standards.

IEEE 802.3 standards set the minimum levels of performance for the physical and data link layers (ie layers one and two of the seven layer Open Systems Interconnection, or OSI, model) necessary for an Ethernet application to operate.

ISO/IEC standards use the terms ‘category’ and ‘class’ to indicate levels of mechanical and electrical performance of the optical fibre and balanced twisted-pair cabling systems that support wired Ethernet applications. ‘Category’ defines the performance of an individual component (eg connector, cable, patch cord, etc).

These components are used to build a channel or permanent link, which is defined by its ‘class’ of performance. For comparative purposes, here are the performance bandwidths for the various categories/classes specified in the ISO/IEC 11801 ed 2.0 family of cabling standards: Class D/category 5e: 1 – 100 MHz Class E/category 6: 1 – 250 MHz Class EA/category 6A: 1 – 500 MHz Class F/category 7: 1 – 600 MHz Class FA/category 7A: 1 – 1,000 MHz Cabling standards are regularly written and reviewed. For instance, ISO/IEC standards are written with a target lifespan of 10 years. IEEE 802.3 Ethernet application performance standards are written, revised or amended based on current manufacturing and product capabilities, application needs and contributions from companies, including cabling manufacturers that participate in the standards process.

Supporting 10GBASE-T The 10GBASE-T standard, which specifies 10Gb/s transmission rates and is the

fastest commercially available Ethernet over copper balanced twisted-pair cabling application, was published in September of 2006. 10GBASE-T can only be supported up to 100 metre, four connector channels by the cabling grades listed in the table below.

Whilst category 5e currently has the greatest installed base, it is not capable of supporting 10Gb/s and is not recognised in the 10GBASE-T standard.

Many facilities were cabled with unshielded category 6 cable prior to the ratification of 10GBASET. Several published industry guidelines (such as ISO/IEC TR 24750) are available to assist in qualifying the capability of an existing class E/category 6 cabling plant to support 10GBASE-T. According to published guidelines, class E/category 6 cabling less than 37 metres should support the 10GBASE-T application and class E/category 6 cabling between 37 metres and 55 metres should support the application depending upon the level of cable-to-cable noise or ‘alien crosstalk’ in the environment.

However, there is no guarantee of 10GBASE-T application support over short runs of class E/category 6 cabling since alien crosstalk is highly dependent on the density of cable bundles in pathways.

Because of this lack of assurance, several ISO/IEC and TIA standards specifically recommend against installing new class E/ category 6 cabling to support 10GBASET. So, the cabling choices for new installations supporting 10GBASE-T over full channel topologies up to 100 metres are limited to class EA/category 6A, class F/ category 7, or class FA/category 7A.

Beyond 10GbE to 40GbE Those operating data centres should be aware that ISO and other standards bodies have specified the minimum grade of cabling to be deployed in new data centres

to be class EA/category 6A. However, an insatiable appetite for ever increasing data rates drives the need for increased bandwidth and higher speed networking.

In fact, the IEEE 802.3 40BASE-T Task Force is actively developing baseline objectives for a new 40 Gb/s balanced copper twisted-pair Ethernet application standard based upon an approved project authorisation request and objectives. This means that the longer term view should encompass 40 Gb/s Ethernet speeds, which takes us well beyond the capacity of class EA/category 6A cabling.

‘Category 8’ has recently been adopted by the TIA TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Subcommittee as the name for its next generation balanced twisted-pair cabling system currently under development to support the pending 40GBASE-T Ethernet application in the data centre with 2-connector channels over some distance up to 30 metres. This topology is a departure from the familiar 4-connector channel model that can be deployed up to 100 metres for most Ethernet applications and was adopted in an effort to offer the best compromise between power conservation in the new transceiver chips and cabling length coverage in the data centre.

Traditionally, cabling categories are supersets of each other – meaning that a higher category of cabling meets or exceeds all of the electrical and mechanical requirements of a lower category of cabling and is also backwards compatible with the lower performing category. Whilst the TIA specifies cabling systems up to category 6A performance, it chose not to adopt category 7 or 7A as published by ISO/IEC. Instead, the TIA has decided to call its next generation cabling system ‘category 8’ to avoid confusion with published ISO/IEC category 7 and category 7A standards, which are indeed supersets of each other and of category 6A.

10GBASE-T Ready Copper Cabling Class EA / category 6A Category 7 / class F Class FA / category 7A

Specified in amendment 1 to ISO/IEC 11801:2002, ed. 2.0 Specified in ISO/IEC 11801:2002, ed. 2.0 Specified in amendment 1 to ISO/IEC 11801:2002, ed. 2.0

Published April of 2008 Published September of 2002 Published April of 2008

‘Category 8’ has recently been adopted by the TIA TR42.7 Copper Cabling Subcommittee

Whilst it’s true that the currently proposed category 8 specifications tentatively describe transmission performance up to 2 GHz, whereas ISO/IEC specifies category 7A requirements up to 1 GHz, the performance limits proposed for category 8 today do not meet or exceed category 7A requirements up to 1 GHz. Take note also that category 8 is expected to have a different deployed channel topology and will not be a performance superset of category 7A. In fact, for every transmission parameter except return loss, ISO/IEC category 7A channel and permanent link limits are more severe than those proposed by TIA TR-42.7 for category 8 up to 1 GHz. In the case of internal crosstalk parameters, the differences are significant; with category 7A beating category 8 performance by more than 20 dB! What to name next generation cabling systems is not just a TIA issue; ISO/IEC also faced the same challenge with their new project to define two new grades of cabling (shielded and fully-shielded) to support 40GBASE-T transmission. ISO/ IEC recently adopted class I as the name to describe cabling constructed from shielded modular RJ-45 style category 8.1 components and class II to describe cabling constructed from fully-shielded non RJ-45 category 8.2 components.

Whilst ISO/IEC is also actively working on a project to characterise the capability of existing category 7A cabling to support 40 Gbit/s data transmission, until the processing capabilities of a 40 Gb/s Ethernet (40GBASE-T) application are finalised, it’s too early to guarantee 40GBASE-T application support distance for any media.

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inter v iew tarek helmy

On top of the game Tarek Helmy, Regional Director Gulf, Middle East & Africa, Nexans Cabling Solutions, gives us the lowdown on ToR concept, design and deployment.

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W

hat is driving the adoption of Top of Rack cabling in data centres?

Top of Rack (ToR) switching is a network topology introduced by active network manufacturers to support fast roll-out and go-live of servers while eliminating costs and volume of copper cabling.

This also favoured manufacturers as this solution resulted in extra sales of switch ports.

This topoIogy got particularly popular when running 10G Ethernet. Despite 10GBase-T, the standard to run over copper cabling was published many years ago, it has not become widely available until this year. Therefore network managers could only choose between fibre or twinax solutions.

Due to cost, copper twinax solutions have become the preferred choice over fibre in

"Now 10GBase-T comes to the market, we expect a swing back to End-ofRow topology over the coming years, due to its benefits over ToR" the majority of data centre deployments.

However, as twinax is limited to 7 metres in its reach, this forces customers adopting ToR. Now 10GBase-T comes to the market, we expect a swing back to End-of-Row topology over the coming years, due to its benefits over ToR . Â

What are the advantages of ToR cabling architecture?

Fast roll-out and go-live deployment coupled with cost saving on horizontal copper cabling are some of the major advantages. It also helps to reduce volumes of cables under floor and is suitable for high-density blade servers. On the flip side, ToR cabling can result in poor switch port utilisation and inefficient power consumption. Other disadvantages include maintenance and administration costs, scalability issues and extra cost of switches.

Is this primarily suited for high density environments?

Not necessarily. ToR is a good topology for connecting high density blade servers, however in practice lots of ports of ToR-switches remain unutilised, which undermines the purpose of high density.

Will it drastically reduce the need for structured cabling?

Yes, it does.

What kind of deployment would you recommend - ToR or EoR (End of Row) We acknowledge the benefit of ToR to allow for quick reaction to meet business needs (fast roll-out and go-live of servers).

Yet we believe that in the long run, there are some disadvantages that undermine the initial benefit. Especially when it comes to implementing a copper migration path to 40G for the server to switch links this is a very costly approach with many inefficiently used ToR switches to exchange for new ones. The flexibility to upgrade in a scalable way is very limited, making it a short term solution.

It is clearly evident that End-of-Row switching with structured cabling has many advantages over Top-of-Rack Solutions.

The capital outlay and ongoing operating expenditure is much reduced through better utilisation of resources including system upgrades and expansion as new services are rolled out. The flexibility to deploy devices where and when required offers a significant advantage to optimise power and cooling as well as keep CAPEX and OPEX under control.

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oPINION R&M

Automated Infrastructure Management AIM is a much needed revolution for the cabling industry, writes Shibu Vahid, Head of Technical Operations, R&M Middle East, Turkey & Africa

S

tructured cabling has long been the often overlooked though critically important component of modern IT networks. Key to high-performance, reliable and innovationenabling connectivity, networks have growing increasingly complex in scale, speed, technology and utilisation and yet they remain a regular point of failure.

The passive infrastructure, or structured cabling, invariably accounts for up to 50% of network issues. And while most problems can be easily remedied, years of adhering to archaic management and administration processes has exponentially increased the difficulty of doing so.

In many installations, inventory and management of physical infrastructure is done with “on-board tools� such as Excel spreadsheets and Visio graphics.

Sometimes, even paper, pencil and post-it notes are used. Network administrators quickly reach the limits of their capabilities if they try to apply these methods to large data centres or complex building cabling systems. Incorrect, outof-date and unreliable documentation make changes to the infrastructure something like walking a tightrope without a safety net. Sensible expansion plans and risk analysis are simply impossible. Added to this are the legal and compliance requirements concerning data security, commercial practice and availability. There is no doubt that a modern approach to cable management is now more important than ever!

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Ready, ‘AIM’, Fire The purpose of an Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) solution, sometimes referred to as an Intelligent Infrastructure Management (IIM) solution, is to facilitate the management of the passive infrastructure in the future. In an AIM system, the entire infrastructure is represented in a consistent database, a single “source of truth”. This database provides precise and real time information on the current state and future requirements of the data centre.

AIM is intended to optimise the business process of an organisation from an IT infrastructure perspective.

It eliminates stranded capacity, facilitates end-to-end analysis and agile infrastructure management and aids predictive analysis and dynamic infrastructure. Since in an AIM system the entire infrastructure is represented in a consistent database, inquiries into resources such as server ports, space in cabinets as well as energy requirements and cooling capacity are quick and easy to answer precisely with this database.

Improved capacity utilisation of the existing infrastructure as well as the simple and exact planning of changes and expansions are immediate advantages of AIM systems.

Not only this, these solutions vastly improve the efficiency of operation and administration and can result in reduction of downtime by 30 to 50 percent. During incident management, AIM solutions can reduce the resolution time, thereby providing the potential for significant savings in terms of both IT resources and lost business output.

AIM is intended to optimise the business process of an organisation from an IT infrastructure perspective. It eliminates stranded capacity, facilitates end-to-end analysis and agile infrastructure management and aids predictive analysis and dynamic infrastructure.

‘AIM’ for Innovation The data from the system could also be used to create useful reports for financial budgeting and inventory of IT infrastructure. Strategic IT expansion forecast questions could be easily predicted based on the reliable statistics and reports generated out of the system.

The system could also aid IT managers as a planning tool to simulate the future expansion of network, thus allowing them to better estimating the bill for materials required for implementing the project.

Once the project is realised as per the planned layout, it could then be monitored and administered.

The system software can seamlessly integrate and synchronise with other customer-owned automated building/ facility infrastructure management or data centre environment monitoring as well as security management systems.

Everything could then be monitored and administered from a common dashboard.

Implementing AIM

AIM

is a much needed revolution for the cabling industry

As a general piece of advice, a company should understand the business requirements it hopes to meet though the implementation of such a system. These include infrastructure and environment related considerations, future growth plans and the expectations from having such an infrastructure management system.

With AIM, the choice of technology and system is very important as it could either raise limitations or could facilitate options for expansion. The system configurations

need to be done wisely with the help of template-based modeling with an intuitive user interface. Open architecture systems are recommended for easy integration with third party systems. Contactless data acquisition with no influence on data transmission is a preferable solution, as it does not violate well established cabling standards for connecting hardware and therefore presents a neutral and viable solution for any future transmission upgrade requirements.

Addressing Cost Concerns Cost and complexity of implementing AIM over an existing infrastructure may post a challenge to many organisations since this entails revamping designs, replacing the investments on cabling solutions, down time issues and business continuity.

Companies should therefore look for solutions which take this into account at the time of design. Some leading vendors have ensured that their solutions are retrofittable on existing non-intelligent networks with minimal effort. This allows compatibility with standard installed cabling products with no requirement of replacements with special panels or cords, and even without disconnecting active users.

Automated Infrastructure Management is no doubt set to be the much needed revolution for the cabling industry.

Realising the benefits and investing in the right solutions will ensure not only the future readiness of the network but will also help organisations maximise their current cabling investments.

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ad v ert o rial Fluke networks

What’s Really Going On in the Minds of Structured Cabling Professionals Harley Lang

Y

ou’re deep in the trenches of cabling projects everyday, ensuring cleanliness, testing links and troubleshooting problems when they arise. Throughout the project work cycle, you may think to yourself, “Man, using all these different testers really slows my process,” or “we could get paid so much faster if we had more skilled technicians on the team.”

You’re not alone. In fact, Fluke Networks recently conducted a market survey to see what concerns and problems plague cable installers, project managers, and business owners. Conducted globally, the survey asked more than 800 business managers, technicians, and project leads to discuss what types of projects they’re performing, and how they feel about the tools and resources they have.

We found that more than 77 percent of all cabling professionals think they could get jobs done faster with more skilled employees, but 71 percent think finding them is a challenge. 57 of project

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managers think they could get jobs done faster with better quality if there was better supervision of the teams, and more than half believe mistakes made in testing hurt profitability.

We turned this survey data into an infographic (below) detailing the state of the cabling industry, and how cabling professionals are losing money every step of the way, from set-up to systems acceptance. The bottom line? Cabling professionals spend an average of 47 hours per 1,000 link jobs dealing with problems in testing, losing thousands in wasted labor dollars.

The infographic also details how the just released Versiv Cabling Certification Product Family helps data communications installers more quickly, accurately, and profitably achieve systems acceptance for fiber jobs. With future-ready modules for copper, fiber, and OTDR testing, brand new ProjX software for managing multiple projects, and unmatched speed of testing for all current standards, the tester family is the fastest way to achieve systems acceptance.

Here is the State of the Industry Infographic:

For more information on the Versiv family of testers, please visit: http://www.flukenetworks.com/versivfamily

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o p ini o n fluke networks

T E G

Jason Wilbur, Vice President and General Manager of the Datacom Installer Business Unit at Fluke Networks, writes about how to streamline the cable certification process.

T

oday’s IT discussions are filled with terms like Cloud, Virtualization, SANs, BYOD, SaaS, and SLAs. Rarely is the physical layer – Layer 1 of the 7-Layer OSI Model – part of the buzz. But at the end of the day, all network technologies lead back to that critical, foundational layer and the cabling infrastructure that supports it. If it doesn’t work, nothing works. And like the technologies around it, infrastructure is changing. Consultants and network owners that do not embrace this change, and address the mounting complexities of installation and certification, will struggle for profitability and the very survival as a business.

But, what does it takes to succeed in the face of an exponentially greater need for cabling contractors to manage multiple environments, media, standards, and technologies. In this new multi, multi, multi world – the new normal – what do cabling professionals need to do differently to ensure success and profitability? What is needed to properly navigate the changing landscape of media, standards and more? And how can we, as a professional community, change the project management game?

Data centres and the networks that fan off from them, settled into a fairly archetypal design right around the year 2000, and haven’t altered dramatically since then.

The No. 1 challenge for cabling contractors: speed of certification. But, the networking industry has been in stasis for the past decade

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due to the effectiveness of 1 Gbps copper connections. These cables were common, inexpensive, fast enough and relatively straightforward to install and repeatedly test.

But, that era is coming to a close as we move from 1 Gbps copper to 10 Gbps copper, and to 40 Gbps and even 100 Gbps fiber. As more data travels over each connection, each cable is that much more critical.

Unfortunately, this evolution is complicated by a variety of issues and standards. Where Cat 5 cable used to rule the day, now there’s Cat 5e, Cat 6, Cat 6a Class F or Class FA copper, and multiple types of fiber.

There’s a broad range of TIA and ISO industry standards and requirements evolving to be able to make new measurements like TCL, and ELTCTL balance measurements.

And for Wi-Fi, there’s 802.11a, b, g, n and soon ac (gigabit) and eventually ad (7 gigabit). Simultaneously, the people who are responsible for deploying and maintaining this infrastructure – the cable installers, project managers, network administrators, etc. – are wrestling with limited resources.

And, less-recognised issues are the twin constraints of manpower and expertise.

There are fewer trained personnel available to do the work (specifically in terms of ratio between installer/installation), and those that are available may have limited expertise. As with many industries, there’s a growing divide between the project managers and the techs or installers.

Not only is complexity increasing, but the volume of cable installation and certification is still high. According to surveys done

by Fluke Networks, nearly 93 percent of contractors expect to certify the same (59 percent) or a higher volume (34 percent) of links next year. Testing and certification are key requirements for these installations, and not just for the obvious need to make sure that everything works. Certification reports are required to obtain system acceptance that in turn leads to payment and compliance with manufacturers warranties.

Yet because of the volume of work and the scarcity of resources, roaming install/ test teams and separate service tiers are common. Almost 90 percent of these links are typically fixed individually and immediately, meaning that if a tool or expertise is not available, work stalls.

Adding to the complexity, installations are not problem-free: In recent Fluke Networks’ customer surveys, 91 percent of U.S., 90 percent of Asian and 97 percent of European installers report at least one preventable problem that they had to deal with the past 30 days. More than half of the respondents from the Europe report six or more problems.

More than 50% of US respondents actually reported seven or more preventable problems. In Asia, that climbs to 10 or more problems. Most often, these issues can be traced back to errors in process: incorrect test limits; misconfigurations or parameters;

test data spread across multiple testers; mismatched results, incomplete testing or reporting, etc.

And those problems add up, according to the research. In total, per 1,000 links installed, 45 hours (U.S.), 61 hours (Asia) and 26 hours (Europe) are spent resolving mistakes during cable infrastructure installation and testing. In simple terms, the mistakes, complexity and rework can add a week to a week and a half of labor to a typical 1,000-link project.

Right now, the industry is awash in “multiples” – multiple cables, multiple standards, multiple teams, multiple tools, multiple projects, multiple test regimes, multiple skill levels and more. That puts two opposing forces - increasing complexity and thinly stretched expertise - on a collision course that affects the fundamental connectivity of technology.

The implication is that if something doesn’t change, then some other factor has to give. Clearly what’s needed is better efficiency and agility, and that means tools that can assume a larger role in the installation process, thereby delivering a greater impact to the business.

As much as testing and troubleshooting are the core of certification, there is an even greater opportunity to wring time, cost, complexity and errors out of the rest of the process. Let’s take a look at what that certification looks like at the project level.

The six steps of a certification process.

Planning – The first part of the install and certification process is typically left to the project manager. Most installers these days are managing the testing and certification of multiple jobs simultaneously, each with multiple teams, test tools and requirements.

This is not only time consuming, but the increased complexity can, and is, leading to costly errors.

93%

of contractors expect to certify the same or a higher volume of links next year.

Setup – The next phase is setup, ensuring that the requirements are known and the tool is correctly configured to test those parameters. Complexity is growing in this area as well: we have multiple media types, different categories and varying standards.

For frontline technicians, the impact is either in needing to wait for a particular expert to set up the tool or run the risk of making costly errors that require rework.

Testing – Testing can always be faster. But again, the speed of current testers is such that the ability to gain huge advantages in this part of the process is limited – there are now much greater gains to be had elsewhere.

Troubleshooting –The varying skill levels of technicians, or even simple lack of familiarity with certain types of installations or different standards, typically means that projects are delayed until the needed expertise is available to troubleshoot.

Reporting – In many ways, reporting has become the bane of installation. Not only is it increasingly complex – working in an environment with multiple testers, teams, standards and test regimes makes generating the requisite reports a time consuming process – but this is also the point at which errors and oversights from earlier in the certification become apparent, resulting in delays.

System acceptance – This is a growing challenge for customers. If installers, who live and breath cabling, are overwhelmed by the increasing complexity, one can only imagine what it’s like for customers. Multiple complex reports, varying test regimes, etc., can all impact system acceptance.

All things being equal, a possible answer to these requirements would be adding more expert project managers to the process, so that they could apply the insight, training and oversight needed to eliminate errors and improve efficiency. Unfortunately this isn’t economically feasible.

The solution then is a testing solution that helps take on that role, managing the test process as well as the test itself. Looking at the six-step certification process again, such a solution would deliver significant benefits.

Planning – The appropriate tool would incorporate project management capabilities to seamlessly plan and manage multiple jobs, different cable types or testing regimes, multiple teams, and more. In short, it would be adept at simultaneously handling all the complexity thrown at the typical cable

infrastructure installation, thus improving efficiency and eliminating costly errors.

Setup – Test setup wizards would deliver guided referencing and link budget configuration, as well as incorporating builtin standards to ensure the right tests are performed. This approach eliminates the “wait for an expert” delay as well as further reducing errors.

Testing – As we’ve said, testing can always be faster, and tools continue to improve in speed. More importantly, built-in wizards and a graphical interface will quickly get the user to the right test configuration, also improving speed.

Troubleshooting – The ability to drill down to identify root cause, as opposed to a simple pass-fail, is critical to effective troubleshooting. This drill-down, along with precision graphical wiremaps, allows technicians of varying skill levels to quickly pinpoint and correct problems.

Reporting – Reporting, as we’ve shown, is evolving and the need for flexibility and agility never ends. To eliminate this challenge, test tools should incorporate a project system that manages results across multiple teams, media and testers to control and integrate results into a single report across an entire project.

Moreover, the dramatic improvements made in earlier segments of the certification process should largely eliminate common errors and oversights, speeding project completion.

System acceptance – If complexity tends to “complicate” system acceptance, then the antidote is a clear system that uses concise statistics, event maps and ISO Level V accuracy certification to deliver instant insight into job quality without the need to page through thousands of reports.

If the future of cable infrastructure, and technology in general, is ever increasing complexity, then we must demand more from our tools to keep up. We must be more agile. And today that means much more than just raw speed. Keeping the cable infrastructure healthy and on-pace with the rest of the industry means focusing on the entire certification process, optimising workflow as needed around the everincreasing multitude of job requirements to speed system acceptance. Contractors that do not successfully evolve to address these complexities will simply be replaced by those that can.

Cabling infrastructure is evolving, fast.

Everything else must evolve with it.

2013 CABLING PLANNER 17

Pr o ducts round up

Siemon launches SidePOD and Baffle

CommScope crafts a total package for FTTA, remote radio deployments CommScope is offering a new, comprehensive solution to wireless operators for enabling successful fiber-to-the-antenna (FTTA) site deployments.

The FTTA Turnkey Solution, part of the Andrew portfolio of wireless solutions, standardizes remote radio unit (RRU) installation while bringing simplicity, consistency and performance assurance to a technologically and logistically complex application.

CommScope’s FTTA Turnkey Solution will relieve uncertainty about successful RRU deployment while increasing visibility into installation, maintenance and operating costs. The FTTA Turnkey Solution enables wireless operators to create and maintain a future-ready wireless network that can be implemented with any major radio technology.

It is a comprehensive, flexible platform capable of supporting multiple RF technologies and frequencies while boosting network capacity.

The optional Andrew SiteRise tower solution is believed to be the world’s first preassembled tower top for RRU site architectures.

First deployed by international operator Ooredoo, Andrew SiteRise provides preassembly and pre-testing of all RF equipment prior to hoisting up the tower.

18 CABLING PLANNER

2013

Siemon has a SidePOD and Baffle solution to support side-to-side ventilated active equipment and end of row (EoR) configurations in data centre applications in the Middle East. Designed to create and direct airflow to support cooling, the SidePOD and Baffle can also be used to expand EoR configurations, to increase capacity.

As an optional add-on to Siemon’s 48-inch deep VersaPOD (VP2) cabinets, the SidePOD creates the necessary clearance for proper airflow and cooling when using side-to-side ventilated switches, such as Cisco Nexus 7018 Series Switches. The optional baffles can be mounted within the SidePOD to route cold air to the input side of the switch and route exhaust air into the hot aisle.

The SidePOD is also suitable for expanding EoR configurations to increase capacity.

When added to EoR cabinets, the SidePOD enables use of full size Zero-U panels, which provides up to 12U of vertical patching and/ or high-capacity vertical cable management to optimise EoR functionality. The SidePOD is compatible with the VP2 side panels, so the EoR cabinet side panels can readily be transitioned to the SidePOD when added.

Siemon’s SidePOD door features a lockable latch that can be easily opened or

closed with a single finger. There is a multiple cable access opening in the lid that accepts optional brush guards to provide overhead cable access to the Zero-U space. The unique angled design of the baffles allows them to be nested in the Zero-U space between VP2 cabinets, to support both side intake and venting between adjacent cabinets. Unlike most baffle solutions, Siemon’s modular baffle allows six of the eight available Zero-U spaces (75 per cent) to be used concurrently for patching or cable management. These reversible baffles can be installed in either orientation for proper airflow from cold to hot aisles.

Siemon’s new SidePOD and Baffle solution has been fully validated via Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling for proven performance under maximum operating conditions.

R&M debuts AIM solution

R&M has launched the R&MinteliPhy Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) solution in the Middle East. The system has been designed to be easily retrofittable in existing data centre cable installations and allows network managers to continuously monitor each and every connection in data centres and local data networks in buildings. R&MinteliPhy reduces both

cost and complexity by enabling remote monitoring and multi-site support while unlocking functionality for the management, analysis and planning of cabling and network cabinets.

No special cables or new patch panels are needed to operate the R&MinteliPhy. The system can be retrofitted on existing R&M network components with minimal effort. Standardised and automated work procedures are introduced at the time of installation, as is automatically generated documentation that is always up-to-date.

These features can drastically reduce investment and maintenance expenses for network infrastructure. In investigations conducted during product development, R&M found that the payback period for the management system is less than one year.

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