Network Infrastructure Blog

Here’s a good video from a Siemon Emerging Technology Forum event where Aquantia, Cisco, Intel and Siemon teamed up to discuss 10GBASE-T adoption in the data center.  While the video is a little over a year old, I mention it because the message is still valid:  10GBASE-T makes a lot of sense for data centers.  The continued adoption of 10GBASE-T over the last year proves it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmj1n3W7pSA&feature=youtu.be

Panel contributors included:

• Sudeep Goswami, Product Line Manager of Cisco’s Server Access and Virtualization Business Unit and group chair for the Ethernet Alliance 10GBASE-T committee
• Dave Chalupsky, Intel Network Architect
• Carl Hansen, Senior Product Manager with Intel’s Data Center Standards group
• Carrie Higbie, Siemon’s Global Director of Data Center Solutions & Services
• Sean Lundy, Director of Technical Marketing at Aquantia.

Among the event highlights were Aquantia and Intel experts providing insight on how chip innovations from their respective companies were expected to significantly drive down 10GBASE-T power requirements for more energy-efficient green 10GbE networks.

Regarding widespread commercial availability of 10GBASE-T equipment, Cisco’s Sudeep Goswami stated that Cisco is serious about 10GBASE-T and discussed the company’s support for 10GBASE-T with their Nexus and Catalyst product lines.

According to Siemon’s Carrie Higbie, category 6A and higher connectivity is being planned in new data centers, “85% of the new data center designs I see are cabling for 10GBASE-T.” Higbie also noted a continuing upswing in the global use of shielded cabling for 10GBASE-T, including the traditional UTP dominant markets such as the US.

Siemon has been marketing and selling 10GBASE-T ready cabling since 2004 and now that 10GBASE-T equipment and power consumption is becoming more economical, the time has come for customers to take full advantage of their category 6A and higher cabling investment.

Brady has recently collaborated with Siemon to release the latest version of LabelMark™ Label Design Software.

Pre-made label templates for Siemon’s most common network connectivity are now included in the new time-saving datacomm wizard in LabelMark 5.4.

“Before, network technicians were using Microsoft Word and Excel to set up page sizes and label formats in order to label their network hardware,” said Marlon Davis, Brady’s software product manager. “The process was oftentimes tedious and very time-consuming, because they’d need to make numerous adjustments and format modifications before they could even add the data to the labels to start printing,” said Davis.

Save time: With the new datacomm wizard in LabelMark™ 5.4 Software, technicians can simply select Siemon as their network hardware manufacturer and hardware model, and the appropriate label template will be automatically generated.

After selecting their label template, users are guided to apply labeling legend data and save the cable markers and label files they’ve created for patch panels, jacks, and other hardware. It allows technicians to save a complete job, which can be used for quick label kitting at future on-site cable drops and rack installations.

For more information on LabelMark™ Label Design Software, visit www.BradyID.com/labelmark.

Q: Will we see a standard for 40 Gigabit Ethernet over twisted-pair  copper cabling and does the fact that ISO/IEC and the TIA are  investigating the requirements for achieving this increase the  possibility of it happening?

A: Yes and yes!  There are very strong indicators that development of a greater than 10Gbps Ethernet application for balanced twisted-pair cabling will begin in 2012.  These include:

1)  the availability of  IEEE 802.3ba compliant 40Gbps Ethernet computer backplanes,

2)  the availability of  IEEE 802.3ba compliant 40Gbps and 100Gbps Ethernet multimode and singlemode optical fiber network gear, and

3)  new work projects initiated by ISO/IEC and TIA to develop specifications for 100Ω Next Generation balanced twisted-pair cabling.

While it is likely that the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working Group will engineer this new twisted-pair Ethernet specification, there are no formally adopted objectives or specifications for a greater than 10Gbps Ethernet application at this time.  However, the indicators above provide significant clues regarding the characteristics of a greater than 10Gbps application and the cabling that will support it.

Because Ethernet applications for the LAN backbone and data center core have always preceded Ethernet specifications for the LAN horizontal and data center edge, it is a good bet that the next Ethernet over balanced twisted-pair speed will be 40Gbps.   At this time, the biggest driver demonstrating the great industry commitment to, interest in, and investment in the future of copper-based Ethernet is the work that is being done by ISO/IEC and TIA to develop Next Generation Cabling specifications.

ISO/IEC recently initiated a project to develop a new Standard tentatively entitled, “ISO/IEC 11801-99-x Guidance for balanced cabling in support of at least 40 GBit/s data transmission”.   This proposed 2 part Standard will address capabilities of both existing ISO/IEC 11801 compliant channels and channels with extended and/or enhanced performance characteristics.   TIA is currently working on a project to develop “Specifications for 100Ω Next Generation Cabling”, which is anticipated to be published as addendum 1 to ANSI/TIA-568-C.2.  From the efforts of these two groups, we can already surmise that next generation cabling supporting 40Gbps transmission will require at least 1GHz of bandwidth, be backwards compatible with existing Ethernet applications, and potentially drive the need for a new reduced length (i.e. less than 100 meter) topology specifically supporting data center deployments.

Ever wonder what happens when you get a bunch of industry thinkers together and ask that question?

Well wonder no more.

Brady Lambert of Data Center Marketplace held an event Q4 of last year and was kind enough to post it on Youtube for all to see.

Industry experts include Eric Shepcaro, CEO at Telx Data Centers, Keith Jackson, Sales Director Eastern Region and Canada with Raritan, Axel Kretschmer, Regional Director for System Engineers, Schneider Electric, and Jeffrey Hecht, Regional Sales Manager at Vigilent Corporation. Oh and let’s not forget yours truly from Siemon.

If you are interested in Brady’s events, you can find them at www.datacentermarketplace.com. If you are interested in getting on the list for events in your area, please reach out to your local Siemon representative or sign up on the web site.

Happy Learning!

The TIA TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Subcommittee confirmed industry interest in a greater than 10 Gb/s copper-based Ethernet application when the following new cabling project was initiated in February, 2011:

Project Title: Specifications for 100Ω Next Generation Cabling

Scope: Develop a new category of cabling to support future applications beyond 10GBASE-T.

Justification: A new category of cabling to support increased capacity for future applications.

Next Generation Cabling performance parameters, which are anticipated to be published in addendum 1 to ANSI/TIA-568-C.2 in 2014, are being concurrently investigated by four task groups focused on the subjects of Application Space, Capacity, Cables, and Connectors. Siemon is committed to supporting both this project and next generation Ethernet applications. In fact, Brian Celella of Siemon is Chairing the Next Generation Connector task group and Valerie Maguire, also of Siemon and the author of this blog, is the Document Editor.

The scope of this exciting new project is converging and the TIA TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Subcommittee adopted the following baseline objectives for Next Generation Cabling in October, 2011:

While there is no formal IEEE 802.3 project Call-For-Interest at this time, all early indicators show that there is great industry commitment to and investment in the future of copper-based Ethernet. Siemon expects this application to continue to evolve with ever increasing data carrying capability well into the foreseeable future.