The international Standards body that specifies the requirements for today’s optical data communications for Data Center and Enterprise applications is the International Electronic & Electrical Engineers, i.e., the IEEE. The specified protocol for point-to-point or point-to-multipoint communications is “Ethernet.” The name Ethernet comes from the ancient Greek word, Ether, meaning the air that fills the…
Since the TIA ratified the specification for OM5, a wideband multimode optical fiber (WB-MMF), customers that are thinking about upgrading their existing infrastructure, or building out new, are asking a question: Should they deploy OM5 fiber? I’ll get to the answer in a bit. First, let’s talk about what OM5 is. OM5 is essentially an…
Packet loss impacts a network in two ways: it reduces throughput and adds to latency. But why does packet loss occur in the first place? The following excerpt from Panduit’s “What is the Impact of Packet Loss?” white paper focuses on the root causes of packet corruption and its prevention. Corrupted packets can occur when they encounter…
At Panduit, we take pride in finding new solutions to old problems (and new ones, too!). And, when we work with the best customers around to help them find solutions to their problems, that’s even better. Last week, Cabling Installation & Maintenance presented their annual Cabling Innovators Awards. And, for the second year, several Panduit…
Innovation was on display at last week’s Cabling Innovators Awards, sponsored by Cabling Installation & Maintenance. Panduit was honored to accept three of the awards, recognizing our customers and us for bringing innovation to network design and installation. Cisco Canada was honored with a platinum award for its new Canadian Headquarters facility. “The new Cisco…
Last week I posted a blog about what is driving the adoption of high density fiber enclosures. High density fiber enclosures can help reduce the high cost of real estate. Possibly, one might find themselves with a data center where space is constrained so a high density fiber enclosure can help ease those space constraints. …
A concern has been growing in recent years over the potential for a technical skills shortage in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere around the globe, particularly in science, and engineering-related occupations. It is generally predicted that, by 2018, a mass wave of retirements by members of the Baby Boom generation will result in 1.2 million…
Historically, MPO connectors had to be ordered with the correct gender and polarity because they could not be changed in the field. The PanMPO connector changes that, allowing installers to change both polarity and gender quickly and easily, simplifying the migration to 40G Ethernet while maintaining standards compliance. Because of this, data center operators only…
Data center networks are becoming more and more complex making it more difficult to trouble shoot and balance traffic within LANs and SANs. That is why more network architects and data center managers are deploying Tapped Fiber optic Cassettes (TFC). TFCs give network analyzers, packet brokers, and other pieces of test equipment access to the…
A converged fabric based on Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) helps data center architects and managers reduce CAPEX, OPEX, while simplifying the network infrastructure. Up until recently, there was something hindering the adoption of FCoE: 10GBASE-T. Historically, deploying FCoE on the links between servers and aggregation switches meant that one had to use optical fiber…