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  • MPO/MTP Solutions for High Density Applications

    by Articles / 642 Views

    As the bandwidth demands grow rapidly, data centers have to achieve ultra-high density in cabling to accommodate all connections. MPO/MTP technology with multi-fiber connectors offers ideal conditions for high-performance data networks in data centers. This article will introduce information about MPO/MTP solutions, such as MPO/MTP trunk cable, MPO/MTP harness cable and MPO/MTP cassettes.

    MTP/MPO Trunk Cable

    MTP/MPO trunk cables are terminated with the MTP/MPO connectors (as shown in the following figure). Trunk cables are available with 12, 24, 48 and 72 fibers. MTP/MPO trunk cables are designed for data center applications. The plug and play solutions uses micro core cable to maximize bend radius and minimize cable weight and size. Besides, MTP/MPO trunk cables also have the following advantages:

    • Saving installation time–With the special plug and play design, MTP/MPO trunk cables can be incorporated and immediately plugged in. It greatly helps reduce the installation time.
    • Decreasing cable volume–MTP/MPO trunk cables have very small diameters, which decrease the cable volume and improve the air-conditioning conditions in data centers.
    • High quality–MTP/MPO trunk cables are factory pre-terminated, tested and packed along with the test reports. These reports serve as long-term documentation and quality control.

    Trunk-Cable

    MPO/MTP Harness Cable

    MPO/MTP harness cable (as shown in the following figure) is also called MPO/MTP breakout cable or MPO/MTP fan-out cable. This cable has a single MTP connector on one end that breaks out into 6 or 12 connectors (LC, SC, ST, etc.). It’s available in 4, 6, 8, or 12 fiber ribbon configurations with lengths about 10, 20, 30 meters and other customized lengths. MPO/MTP harness cable is designed for high density applications with required high performance. It’s good to optimize network performance. Other benefits are shown as below:

    • Saving space–The active equipment and backbone cable is good for saving space.
    • Easy deployment–Factory terminated system saves installation and network reconfiguration time.
    • Reliability–High standard components are used in the manufacturing process to guarantee the product quality.

    Harness-Cable

    MPO/MTP Cassette

    MPO/MTP cassette modules provide secure transition between MPO/MTP and LC or SC discrete connectors. They are used to interconnect MPO/MTP backbones with LC or SC patching. MPO/MTP Cassettes are designed to reduce installation time and cost for an optical network infrastructure in the premises environment. The modular system allows for rapid deployment of high density data center infrastructure

    Cassette

    as well as improved troubleshooting and reconfiguration during moves, addons, and changes. Aside from that, it has other advantages:

    • MPO/MTP interface–MPO/MTP components feature superior optical and mechanical properties.
    • Optimized performance–Low insertion losses and power penalties in tight power budget, high-speed network environments.
    • High density–12 or 24 fiber cassettes can be mounted in 1U scaling up to 72 or in 3U scaling up to 336 discrete LC connectors.

    The above shows that the MPO/MTP system is a good solution for data center requirements. This high density, scalable system is designed to enable thousands of connections.

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  • The Composition and Classification of Fiber Optic Cables

    by Articles / 638 Views

    To satisfy optical, mechanical and environmental performances and specifications, fiber optic cable was born. The fiber optic cable uses one or more fibers that placed in the sheath as the transmission medium. Accompanied by the continuous advancement of network technology, fiber optic cable constantly participates in the construction of telecommunications networks, the construction of the national information highway, Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and other occasions for large-scale use. Although fiber optic cable is still more expensive than other types of cable, it's favored for today's high-speed data communications because it eliminates the problems of twisted-pair cable and so fiber optic cable is still a good choice for people. But how to really get a good performance, state-of-the-art products, we need to understand some basics to identify the types of fiber optic cables.

    Composition

    Fiber optic cable consists of the core, the cladding and the coating. The core is a cylindrical rod of dielectric material. Dielectric material conducts no electricity. Light propagates mainly along the core of the fiber. The core is generally made of glass. The core is described as having a radius of (a) and an index of refraction n1. The core is surrounded by a layer of material called the cladding. Even though light will propagate along the fiber core without the layer of cladding material, the cladding does perform some necessary functions. (The basic structure of an optical fiber is shown in the following figure.)

     

    Structure: Core: This central section, made of silica, is the light transmitting region of the fiber.Cladding: It is the first layer around the core. It is also made of silica, but not with the same composition as the core. This creates an optical wave guide which confines the light in the core by total reflection at the core-cladding interface.Coating: It is the first non-optical layer around the cladding. The coating typically consists of one or more layers of a polymer that protect the silica structure against physical or environmental damage.Strengthening Fibers: These components help protect the core against crushing forces and excessive tension during installation. The materials can range from Kevlar to wire strands to gel-filled sleeves.Cable Jacket: This is the outer layer of any cable. Most fiber optic cables have an orange jacket, although some may be black or yellow. The jacket material is application specific. The cable jacket material determines the mechanical robustness, aging due to UV radiation, oil resistance, etc.

     

    Jacket Material: PolyEthylene (PE): PE (black color) is the standard jacket material for outdoor fiber optic cables. PE has excellent moisture- and weather-resistance properties. It has very stable dielectric properties over a wide temperature range. It is also abrasion-resistant.PolyVinyl Chloride (PVC): PVC is the most common material for indoor cables, however it can also be used for outdoor cables. It is flexible and fire-retardant. PVC is more expensive than PE.PolyVinyl DiFluoride (PVDF): PVDF is used for plenum cables because it has better fire-retardant properties than PE and produces little smoke.Low Smoke Zero Halogen (LSZH) Plastics: LSZH plastics are used for a special kind of cable called LSZH cables. They produce little smoke and no toxic halogen compounds. But they are the most expensive jacket material. 

     

    Fiber Size

    The size of the optical fiber is commonly referred to by the outer diameter of its core, cladding and coating. Example: 50/125/250 indicates a fiber with a core of 50 microns, cladding of 125 microns, and a coating of 250 microns. The coating is always removed when joining or connecting fibers. A micron (µm) is equal to one-millionth of a meter. 25 microns are equal to 0.0025 cm. (A sheet of paper is approximately 25 microns thick).

     

    Classification

    Besides the basics, Fiber optic cables can be classified by other ways.

    Transmission Mode:
    • Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF) Cable: Center glass core is coarse (50 or 62.5 µm). It can transmit a variety of patterns of light. However, because its dispersion is large, which limits the frequency of the transmitted digital signal, and with increasing distance, the situation will be more serious. For example, 600Mb/km of 2km fibers provide the bandwidth of only 300 Mbps. Therefore, MMF cable's transmission distance is relatively short, generally only a few kilometers. General MMF patch cables are in orange, also some are gray, joints and protection are beige or black. 
    • Single-Mode Fiber SMF Cable: Center glass core is relatively fine (core diameter is generally 9 or 10 µm), only one mode of light transmission. Therefore, the dispersion is very small, suitable for remote communication, but it plays a major role in the chromatic dispersion, so that SMF cable has a higher stability requirement to the spectral width of the light source, just as narrower spectrum width, better stability. General SMF patch cables are in yellow, with joints and cases in blue.

     

    Transmission Way:
    • Simplex Cable: Single strand of fiber surrounded by a 900µm buffer then a layer of Kevlar and finally the outer jacket. Available in 2 mm or 3 mm and plenum or riser jacket. Plenum is stronger and made to share in fire versus riser is made to melt in fire. Riser cable is more flexible.
    • Duplex Cable: Two single strands of fiber optic cable attached at the center. Surrounded by a 900µm buffer then a layer of Kevlar and finally the outer jacket. In data communications, the simultaneous operation of a circuit in both directions is known as full duplex; if only one transmitter can send at a time, the system is called half duplex.

     

    Cable Core Structure:
    • Central Tube Cable: Fiber, optical fiber bundles or fiber optic cable with no stranding directly into the center position.
    • Stranded Tube Cable: A few dozens or more root fiber or fiber tape unit helically stranded around the central strength member (S twist or SZ twisted) into one or more layers of fiber optic cable.
    • Skeleton After Tube Cable: Fiber or fiber after spiral twisted placed into the plastic skeleton cable slot.

     

    Fiber Road Laying:
    • Aerial Cable: Aerial cables are for outside installation on poles. They can be lashed to a messenger or another cable (common in CATV) or have metal or aramid strength members to make them self supporting. The cable shown has a steel messenger for support. It must be grounded properly. A widely used aerial cable is optical power ground wire which is a high voltage distribution cable with fiber in the center. The fiber is not affected by the electrical fields and the utility installing it gets fibers for grid management and communications. This cable is usually installed on the top of high voltage towers but brought to ground level for splicing or termination. 
    • Direct-Buried Cables:
      • Armored Cable: Armored cable is used in direct-buried outside plant applications where a rugged cable is needed and/or rodent resistance. Armored cable withstands crush loads well, needed for direct burial applications. Cable installed by direct burial in areas where rodents are a problem usually have metal armoring between two jackets to prevent rodent penetration. Another application for armored cable is in data centers, where cables are installed underfloor and one worries about the fiber cable being crushed. Armored cable is conductive, so it must be grounded properly. 
      • Breakout Cable: Breakout cable is a favorite where rugged cables are desirable or direct termination without junction boxes, patch panels or other hardware is needed. It is made of several simplex cables bundled together inside a common jacket. It has a strong, rugged design, but is larger and more expensive than the distribution cables. It is suitable for conduit runs, riser and plenum applications. It's perfect for industrial applications where ruggedness is needed. Because each fiber is individually reinforced, this design allows for quick termination to connectors and does not require patch panels or boxes. Breakout cable can be more economic where fiber count is not too large and distances are not too long, because it requires so much less labor to terminate.
    • Submarine Cable: Submarine cable is the cable wrapped with insulating materials, laying at the bottom of the sea, to set up a telecom transmission between countries.

     

    Cable State. Based on 900µm tight buffered fiber and 250µm coated fiber there are two basic types of fiber optic cable constructions:
    • Tight Buffered Cable: Multiple color coded 900µm tight buffered fibers can be packed tightly together in a compact cable structure, an approach widely used indoors, these cables are called tight buffered cables. Tight buffered cables are used to connect outside plant cables to terminal equipment, and also for linking various devices in a premises network. Multi-fiber tight buffered cables often are used for intra-building, risers, general building and plenum applications. Tight buffered cables are mostly built for indoor applications, although some tight buffered cables have been built for outdoor applications too.
    • Loose Tube Cable: On the other hand multiple (up to 12) 250µm coated fibers (bare fibers) can be put inside a color coded, flexible plastic tube, which usually is filled with a gel compound that prevents moisture from seeping through the hollow tube. Buffer tubes are stranded around a dielectric or steel central member. Aramid yarn are used as primary strength member. Then an outer polyethylene jacket is extruded over the core. These cables are called loose tube cables. Loose tube structure isolates the fibers from the cable structure. This is a big advantage in handling thermal and other stresses encountered outdoors, which is why most loose tube fiber optic cables are built for outdoor applications. Loose-tube cables typically are used for outside-plant installation in aerial, duct and direct-buried applications. 

     

    Environment & Situation:
    • Indoor Cable: Such as distribution cables. Distribution cable is the most popular indoor cable, as it is small in size and light in weight. They contain several tight-buffered fibers bundled under the same jacket with Kevlar strength members and sometimes fiberglass rod reinforcement to stiffen the cable and prevent kinking. These cables are small in size, and used for short, dry conduit runs, riser and plenum applications. The fibers are double buffered and can be directly terminated, but because their fibers are not individually reinforced, these cables need to be broken out with a "breakout box" or terminated inside a patch panel or junction box to protect individual fibers.
    • Outdoor Cable: Outdoor fiber cable delivers outstanding audio, video, telephony and data signal performance for educational, corporate and government campus applications. With a low bending radius and lightweight feature, this cable is suitable for both indoor and outdoor installations. These are available in a variety of configurations and jacket types to cover riser and plenum requirements for indoor cables and the ability to be run in duct, direct buried, or aerial/lashed in the outside plant.

    To purchase your fiber cables, please click link below:

    Fiber Patch Cables

     

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  • Why Does FTTH Develop So Rapidly?

    by Articles / 634 Views

    FTTH (Fiber to the Home) is a form of fiber optic communication delivery in which the optical fiber reached the end users home or office space from the local exchange (service provider). FTTH was first introduced in 1999 and Japan was the first country to launch a major FTTH program. Now the deployment of  FTTH is increasing rapidly. There are more than 100 million consumers use direct fiber optic connections worldwide. Why does FTTH develop so rapidly?

    FTTH is a reliable and efficient technology which holds many advantages such as high bandwidth, low cost, fast speed and so on. This is why it is so popular with people and develops so rapidly. Now, let’s take a look at its advantages in the following.

    FTTH

    • The most important benefit to FTTH is that it delivers high bandwidth and is a reliable and efficient technology. In a network, bandwidth is the ability to carry information. The more bandwidth, the more information can be carried in a given amount of time. Experts from FTTH Council say that FTTH is the only technology to meet consumers’ high bandwidth demands.
    • Even though FTTH can provide the greatly enhanced bandwidth, the cost is not very high. According to the FTTH Council, cable companies spent $84 billion to pass almost 100 million households a decade ago with lower bandwidth and lower reliability. But it costs much less in today’s dollars to wire these households with FTTH technology.
    • FTTH can provide faster connection speeds and larger carrying capacity than twisted pair conductors. For example, a single copper pair conductor can only carry six phone calls, while a single Fiber pair can carry more than 2.5 million phone calls simultaneously. More and more companies from different business areas are installing it in thousands of locations all over the world.
    • FTTH is also the only technology that can handle the futuristic internet uses when 3D “holographic” high-definition television and games (products already in use in industry, and on the drawing boards at big consumer electronics firms) will be in everyday use in households around the world. Think 20 to 30 Gigabits per second in a decade. No current technologies can reach this purpose.
    • The FTTH broadband connection will bring about the creation of new products as they open new possibilities for data transmission rate. Just as some items that now may seem very common were not even on the drawing board 5 or 10 years ago, such as mobile video, iPods, HDTV, telemedicine, remote pet monitoring and thousands of other products. FTTH broadband connections will inspire new products and services and could open entire new sectors in the business world, experts at the FTTH Council say.
    • FTTH broadband connections will also allow consumers to “bundle” their communications services. For example, a consumer could receive telephone, video, audio, television and just about any other kind of digital data stream using a simple FTTH broadband connection. This arrangement would more cost-effective and simpler than receiving those services via different lines.

    As the demand for broadband capacity continues to grow, it’s likely governments and private developers will do more to bring FTTH broadband connections to more homes. According to a report, Asian countries tend to outpace the rest of the world in FTTH market penetration. Because governments of Asia Pacific countries have made FTTH broadband connections an important strategic consideration in building their infrastructure. South Korea, one of Asian countries, is a world leader with more than 31 percent of its households boasting FTTH broadband connections. Other countries like Japan, the United States, and some western countries are also building their FTTH broadband connections network largely. It’s an inevitable trend that FTTH will continue to grow worldwide.

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  • Introduction to Bi-Directional Transceiver Modules

    by Articles / 624 Views

    Almost all modern optical transceivers utilize two fibers to transmit data between switches, firewalls, servers, routers, etc. The first fiber is dedicated to receiving data from networking equipment, and the second fiber is dedicating to transmitting data to the networking equipment. But there is a type of fiber optic transceiver module called BiDi (Bi-Directional) transceiver to break this rule. What's BiDi transceiver? How does it work? And why people believe it will have broad market prospect? This tutorial will give you the answer.

    What's BiDi Transceiver?

    BiDi transceiver is a type of fiber optic transceivers which is used WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) Bi-directional transmission technology so that it can achieve the transmission of optical channels on a fiber propagating simultaneously in both directions. BiDi transceiver is only with one port which uses an integral bidirectional coupler to transmit and receive signals over a single fiber optical cable. Thus, it must be used in pairs.

    How Does BiDi Transceiver Work

    The primary difference between BiDi transceivers and traditional two-fiber fiber optic transceivers is that BiDi transceivers are fitted with Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) couplers, also known as diplexers, which combine and separate data transmitted over a single fiber based on the wavelengths of the light. For this reason, BiDi transceivers are also referred to as WDM transceivers.

    To work effectively, BiDi transceivers must be deployed in matched pairs, with their diplexers tuned to match the expected wavelength of the transmitter and receiver that they will be transmitting data from or to.

    For example, if paired BiDi transceivers are being used to connect Device A (Upstream) and Device B (Downstream), as shown in the figure below, then:

    Transceiver A's diplexer must have a receiving wavelength of 1550nm and a transmit wavelength of 1310nmTransceiver B's diplexer must have a receiving wavelength of 1310nm and a transmit wavelength of 1550nm
    Diplexers at Work in BiDi Optical Ethernet Transceivers

    Advantages of BiDi Transceivers

    The obvious advantage of utilizing BiDi transceivers, such as SFP+- BiDi and SFP-BiDi transceivers, is the reduction in fiber cabling infrastructure costs by reducing the number of fiber patch panel ports, reducing the amount of tray space dedicated to fiber management, and requiring less fiber cable.

    While BiDi transceivers (a.k.a. WDM transceivers) cost more to initially purchase than traditional two-fiber transceivers, they utilize half the amount of fiber per unit of distance. For many networks, the cost savings of utilizing less fiber is enough to more than offset the higher purchase price of BiDi transceivers.

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  • Optics and Cables Selection for Storage Area Network (SAN)

    by Articles / 613 Views

    Optics and cables are the most important infrastructures of network connectivity. In a storage area network (SAN), switches are used between servers and storage devices. This means that you should make connection with optics and cables between the server and switch, storage and switch as well as the switch and switch. Of course, according to different application environments, you should choose different optics and cables in order to get the best performance. Furthermore, you may need to consider the future expansion of your network. Thus, an economical and effective solution of optics and cables are very necessary.

    Key Factors Influencing Your Decision

    Firstly, there are some key factors which will influence your decision. Thus, you must make sure that what your network really requires. As we mentioned above, an SAN has server, storage device and switches. So, what should we consider in every section of the network?

    1. Server
    Bandwidth: Depending on the application load requirements, customers typically decide whether they want 1GbE, 10GbE, or 40GbE. In some cases, the decision may also be dictated by the type of traffic, e.g. DCB (Data center bridging) requires 10GbE or higher.Cost: Servers claim the highest share of devices deployed in any data center. Choosing a lower cost connectivity option results in a much lower initial deployment cost.Power: In any high density server deployment, a connectivity option which consumes lower power results in much lower OpEx.Distance: Servers are typically connected to a switch over a very short distance, i.e. typically within the same rack or, in some cases, within the same row.Cabling Flexibility: Some customer prefer to make their own copper cables due to variable distance requirement. This requirement limits the choice of connectivity to copper cables only.

     

    2. Storage
    Reliability: Typical storage traffic is very sensitive to loss. Even a minor loss of traffic may result in major impact on application performance.Qualification: Storage vendor qualification or recommendation plays an important role in this decision due to reasons such as customer support, peace of mind, etc.Latency: Any time spent in transition is time taken away from data processing. Reducing transition time results in much faster application performance. The result may have a direct impact on customers' bottom line, e.g. faster processing of online orders.

     

    3. Switch
    Bandwidth: On server facing ports, servers typically dictate the per port bandwidth requirement. However, per port bandwidth requirement for the network facing (switch-to-switch) ports denpends on multiple factors including amount of traffic generated by the servers, oversubscription ratios, fiber limitations, ect.Distance: An inter-switch or switch to router connection could range from a few inches to tens of kilometers. Generally, the price of optics increases as the distance increases.Latency: The network topology and application traffic profile (East-west, HPC (High Performance Computing), computer cluster, etc.) and influence the minimun latency that can be tolerated in the network.

     

    • Server to Switch Connectivity Solution

    • Storage to Switch Connectivity Solution

     

     

    • Switch to Switch Connectivity Solution

     

     COMPUFOX Solutions

    COMPUFOX  offers a comprehensive solution of optics and cables which supports your network from 1GbE to 100GbE. We have a great selection of 1000BASE-T/SX/LX SFP, BiDi SFP, 10GBASE-SR/LR SFP+, DWDM SFP+, whole series 40G QSFP+ optics and cables, as well as the 100G CFP2 and CFP4, etc. which help you solve the cost issue in fiber project. Especially the 40G QSFP+ optics, with the passive optic design, they can be compatible with all the equipment of all major brands. In addition, most of them are ready stock. See Links below:

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