Understanding cabling
for modern networks
What issues do CIOs and
infrastructure managers
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 [and infrastructure teams]
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
Nabil Khalil, Executive Vice-President of
R&M Middle East, Turkey and Africa
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,
reliability and high-density. There are
several areas to focus on to address these
cabling needs.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
Issue 08
57