Considerations for your upcoming data center migration to 10Gbps and 100Gbps

The right decisions will make your 100Gbps migration a smooth ride.

By Donna Donnowitz
February 25, 2015
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It wasn't too long ago that the thought of linking the data center to a 1 Gbps connection seemed like big news. These days, however, the talk is all about how facilities can benefit from connection speeds ranging from 40Gbps up to 100Gbps. Most modern data centers are ill-equipped for a smooth transition - upgrading to a 40Gbps connection is not as simple as adding a new cabling system. It may be a ways off before your IT staff has access to the fiber-optic resources needed to achieve these connections, but it doesn't hurt to start planning ahead for your facility's impending growth.

Prepare for fiber in your data center
The deployment and activation of fiber-optic networks across the country has seen a big jump over the past few years, and more companies than ever before are able to take advantage of this reliable connection medium, said Data Center Knowledge. Companies looking to enhance their data center with a fiber-optic connection for the first time may face considerable expense if they wish to extend new cables throughout their facility. Alternatively, companies can mitigate those costs by using gear like Fiber-to-Ethernet servers to mix their existing copper connections with fiber.

Using a mix of fiber, copper and an interconnector may require your facility to do some infrastructural adjustments. The relative cost of retrofitting your connections, compared to that of replacing them outright, is far more manageable. The experience gained from this problem-solving process can also help prepare your IT team for a 10Gbps upgrade down the road.

Develop migration plans before making the jump
Looking ahead, a data center migration with limited details is unplanned downtime waiting to happen. Don't let the opportunity to enjoy faster connections prevent your IT experts from implementing 10Gbps correctly. Cabling Installation & Maintenance pointed out that you'll need three solutions in place before starting the migration. Your transition strategy is incomplete without a means of connecting legacy fiber-optic infrastructure to 40Gbps and 100Gbps applications, a versatile high-bandwidth connector and hardware compliant with new and upcoming industry standards. Make sure to get your ducks in a row, lest your connection speed upgrade turn into a company-wide slowdown.

Perle has an extensive range of Managed and Unmanaged Fiber Media Converters to extended copper-based Ethernet equipment over a fiber optic link, multimode to multimode and multimode to single mode fiber up to 160 km.

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