Copper hanging on in the data center

At this stage, copper is holding fast in the data center, but fiber is rising quickly. IHS found that the LAN market is approximately 1.4 percent larger than the data center segment, but fiber is rising so quickly in the data center that data center-related fiber revenues are outpacing those associated with LANs. McElroy told the news source that the data center is proving a hotbed for investments in advanced cabling systems.

Supporting environments with multiple cabling formats
Fiber's rise and copper's insistence on remaining relevant is leaving data center operators in a tricky situation. Finding ways to mix and match between fiber and copper is key to optimizing the cost-to-performance ratio of the network. Media converters play a vital role in this process as the technology enables IT leaders to smoothly switch between cabling types without having to deal with performance degradationor complex integration challenges.

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 160km.