Media converters essential bridge between legacy, contemporary technologies

Balancing contemporary and legacy demands in the data center
The problem with maintaining legacy applications and systems alongside high-performance workloads is that the different systems create distinct architectural challenges. High-performance storage and server systems, for example, can push network demands through the roof. This, combined with the increased bandwidth coming in from external sources, makes fiber a key consideration in many parts of the network, not just backhaul.

However, the primary reason many legacy applications do not work well in cloud environments is because they do not function properly in a virtualized hardware setup. As such, bandwidth requirements are not nearly as severe and traditional Ethernet infrastructure with copper cables will often get the job done.

Going all fiber and using various adaptors can work from a theoretical perspective, but the cost makes that a non-viable option. At the same time, all-copper can work as advanced standards enable copper to support high-performance architectures, but such a setup can create excess complexity. Media converters can enable organizations to use fiber and copper interchangeably, balancing performance and cost at an optimal ratio.

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.