With the rise of bandwidth-hungry applications (particularly those delivered as a service to customers) more high density telecom computing platforms are appearing, which results in more and more fiber finding its way to data centers, transforming the whole structured cabling systems market in the process. The most popular high-speed switch fabric found on the backplane and between ‘boxes’ is 10 Gbps Ethernet, which spurred the IEEE (News - Alert) to standardize (802.3ae) on a 50-µm core multimode fiber. It is said that Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL)-based multimode modular transceivers can be had for prices equal to or less than their copper counterparts, and that this technology will even work with the next generation of Ethernet, running in 40- to 100-Gbps range.

 

Because of the increasing demand for reliability and scalability, old techniques for deploying fiber are being abandoned. Traditional field-installed connectors required skilled installers who could pull a multi-strand distribution cable into place, terminate connectors at the end of the cable, and then mate them to a fiber adapter panel in a fiber enclosure. Now, however, “pre-terminated” fiber-optic connectivity solutions are becoming popular, which involve of trunk cables pre-terminated with multiple fiber-optic connectors that are pulled into place and snapped into pre-terminated cassettes or fiber-adapter panels. By terminating the cables and cassettes at the factory, any physical variations caused by human technicians/installers can be eliminated. Moreover, cassettes can be added or changed at will for upgrades or to switch to different connectors, making everything quite manageable and scalable.

 

PANDUIT (News - Alert) (www.panduit.com) is the company that brought us their Unified Physical Infrastructure (UPI) concept-based solutions that give enterprises the capabilities to connect, manage and automate communications, computing, power, control and security systems for a smarter, unified business foundation.

 

And now, PANDUIT has introduced their OPTICOM QUICKNET Rack Mount Fiber Cassette Enclosures (FCE-U series) that provide a flexible and fully modular system for managing fiber terminations, connections and patching in data center and SAN applications. These rack-mount enclosures are available in 1 RU, 2 RU, and 4 RU high versions, accommodate up to 96 fibers per rack space, and provide superior patch field access via a slide-out, tilt-down drawer design. FCE-U enclosures are compatible with all pre-terminated, field terminated and splicing applications using PANDUIT QUICKNET Cassettes and Fiber Adapter Panels for greater system flexibility and lower cost of ownership.