Trends 2016: The consolidation of structured cabling systems

By Gaurav Ahluwalia

Installation of Automated Infrastructure Management Systems

Structured cabling has seen more implementations of Automated Infrastructure Management systems over the last few years. This enables organizations to monitor their network and control it in case of any errors, hence reducing downtime drastically. Downtime is something that is crucial to a company’s functioning as there are many departments depending on an efficient network.

With the right network cabling and an intelligent infrastructure management, data centers can cut their network energy needs by as much as 10%. Based on our customers' experience, up to 40% of all switch ports simply disappear over time because they are forgotten in the documentation or their status is not correctly recorded.

Pre-terminated solutions

Pre-terminated solutions are starting to be implemented more regularly now. Pre-terminated cabling systems offer a number of advantages for a variety of different network installations, and are particularly suited to data center environments for reasons of time-saving, space-saving, cooling and security. It is, however, important to recognize that to reap all the benefits that a pre-terminated solution offers, there is a serious amount of planning that needs to be carried out prior to installation. Attention to detail in the site survey process and the ensuing plan is critical or these benefits will be lost or additional cost incurred.

Increased usage of fiber solutions

In a developing country such as India, copper still has a long innings to play in structured cabling. Fiber is showing a surge in OM3 as it is a good option in data centers based on the current standards. With newer technologies in fiber-optics coming in, we will see a larger use of fiber for various projects. India is seeing a growing demand for network speeds and requirements; this will allow us to see an increase in fiber optic implementations in the country.

Energy efficient data centers

It can be seen that green data centers have become a necessary trend among organizations as they are looking for ways to reduce corporate energy consumption and be more environmentally responsible. Data centers are an integral part of many technology-intensive businesses. The appetite of data centers for energy, has made costs associated with data centers a significant concern. Therefore, there are conscious efforts being undertaken to improve the energy efficiency of data centers. Energy efficiency in data centers is a growing concern that all organizations share.

Security implementations

We have also seen a surge in the usage of security solutions. Many organisations are implementing security features to their structured cabling system such as patch cord locks, port locks, etc. This reduces the chances of any external person tampering with the network. The IT manager will have full control over his networks security and he will solely be accountable to for its functioning.

(The author, Gaurav Ahluwalia, is managing director, R&M India)