Issue 73 | August 2013

News

Cloud servICes ANddAtA CeNtres

ICF News | Issue 73

ICF News

Message froM the ICf seCretary general

ICF Congress singapore

Invitations to the annual congress in Singapore at the Hotel Ritz-Carlton from 16-20 October this year have been sent to member companies. We kindly ask for timely registrations, which helps us to organize the Congress in an efficient manner.

The ICF Standing Commission led by Peter Ford is in the process of finalizing the business program for this year´s Congress, which will feature the following topics:

• KeynoteonSocio-Economics• OutsidePerspectiveontheW&CIndustry • SecurePowerGrids • QualityofProducts• SingaporeasBusinessHub• PostFukushima:ElectricityBigBanginJapan• China• SE4A–Update• Thedevelopmentof4GandtheimpactofthefixedtelecomnetworkinEastAsia• EnergyEfficiency

ICF websiteSome delays in the work on the new website have occurred but we remain optimistic that the new website will go online right after the summer break.

ICF New Member

WewelcomeJiangsuZhongtianTechnologyCo.,Ltd.(ZTT),China,asanew member of ICF. Information can be found on their website www.zttcable.com.

CoNteNt

Cloud servICes ANddAtA CeNtres(pages1-12)

stAtIstICs

I.C.F International CablemakersFederation Paulusgasse 12 A-1030Wien AustriaPhone+43-1-5329640 Fax+43-1-5329769 web www.icf.at Contact office@icf.at

The ICF Newsletter is published several times each year by the International Cablemakers Federation.

The ICF accepts no responsi bility for the accuracy or the content of materials provided by third parties as identified.

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ICF News | Issue 73

the Cloud: a new Industry

How does one move to a cloud?Thirty years ago, if you announced to your colleagues that you planned to put critical assets in “the cloud,” they would have questioned your judgment, or your sanity. Now, such a statement is fully acceptable and fairly well understood. Although thenameanddiagramsmaysuggest otherwise, the cloud is based on massive buildings, acres of floor space filled with racks of electronics, huge cooling systems, backup power supplies, and hundreds of kilometres of cabling.

the concept is decades oldThe concept of distributed computing goesbackatleast50years.Itpre-dates

the PC. The term “cloud computing” isattributed toa1997 lecturegivenbyDr. Ramnath Chellappa, a professor of economics and information systems. The term has been in general parlance forabout10years.But theconceptofa “cloud” has been used in telecom dia-grams for many years to illustrate bound-aries between dedicated and shared infrastructure, or to illustrate the Internet.

defining the cloudMany technical groups and publishers offer definitions of “cloud computing.” They vary; some are long, short, broad, inclusive, or very specific. Plus, there are different types of cloud services. The USNational InstituteofStandardsandTechnology, a government-funded lab, published a three-page definition in Sep-tember, 2011. This definition has been widely cited. It begins as follows:

”Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand net-work access to a shared pool of con-figurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applica-tions, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is com-posed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deploy-ment models.”

Clouds are remote but availableKeyelementsoftheNISTdefinitionarethat a cloud resource is shared among multiple users, it is easily accessed using standard network interfaces, and the services can be readily provided or expandedwithnewcustomerrequestsor with increasing demand. In business terms, the cloud is a way of outsourcing data storage, data processing, and oth-er computer or network functions. The facilities that provide cloud services are at remote locations, and most people use the term to refer to services that are accessed or provided via the Internet. The billion-plus cloud users include both businesses and consumers.(Slide1)

telecom networks provide transportThe remote physical facilities can be across an ocean, across the street, or any distance between these two extremes.Inanyevent,theusers’datais carriedon telecomnetworks – usu-ally on the Internet. The increased use of cloud services is a major contributor to the rise in Internet traffic, which is why telecom carriers must continue investing in network capacity.

Internet traffic doubling every two yearsCisco Systems has been publishing semi-annual statistics on Internet traffic

Cloud servICes ANddAtA CeNtres ProvidedbyCRU

last year, the global Cloud servICes Industry took In us$100 bIllIon and served More than a bIllIon users – all relyIng on extensIve power and CoMMunICatIon Cable systeMs.

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ICF News | Issue 73

for six years as part of a serviceCis-co calls its “VisualNetworking Index.”According to this data, Internet traffichas increased with a compound annual growthrate(CAGR)of46%from2005through 2012, and it has more than dou-bled every two years since 2006. Cisco expectsInternettraffictogrowatmoremoderate rates in the next five years,withaCAGRof23%from2012to2017.

data centre traffic is growing similarlyBeginningin2011,Ciscobegantrackingtraffic associated specifically with data centres, including cloud data centres and what it calls “traditional” data centres. Cisco says cloud data centres provide public cloud services, which are avail-able to multiple end-users with “elastic and scalable provisioning and usage-based pricing,” and which are delivered on demand. Cisco’s data shows thatthe total traffic for cloud and traditional date centres is growing at rates compa-

rable to Internet traffic. In 2012, Cisco projected data centre traffic to increase withaCAGRof31%from2011to2016.In 2012, cloud data centres accounted for 39% of all data centre traffic, butthispercentagewill increaseto64%in2016,with faster growth expected forcloud traffic than that of traditional data centres.AccordingtoCisco,clouddatacentretrafficwillincreasewithaCAGRof44%from2011to2016,comparedwithaCAGRof17%fortraditionaldatacentres. (seeSlide2)

76% of data centre traffic is internalIn addition to the two-part segmenta-tion of cloud and traditional data cen-tres,Cisco’sstatisticsalsoshowdatacentre traffic in a three-part segmenta-tionasfollows:1.)datacentretoend-user; 2.) data centre to data centre;and3.)withinthedatacentre.Thefirstsegment corresponds to the Internet trafficassessed inCisco’sother infor-

mation service, the Visual Networking Index.TheVNImeasuresandforecastsInternet traffic based on end-user appli-cations. This is mainly traffic between end-users and a data centre of either main type. There is a small amount of Internet traffic that does not originate or terminate in a data centre, such as data in some peer-to-peer applications. AccordingtoCisco,thedata-center-to-end-usertrafficisonly17%ofalldatacentre traffic. Another 7% is betweendata centres, and the vast majority, 76%iswithinadatacentre.

Internal traffic growth will keep upThe external traffic, fromdata centresto end-users, includes the data trans-missions for web sites, email, social net-working, many smart-phone “apps,” and videoservices.CombiningCisco’sdataon videos downloaded by consumers and “managed IP” video, which refers to IP TV services, video files accounted for54%of Internet traffic in2012,and

200

160

120

80

40

02008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

slide 1|Source:TelecommunicationsIndustryAssociation,WilkofskyGruenAssociates

GlobAl sPeNdING oN Cloud servICes (US$Bspentperyear)

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ICF News | Issue 73

thispercentagewill increaseto63%in2017.Videotrafficiswidelyconsidereda major factor in Internet traffic growth and bandwidth requirements.

YetCisco’sforecastisthattrafficwithindata centres will grow at a comparable pace. This internal traffic results from data centre architectures, which include links between application servers, stor-age systems, and databases. The inter-nal functions also include redundancies for reliability and backup storage. Cisco acknowledges that external data flowsareexpectedtorisewithincreasinguseof video services.ButCisco says thatincreasing use of virtual desktops and cloud services will rely on multiple data centre racks and services, and therefore cause internal traffic to grow as fast as externaltraffic.

CharaCterIzIng the Cloud

who is in the cloud?In addition to the billion consumers using hosted applications, on-line storage,

and social networks, there are millions of companies using cloud services. In April, 2013, a cloud-computing indus-try analysis firm called Neovise issued a reportsayingmorethanhalfofUSbusi-nesses use cloud computing, and most are using multiple clouds. Neovise said that85%of the firms in itssurveyhadbegun using cloud services within the past two years. So the number is scaling uprapidly.TheUShasmorethanamil-lion firms having at least five employees. CRUestimates that there are at leastas many corporations in other countries using cloud services, suggesting that the customer base for enterprise cloud services is well over a million companies.

Akeyattractionformanybusinessesisthe ability to have a scalable resource for computing and storage without having to make commensurate invest-ments in infrastructure.Anotherattrac-tion is the ability to use cloud services with mobile devices or employees that travel or work in different locations. These benefits increasingly are seen as outweighing concerns about security andprivacy.Cloud usage is expected

to continue growing, especially with small andmediumbusinesses (havingupto1,000employees),andthisgrowthaccounts for the 20% to 30%growthrates in cloud data centre traffic.

where is the cloud?In a 2011white paper,McKinsey andCompanysaidthatNorthAmericahad58%of the 2010 cloud servicesmar-ket. At that time,McKinsey’s estimateof the cloud market was lower than that of the TIA,with 2010 sales ofUS$11billion, andUS$85billionprojected for2015.McKinsey,TIA,andotheranalystsagree that demand for cloud services has been surging for the past two years. McKinsey’sanalysishasgrowthinotherregions progressing more rapidly than inNorthAmerica,sothatNorthAmericawillbe48%in2015.WesternEurope’ssharewill increase from 24% to 30%from2010to2015,andJapan’ssharewillincreasefrom9%to13%.

the cloud has thousands of providersMicrosoft says that it partners with 14,000serviceprovidersworldwideto

dAtA CeNtre IP trAFFIC ANd INterNet trAFFIC

slide 2|DataCisco:InternetTrafficdataisfromtheCisco'sVisualNetworkingIndex,May2013DateCentreTrafficdataisfromCisco'sGlobalCloudIndex,Sept.,2012

All data: exabytes per Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2011-2016 CAGr

total data Centre traffic 1,755 2,551 3,251 4,124 5,246 6,649 31%1.CloudDataCentreTraffic 683 1,181 1,694 2,324 3,166 4,255 44%2.TraditionalDataCentreTraffic 1,072 1,370 1,557 1,800 2,080 2,394 17%

total Internet traffic 369 523 667 827 1,006 1,213 27%1.DataCentretoUser 299 438 561 714 912 1,160 31%2.DataCentretoDataCentre 118 173 222 284 365 468 32%3.WithinDataCentre 1,338 1,940 2,468 3,126 3,969 5,021 30%

PercentofDataCentreTraffic 76% 76% 76% 76% 76% 76%that is Within the Data Centre

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business is highly fragmented, with many service providers and niche busi-nesses.

How big are the cloud facilities?TosupportitsAWScustomers,Ama-zon has data centres in 28 cities around the world. In a 2011 open house at one of AWS’s data centres, AmazonVPJamesHarringtongaveapresenta-tion that included the following state-ment:“Everyday,AWSaddsenoughnewcapacitytosupportallofAmazon.com’sglobalinfrastructurethroughthecompany’sfirstfiveyears,whenitwasaUS$2.76-billion-revenueenterprise.”That’s just Amazon, which accountsfor a small percent of cloud services. How many data centres are involved in theUS$100billionindustry?

Determining the number of data cen-tres worldwide, or locations, or floor space is difficult: there is no central-ized tally by government or industry associations, and there likely are many corporate or government data centres that would not be reported in surveys. There is also a problem of what to count. The term data centre has been used to refer to a wide range of facili-ties including sites with servers to host Internet services, telephone company central offices, and private or corpo-rate storage and data processing func-tions.

defining data centres The most general definitions say it is a building or room that houses data pro-cessing equipment. More specific defi-nitions say that the equipment includes servers, storage systems, and net-working equipment. Most definitions also say that the facility must meet requirements for reliability, accessibil-ity, security, and other characteristics. These definitions may also specify the use of uninterruptible power supplies,

cooling and environmental controls, surveillance systems, and redundant racks and backup systems. The data centres that support cloud computing will meet the criteria for power reliabil-ity, availability, and environment con-trols in the more stringent definitions.

How many data centre are there?InDecember,2011,EmersonNetworkPower, which supplies power systems and other equipment for telecom facili-ties and data centres, released its esti-mates of the potential costs of data centredowntime.At that time,Emer-sonsaidthattherewere509,147datacenters worldwide, having a total floor areaof286millionsquarefeet,or27squarekm–approximatelythesizeofMacau,orhalfthesizeofBermuda.

IfEmerson iscorrectabout thenum-ber of data centres and the total floor space, then the average data centre sizeis561squarefeet.Plus,theinfor-mation about cloud service companies and commercial data centre operators indicates that there are are many large data centres, having tens of thousands of square feet. This would suggest that many of the half-miillion data centres inEmerson’stallyareroom-sized,andnot providing cloud services or com-mercial hosting services.

data centres are expandingThere seems to be no way to confirm Emerson’s statistics, but there alsoseem to be no alternative sources of information with larger or smaller esti-mates. One thing, however is quite certain: the number of data centres, and the total floor space are increas-ing in rapid fashion. More data cen-ters are being built every year, in every region, and many of the data centres inoperationarebeingexpanded.Proj-ects to build new large data centres, havingmore than25,000square feet

provide hosted services using its soft-ware, and there also aremany LinuxandUnix-basedcloudserviceprovid-ers or hosting companies. AmazonWeb Services (AWS)was one of thefirst cloud-computing service provid-ers, and it is currently regarded as the dominant player. Amazon started asa book seller in 1994, addedmusicandDVDsin1998,andsubsequentlyexpandeditsretailempireintoawiderangeofconsumerproducts.AmazonlaunchedAWS inJuly2002andnowsays enterprises and content creators are among its key customer sets.

Amazon’s Aws is major cloud providerAmazonreportedtotalsalesofUS$61billion in2012,and itsAWSbusinessis reported in the company’s “Other”segment,whichaccountedforUS$2.5billion or 4% of total sales. Financialanalysts at one of the investment banking firms have projected AWSrevenues to reach US$24 billion by2022.Thisgrowthisexpectedtooccurdespite aggressive competition from other cloud-services companies, such asAT&T,CIsco,CenturyLink(Savvis),Equinix,Google,IBM,Level3,Micro-soft, NTT Communications, Rack-space, Red Hat, Verizon, VMWare, and many others.

AmazonsaysAWShas “hundredsofthousands”ofusersin190countries.But with its US$2.5 billion in sales,AWSwas a small percentage of theUS$100 billon total for 2012 cloud-computing sales estimated by the TelecommunicationsIndustryAssocia-tionandWilkofskyGruenAssociates,as shown in Figure 1. Noting the small shareofAWS,which isconsideredalarge cloud service provider, along with Microsoft’s statement citing 14,000companies providing hosted services, it is apparent that the cloud-services

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(2,300squaremetres)areofteninthenews, and there are just as many if not more small data centres being built to provide services in emerging markets. (Slide3and4)

The large cloud service companies, large hosting facility operators, and InternetgiantssuchasGoogle,Yahoo,Facebook, Amazon, and Apple areamong the companies operating very large data centres. NTT Communica-tions,forexample,launcheditsTokyoNo.6-datacentreinAprilofthisyear.ThisadditionbroughtNTT’sworldtotalto140sites.No.6isthelargest,hav-ing 22,000 square metres. The total for all the company’s data centres is170,000squaremetresofserverroomfloor space. No.6 has been designed to withstand earthquake forces as strong asthosegeneratedbytheGreatEastJapanEarthquakeinMarch,2011.

New dAtA CeNtre ProjeCts IN MANY MArkets use ModulAr uNIts

tokYo’s lArGest dAtA CeNtre, Ntt CoMMuNICAtIoNs’ “No. 6”

Power system in the Sudan

Data centre No. 6 in Tokyo

Flexenclosure,basedinSweden,makespowersystemsandmodulardatacentres.Thedatacentremodulesarefullyequippedwith power, electronics, cooling, cabling, and security systems.

LaunchedinApril,2013,No.6has22,000squaremetresoffloorspace,enoughtoaccommodate3,000racks

DatacentreinGhanausingmodules

slide 3|Source:Flexenclosure

slide 4

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Cable requIreMents

The continuing surge in data centre construction has implications for sev-eral types of cable products. First, there will be requirements for long-distance and metropolitan telecom capacity to transmit traffic to and from the data centres. Second, there will be require-ments for backbone and horizontal cabling inside the data centres to link the servers, storage systems, and other racks to the main distribution frames.

Third, there will be requirements for power cables to tie the data centres to the grid , to local power sources, and to backup generators. Finally, there will be internal power cables to distribute power to the racks.

telecom cables for remote locationsLarge data centres are being built inlocations that offer low-cost real estate, access to low-cost electric power or renewable power sources, and in some cases, low ambient temperatures. In late 2011, Facebook disclosed that it

wasbuildinganewdatacentreinLulea,Sweden,neartheArcticCircle.Thissiteoffers low-priced hydro-electric power andtakesadvantageofthelocale’slow-ertemperaturesforcooling.Localbusi-ness organizations in Sweden are pro-moting these advantages to other data centre operators. Their argument is that the advantages in cooling, energy costs, and carbon emissions offset the cost of hauling the traffic over fibre optic net-works. Other data centre operators have built facilities in Iceland for the same rea-sons. To reach Iceland, the data travels on undersea cables. (Slide5)

FACebook dAtA CeNtre uNder CoNstruCtIoN IN luleA, swedeN

Facebook Data Centre

Facebooks’s27,000-sq.-metredatacentrewilltakeadvantageoflowtemperatureforitscoolingsystems.

slide 5 | Source: Node Pole

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Facebook is planning a campus with multipledatacentres inLulea,Sweden.The 13-month construction project forthe first building was completed recent-ly, and the company planned to begin supportingtrafficin2013.Thefirstdatacentrehas290,000squarefeet(27,000squaremetres).Inits2012annualreport,Facebooksays it spentUS$1.24billionon servers, networking, storage infra-structure, and data centre construction.

Fibre backbones are availableFor the traffic to reach data centres in Sweden and Iceland, there already are

long-haul fibre systems in place. Other large data centres have been built in Iowa, North Carolina, Washington state, and other areas where real estate costs are lower than in major metropolitan areas. In some cases, the prices of elec-tricity are a factor in selecting sites to build new data centres, at least for very largeones.Althoughpreviouslyinstalledlong-distance cable systems may be available, new data centres will require short-distance fibre infrastructure to connect the data centre to the long-dis-tancefibres.IntheUS,anewnationwidetelecomoperator,AlliedFiberSystems,

is building long-distance routes with co-location huts every 100 km so that cli-ents can lease cabinets in the facilities. Alliedhassaidthatexternaldatacentrescan be connected to its fibre network throughthese local facilities,andAlliedprovides information on modular data centre suppliers on a dark-fibre website that it has established.

Cisco sees larger rise in metro trafficIn this year’s VisualNetworking Indexdata, Cisco has estimated how much Internet traffic is traveling from data cen-

FACebook server rooM

Facebook Server Room

ServerroominFacebook’sPrineville,ORdatacentre;blueilluminationisfromLEDindicators.

slide 6 | Photo courtesy Facebook

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tres to end-users within a metropolitan area, and how much traffic is traversing long-distanceroutes.In2012,45%ofallInternet traffic was “metro only,” and the remainder traveled over long-distance networks as well as the metropolitan area.By2017,themetro-onlytrafficwillbe58%ofallInternettraffic.Themetro-onlytrafficwillgrowwithaCAGRof29%from2012to2017;whereas the long-distance trafficwill growwith aCAGRof 16%. Cisco attributes the differentgrowth outlook to the increasing use of content delivery networks, which store large files in local data centres as a way to optimize network efficiency.

On a global scale, the Cisco data sug-gests that the construction of new data

centres is more likely to drive require-ments for new telecom cable systems in metropolitan or local networks than in long-distancenetworks. Theexperi-ence in Iceland and Sweden supports this, although both of these countries are considered highly developed tele-commarkets.InCisco’sdata,thetraf-fic traversing long-distance networks will increasefrom2012to2017withaCAGRof5%inNorthAmericaand6%inWesternEurope.Intheseregions,mostlong-distance routes, or “city pairs,” already have cable systems installed.

transmission rates are rising steadilySince the introduction of dense wave-length divisionmultiplexingmore than

10 years ago, there has been a steady stream of technological advances enabling higher-bit-rate transmission on previously installed fibre. In many cases, the network operators have been able to increase their long-distance capacity by installing new transmission without hav-ing to install new cables. Such system upgrades can help avoid the high con-struction costs associated with installing new cables.

In the emerging markets, long-distance Internet is growing at faster rates and is more likely to necessitate the construc-tion of new long-distance cable routes. Cisco’sdatashowslong-distanceInter-nettrafficincreasingfrom2012to2017with a CAGR of 16% in Eastern and

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CentralEurope,22%intheAsia-Pacificregion,38%intheMiddleEastandAfri-ca,and14%inLatinAmerica.(Slide6)

Cables inside the data centresConsideringCisco’sestimatethat76%ofdatacentretrafficisinternal–betweenracks inside the data centre, this indus-try uses vast quantities of indoor-type cables and patch cords. Many data centres are purchased or built with container-sized modules, fully loaded with equipment and cabling. Further, many server and storage systems are built up with racks that are purchased fully loaded with electronic cards, power supplies, and cabling. These pre-loaded systems include fully assembled patch cordsorterminatedcablesystems.As

a result, there are no readily available estimates for the value of cable in data centres.CRUestimatesthatthemarketfor cable and cable assemblies in data centresisontheorderofUS$1billlion,and rising at double-digit growth rates commensurate with data centre con-struction and traffic forecasts.

speed is of the essenceSeveral types of data cables have been used in data centre applications. The trend is for faster interfaces, and this is driving a shift to laser-optimized multi-mode fibre, and in some cases, single-mode fibre. Data centre applications are akeyfactorintheworkonfasterEther-net standards, such as 40Gbps, 100Gbps,ormorerecently,400Gbps.The

shift to faster interfaces is affecting the choice of cables in data centres, with fibre displacing copper, and with laser-optimized multimode displacing the ear-lier generations of multimode fibre.

standards for cable architectureThere are many networking and inter-face standards that apply to data cen-tre equipment.A subcommitteeof theTIA’sTR-42telecommunicationscablingsystems committee has developed a standard for data centre cabling known as TIA/EIA-942. This standard wasapprovedin2005,anditsmainfunctionis to specify data centre architecture for companies or individuals involved in the initial design of data centres and sub-sequent construction and expansion.

stANdArds FORDATACENTREARCHITECTURE,RELIABILITYANDCABLEtIA/eIA 942, communications infrastructure in data centres

eN 50173-5, Itfordatacentres,Europe

ANsI-bICsI-002,datacentrestandard,paralleltoTIA942

Iso/IeC NP 24764, cabling for data centres

CeNeleC eN 50173-5,genericcabling,datacentres(EU)

RELATEDSTANDARDS tIA/eIA 568, structured cabling systems

tIA/eIA 569, pathways and spaces

Iso/IeC 11801, cabling systems

tIA/eIA 607, ground and bonding

NationalElectricalCode

slide 7

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The standard describes alternatives for equipment location and cabling infra-structure to achieve targets for reliabil-ity, power efficiency, and sound envi-ronmental performance, which includes cooling/heat dissipation. The standardincludes specifications for cable types, cable lengths, racks, cabinets, cable raceways, and connector interfaces. (Slide7)

Advances in multimode fibreTomeet higher bit-rate and extendedreach requirements, fibre manufactur-ers have introduced laser-optimized multimode fibres, which are classi-fiedasOM3andOM4bytheISO.Theemergence of the storage area networks (SAN)applicationintheearly2000sandassociated bandwidth requirements helpedincreasedemandforOM3mul-timode fibre, which was standardized in 2002. Fibre manufacturers introduced a higher bit-rate, longer-reach multimode fibre that was standardized as OM4in 2009. These fibre types have beenwidely used in data centres.

At the same time, fibre manufactur-ers introduced bend-optimized or bend-insensitiveversionsofbothOM3andOM4 fibres. These versions haveallowed equipment manufacturers to devise servers, routers, and other prod-ucts with higher port densities over a giv-en footprint. This design enhancement maximizes spacewithin data centres,allows greater system margin for power budgets and improves network reliability by withstanding tighter bend radii with-out losing the optical signal and causing network outages.

single-mode vs. multimode fibreThe prices for bare (uncabled) single-mode fiber are considerably lower than multimode prices, and single-mode offersmuchgreaterbandwidth.Laser-optimizedmultimode fibres,OM3 and

OM4, which are the types typicallyspecified for data centres, can be 10 to15timesmoreexpensivethanstan-dardG.652single-modefibreand7to8timesmoreexpensivethanG.657-A2bend-insensitive single-mode fibre. This relationship also holds true when com-paring the difference in the costs of sin-gle-mode and multimode optical cables.

transceiver costs are key factorThe price of the cabled-fibre however, is only one factor in transmission system costs. Selection of the most effective transmission technology also must take intoaccount:1)spanlength,2)datarate,3)application,and4)transceivercosts.Atransceiverisanelectronicdevicethatcontains both an optical source, a laser, to transmit the optical signal and a pho-todiode to receives the optical signal. Transceivers convert optical to electrical signals for transmission over fibre.

Short range transceivers used in the 850-nmwindowofmultimodefibrerelyon vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELS) that deliver the necessaryperformanceatlowercost.VCSELsaremore efficient to manufacture, require less power to operate, and emit a cir-cular beam that easily couples to con-nected fibers. Transceivers used with single-mode fibre usemore expensiveFabry-Perot(FP)ordistributedfeedback(DFB) lasersthatcostat leasttwiceasmuchasVCSELsandcancostseveraltimes more.

When new classes of transceiver prod-ucts come on the market, the modules typicallyaremoreexpensiveandthere-fore used only for applications requiring high bandwidth-times-distance perfor-mance characteristics, until increasing production volumes lead to lower prices. Forexample,the10-Gbps“10GBASE”transceiver modules began shipping in 2002 and achieved shipments of a mil-

lion ports later in the decade. Currently 40GBASEand100GBASE transceiverproducts are at earlier stages of a vol-ume-cost curve. (Slide8)

Since the majority of span lengths in datacentresare lessthan150feet,or46metres, thedistancespossiblewithsingle-mode fibre are minimal, but there are applications where its higher band-width proves useful. Typically single-mode fibre is specified for the interface to a telecom carrier’s long-distancecable route, for campus applications, or for40-Gbpsand100-Gbpslinksgreaterthan150metres.Bit ratesof40Gbpsand100Gbps canbe achieved usingparallel transmission over eight or more multimodefibreswithlower-costVCSELtransceivers.

Parallel opticsData centre bandwidth requirements also have led to the use of another sophisticatedoptical technology –MTtype connectors, which provide for the connection of multiple fibre ends. Afamily of these products called MPO (“multi-fibre push-on”) connectors canprovide for the mating of multiple fibre ends–fromtwotodozens–inasingle“ferrule.” The MT ferrule has a rectangu-lar plastic end with precision holes for multiple fibres arrayed in a stripe with up to 12 holes, or in multiple parallel stripes of up to 12 holes. Two of these plastic ends are physically butted together and heldwithalockingclip.Alignmentpinsassure that the holes in each of the two ferrules are aligned to achieve a low-loss optical path for every mated fibre.

The MT connector was developed by NTT of Japan, initially for single-mode fibreapplications in telecom networks, where it was intended to address problems of high-density fibre interconnects. The multimode versions are finding a home in data centres, where density and high

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oPtIoNs FORFIBRE-BASED40-GBPSAND 100-GBPSTRANSMISSION

FIber tYPe

CABLECOST

TRANSCEIVERTYPE

TRANSCEIVERCOST

OPTICALREACH@10G

OPTICALREACH@40/1OOG

AVAILABILITYOF40/1OOG

s-M

10KM

10KM

CWDM

oM3

300M

100 M

PARALLEL

OPTICS

oM4

600 M

150M

PARALLEL

OPTICS

slide 8|Source:Berk-Tek,aNexansCompany

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bandwidth are key factors. These parallel interconnects can be used with multiple fibres and arrays of lower-cost VCSELtransceivers to achieve high-bit-rate transmission speeds at costs lower than single-modesystems.Aparallelarrayofeight multimode fibres can be used to achieve40-Gbpstransmission,and100-Gbpscanbeachievedwith20multimodefibres, using MPO connectors. (Slide9)

To meet more stringent data centre requirementstheTIAreviseditsTIA/EIA-942 standard in August of 2012. Therevisions included the following changes: 1)onlyOM3andOM4multimodefibresforhorizontalandbackbonecabling,2)LC-duplex connectors for two-fibres,and3)MPO-styleconnectors formorethan two fibres.

twP performanc e is improvingThe small diameter of optical fibre cables offer advantages in design-ing data centres tomaximize air flowaround the racks. Some racks have so

many ports that large bundles of copper cables can prove an obstruction to air flow, which is a critical factor in cooling equipment and maintaining reliability standards.(Heatisthemajorcauseofequipmentfailures.)Thisdoesnotmeanthat all internal cables are fibre. Cop-per proves cost-effective for many short links, and continues to be used in many applications.

New TWP cables with bandwidth above 1 GHz are in development.These cables sometimes are referred to as Cat 8, and this nomenclature was recentlyapprovedbytheTIA’scoppercabling subcommittee. The term has not been adopted by the ISO, which usesthetermCat7aforcoppercableswithperformancegreaterthan1GHz.These higher-speed cables are being developed tosupport40-GbpsEther-net, and early trials show transmission overdistancesof 30metresormore,considered useful for possible data centre applications.

Cooling and energy usageA single server rack can requiremorethan 40 kW to power the electronic“blades” with additional power needed forcoolingsystems.A largedatacen-tre can have thousands of such racks, resulting in power consumption on the order of tens of MWs. Smaller data cen-tres, such as room-sized facilities may need less than 100 kW. Typically each rack has a power supply, and the low-voltage cables are run under the floor or in overhead trays to these power sup-plies. The placement of power cables also is a factor in airflow and efficient utilitizationofadatacentre’sHVACsys-tem. There are architectures that have the racks position in alternating hot or coolrowstomaximizethebenefitofaircirculation.These power and cooling requirements explainthedecisionstoselectdatacen-tre sites in low-cost energy markets or cool climates, or both. The efficiency of a data centre’s energy usage is amajor factor in data centre operating

PerForMANCe levels For dIFFereNt tYPes oF dAtA CAbles

slide 9|Sources:EIA/TIA,BICSI,FOA

type / standard technology bandwidth bit rate distance Conditions / Comment (MHz) (Mbps) (km)

Cat5e/ClassD UTP 155 100 0.10 notford.c.horizontalCat6/ClassE UTPorSTP 250 10,000 0.06 0.1kmat1GbpsCat6a/ClassEa STP(F/UTP) 500 10,000 0.10 cablehasfoilshieldCat7/ClassF S/STP 600 10,000 0.10 pairs&cableshieldedCat7a/ClassF S/STP 1,000 10,000 0.10 pairs&cableshielded

75-ohmcoax coaxial 45 0.10 T-3,E-3

OM-1MMfibre 62.5-[jmcore 200 1,000 0.28 removedfmTIA942OM-2MMfibre 50-(jmcore 500 1,000 0.55 removedfmTIA942OM-3MMfibre 50-(jmlaser-opt. 2,000 10,000 0.30 850-nmVCSELOM-4MMfibre 50-(jmlaser-opt. 4,700 10,000 0.55 850-nmVCSELS-Mfibre DFBlaser perÄ: 10,000 200 1,550-nmDFB

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ICF News | Issue 73

costs, and is widely discussed among datacentredesignissues.Aswithdatatransmission rates, energy utilization is anareaofongoingR&Dbydatacentreoperators and their equipment suppli-ers.Energyefficienciesareimprovingasare data rates and network cost. These improvementsareexpectedtocontinueas Internet usage and data centre traffic and workloads continue rising.

data center and cloud outlookRevenues for cloud services will increase with a CAGR of 19% through 2016,according to theTIA.Clouddata cen-tretrafficisforecasttohaveaCAGRof28% for the sameperiod, andall datacentretraffic (cloudplustraditionaldatacentres) will increase with a CAGR of27%accordingtoCisco. Internet trafficwillincreasewithaCAGRof20%through

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2016. These are high growth rates com-pared with other wire and cable market segments. The different traffic and data centre forecasts show a slight slow-down in year-on-year growth in the latter years of the five-year forecastperiod.But theongoing demand for higher bandwidths and power efficiency will continue to drive innovation and market opportunities in the wire and cable industry.

Issue 73 | Cloud servICes and data Centres