Patch Panel Plays a Role in High Density Cable Management

In a structured data center cabling, patch panel is a functional unit which can increase efficiency and the usefulness of the such a cabling. Without it, the transmission of data is rendered ineffectively, it consolidates all the horizontal cabling in any piece of infrastructure, allowing IT managers to terminate long and troublesome cables so that a signal is connected directly through a patch code to its destination. This post aims to introduce patch panel in the following text.

What More Benefits We Can Get from Patch Panel

Patch panel is a device which enables cable connections, usually involving a short cable plugged in the front and a long cable into the back of the patch panel. The primary advantage of using patch panel is improved organization and easier management of your network. It also serves as the nerve center for the cabling network. Simply put, the patch panel is where all the horizontal cabling in the infrastructure is consolidated. Besides, patch panel plays a central role in the administration of the telecommunications network by enabling the process of moves, adds and changes (MACs) in complex spaces. For example, if two workers must transfer desk locations, a simple switch of patch cords into various ports on a patch panel can ease the move. Without this capability, much time and energy would be spent termination cable that would have to be hard-wired. Here shows Cat5e patch panel.

Patch panel is so critical to a system that if anything goes wrong with them, the entire system may fail, so it makes sense to choose patch panels carefully.

Copper VS. Fiber Patch Panel

Generally, there are copper and fiber patch panel available on the market. Some professionals are adamant that there is no real differences in the performance and construction, while others see a drastic differential between the copper and fiber products.

Cost: Cost is always the key consideration that most IT managers will concern. Commonly, the cost of fiber patch panel which having improved over the past year is far more than the copper equivalent. Such explains that the cost of actual installation is compatible but estimate a 30% to 40% per premium for fiber patch panel. Take FS.COM as an example, a 24 port Cat5e patch panel is only $41, but a MTP patch panel for 40G is about $850.

Ports Requirement: If we compare these two patch panels from the ports that they need, there is a night and day difference between copper and fiber patch panel. With copper panel, each pair of wires has one port, while fiber patch panel requires two port—one for the transmit end and one for the receiving end, because each tube of glass can only transmit in one direction.

Installation: Most professionals believe that fiber patch panel is a lot simpler to install than copper panel. A copper patch panel typically has up to four or eight modules, each with eight ports, which bring a total of 32 and 64 ports respectively. However, a traditional fiber patch panel typically features 72 or 96 ports, and some fiber panel may have up to 1,536 ports. (Note: The number of ports on a panel is not subject to physical limit other than the room to place them.) A high port count is required since two ports must accommodate each fiber cable.

Summary

Patch panel is highly functional systems, and will not at any point stand in the way of modifying your office or business design. FS.COM provides both copper fiber patch panel (Cat5e and Cat6 patch panel) and high density fiber patch panel (MTP patch panel) for different requirements. For any detailed information, please visit FS.COM.

WDM Network

CWDM

CWDM (Coarse Wavelength Dense Multiplexing) is a method of combining multiple signals on laser beams at various wavelengths for transmission along fiber optic cables. CWDM uses five or six wavelengths which are from 1270 nm to 1610 nm with a channel spacing of 20 nm. The channel width itself is 13 nm, and the remaining 7 nm is designed to secure the space to the next channel. This 20nm intervals allows the use of low-cost, uncooled lasers for CWDM. CWDM is technologically simpler and easier to implement than DWDM, and it addresses traffic growth demands without overbuilding the infrastructure. But the wavelengths it can support are limited, so it is suitable for a short distance transmission.

DWDM

DWDM is the abbreviation of dense wavelength division multiplexing, which is a type of WDM systems. It works by combining and transmitting multiple signals simultaneously at different wavelengths on the same fiber. DWDM can maintain a more stable wavelength than CWDM, because it has a more dense wavelength intervals which can support more than 80 channels at present, and each channel can carry 2.5Gbps light signal. This allows DWDM to be suitable for long distance optical transmission. As it costs higher than CWDM, it is not available for the use of normal people.

CWDM Mux/Demux

CWDM Mux/Demux is a passive device which is very reliable and simple to use. These devices are designed to multiplex multiple CWDM channels into one or two fibers. The common configuration is 4, 8, 16 and 32 channels. These modules multiplex the light signal outputs from four or more electronic devices, and send them over a single optical fiber, then finally demultiplex the signals into separate, distinct signals for output into electronic devices at the end of the fiber optic cable.

Fiber Optic Splitter

Fiber optic splitter, also called beam splitter, is a type of technology which takes a single optic signal instead of an electrical signal and divides it into multiple signals to send data from one place to another. It is used in passive optical network (PON) as a key component to divide the power of the light over multiple fibers. A single fiber optic splitter can be used in the GPON network. Note that optical splitter can also be employed in the central office alongside the OLT or in the basement of a building for a multiple dwelling unit (MDU) installation. Optical splitters are manufactured commonly in two types according to working principle—FBT (Fused Biconical Taper) splitter and PLC (Planar Lightwave Circuit) splitter. Each type has its own performance.

Fiber Optic Attenuator

Fiber optic attenuator is a device used to reduce the power level of an optical signal, either in free space or in an optical fiber. It is usually used when the signal arriving at the receiver is too strong and hence may overpower the receiving elements. To achieve power loss, technologies including air-gap, absorption, scattering and interference filter are often used for the attenuator products. Fiber optic attenuators can take a number of different forms, and are typically classified as fixed and variable attenuators. Furthermore, according to different types of connectors, there are LC, SC, ST, FC, MU, E2000 attenuators, etc.

FTTH

FTTH is the the acronym of fiber-to-the-home, which is an installation and use of optical fiber to provide unprecedented high-speed internet access from a central point directly to individual buildings such as residences, apartment buildings and businesses. In FTTH deployment, families and officers can both utilize the network in an easier way. FTTH dramatically increases the connection speeds available to computer users compared with technologies now used in most places. Certainly, FTTH is one of the fastest growing applications worldwide.

PON

PON (Passive Optical Network) is a technology in fiber optic communication which implements a point-to-multipoint architecture (P2MP), where unpowered fiber optic splitters are used to enable a single optical fiber to serve multiple end-points such as customers instead of providing individual fibers between the central office and the customers. A PON system consists of an optical line termination (OLT) at the communication company’s office, and a number of optical network units (ONU) near end users. Depending on the termination of the PON, the system can be divided into fiber-to-the-home (FTTH), fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC), fiber-to-the-building (FTTB), etc.

CWDM SFP+ Transceiver

CWDM SFP+ transceiver (Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing Small Form Factor Pluggable) also known as SFP 10G CWDM transceiver is based on the popular SFP transceiver. It can reach a maximum speed of 11.25 Gbps and is commonly used in 10G Ethernet but also as 8x fiber channel or 4x fiber channel speed. CWDM SFP+ commonly comes in three versions including LR, ER and ZR. The LR has 10dB power budget while the ER has 15 dB and ZR 24 dB.

Fiber Media Converter

Fiber media converter is a simple network equipment which can connect two dissimilar media types such as twisted pair with fiber optic cables. And it supports a number of different data communication protocols such as Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Serial Datacom interfaces, and so on. Fiber media converter is an essential part of fiber networking because it has long distance operation, high bandwidth capacity and it reliably makes fiber optics the most desired channel for data communication. The types of fiber media converter ranges from small independent equipment to PC card converter and high-end mouth density chassis.

Fiber Patch Panel

Fiber patch panel, also called fiber distribution panel, is an integrated unit for fiber cable management to terminate the fiber optic and provide access to the individual fiber for cross connection. There are two main types of fiber patch panels. One is a wall-mounted device, and the other is a rack-mounted panel. Fiber patch panel helps network technicians in minimizing the clutter of wires when setting up fiber optic cables, organizing and distributing the optical cables and the branches.