Frequently Asked Questions | Data Center | Optical Communications | Corning

A data center is a building or portion of a building whose primary function is to house a computer room and its support areas. 

TIA-942 is the TIA standard that covers data centers.

TIA-942 recommends a Star topology.

A topology in which telecommunications cables are distributed from a central point.

• Rated 1 (Basic)
• Rated 2 (Redundant Components)
• Rated 3 (Concurrently Maintainable)
• Rated 4 (Fault Tolerant)

• LC connector for one or two fiber connections
• MPO connector for connections requiring more than two fibers

LC (Lucent Connector) is a type of fiber connector. Designed for high-density connections and supports SFP and SFP+ transceivers.

MPO (multifiber push-on) is a type of fiber connector for ribbon cables with four to twenty-four fibers. Designed for high-density connections.

The computer room space occupied by equipment racks or cabinets.

Main cross-connect (MC) - The centralized portion of the backbone cabling used to mechanically terminate and administer the backbone cabling, providing connectivity between equipment rooms, entrance facilities, horizontal cross-connects, and intermediate cross-connects.

The space in a data center where the main cross-connect is located.

SAN is a high-speed network that uses the Fibre Channel transmission protocol to interconnect different kinds of data storage devices with associated data servers on behalf of a larger network of users.

Telecommunications room (TR) - An enclosed space for housing telecommunications equipment, cable terminations, and cross-connects. The TR is the recognized cross-connect between the backbone and horizontal cabling.

Main distribution area is the space in a computer room where the main cross-connect is located.

Structured cabling is a cable infrastructure that provides an organized, standardized to cable network that enables simple moves, adds, and changes (MAC) to a network.

A facility enabling the termination of cable elements and their interconnection or cross-connection.

Structured cabling hardware used to connect backbone or horizontal cables.

• Estimate equipment telecommunications, space, power, and cooling requirements of the data center at full capacity. Anticipate future telecommunications, power, and cooling trends over the lifetime of the data center.
• Provide space, power, cooling, security, floor loading, grounding, electrical protection, and other facility requirements to architects and engineers. Provide requirements for operations center, loading dock, storage room, staging areas, and other support areas.
• Coordinate preliminary data center space plans from architect and engineers. Suggest changes as required.
• Create an equipment floor plan including placement of major rooms and spaces for entrance rooms, main distribution areas, intermediate distribution areas, horizontal distribution areas, zone distribution areas, and equipment distribution areas. Provide expected power, cooling, and floor loading requirements for equipment to engineers. Provide requirements for telecommunications pathways.
• Obtain an updated plan from engineers with telecommunications pathways, electrical equipment, and mechanical equipment added to the data center floor plan at full capacity.
• Design telecommunications cabling system based on the needs of the existing and planned future equipment to be located in the data center.

A multitenant data center (MTDC), also known as a colocation data center, is a facility where organizations can rent space to host their data. MTDCs provide the space and networking equipment to connect an organization to service providers at a minimal cost. Businesses can rent to meet varying needs – from a server rack to a complete purpose-built module. The scalability of usage provides the business benefits of a data center without the high price. (April, 2018. Fahey, L. and Robinson, T., Multitenant data centers are key to managing data without breaking the bank, Cabling Installation & Maintenance)

Location in a multitenant data center where telecommunications companies can physically connect to one another and exchange data.

An enclosure that subdivides multitenant data center space within the building using mesh walls, a door, security panels, etc.

Latency is the amount of time it takes to get a response.

Cloud computing is the practice of storing, managing, and processing regularly used computer data on multiple remote servers that can be accessed through the internet.

A private cloud is a dedicated cloud infrastructure, designed with the needs of a single business.

A public cloud is a multi-tenant/shared infrastructure, typically owned and managed by a third party.

A hybrid cloud is the combination of private cloud and public cloud services in a single hosting solution.

Network monitoring is the use of a system that constantly monitors a network for performance, usage, failing components, and outside threats, and notifies in case of potential issues.

Essential to ensuring the success of your network system, network monitoring can automatically detect and respond to threats and performance issues.

Port tapping is a method of extracting data out of a live data link to enable network monitoring.

In the telecommunications industry, “tap” is not an official acronym, but some vendors have created an acronym “test/traffic access port” for the “tap” term. The phrase “tapping” was originally used due to the surveillance nature of connecting into and monitoring communications.

A coupler, also called a splitter, is a passive device that takes a single input of optical light and divides it into two or more outputs. (It can also take two or more inputs of light and combine them into a single output.)

A split ratio refers to the percentage of output power going to the live traffic receiver versus the output power going to the monitoring device. In example, if you have a 70/30 split ratio on your tap module, 70 percent of your power is going to the live receiver while 30 percent is going to the monitoring device.

The supportable monitor link lengths are addressed on a case-by-case basis for the different protocol data rates due to the limitation of the monitor link length for unequal split taps and varying monitor equipment receiver sensitivity. For multimode fiber channel applications, the maximum distance of the monitor link shall not exceed 20 meters direct monitor equipment interconnection for all multimode applications.

Data is transmitted over a single pair of fiber with one fiber for transmit (tx) and one fiber for receive (Rx).

Uses a parallel optical interface to simultaneously transmit and receive data over multiple fibers, typically used in short-to-mid-reach applications.

A technology which multiplexes a number of optical signals onto a single fiber by using different wavelengths of laser light.

Proprietary network transmission protocol using 2x20G lanes at two different wavelengths.

Two-tier network comprising of spine switches and leaf switches.

Breaks 40/100G ports into 4x10 and 4x25G ports.

Top of rack is one common architecture of switch-to-server connections. The switch is placed at the top of the rack for easier accessibility and clearer cable management.

Middle of row.  The switch is placed in the middle of the row to reduced cable lengths.

End of row. The switch is placed at the end of the row. Each server in individual racks are directly linked to an aggregation switch eliminating the use of individual switches in each rack.

The networking of two or more data centers to achieve business or IT objectives. This interconnectivity enables to work together, share resources and pass workloads between data centers.