Data Center Global Telecommunications
Cabling Standards Landscape and Latest
Developments
Jonathan Jew - J&M Consultants, Inc.
Chair TIA TR-42.6 Telecom Administration
Vice-chair TIA TR-42.1 Commercial Buildings
Co-chair BICSI Data Center Subcommittee
Vice-chair USTAG ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 25 WG 3 Interconnection of
IT Equipment
www.j-and-m.com
WHY USE DATA CENTER
TELECOM STANDARDS?
Point-to-Point Non-Standard Cabling
Unorganized, Single-Use
Structured Standards Based Cabling
- Organized, Reusable, Flexible
Standard/Structured vs.
Proprietary/Point-to-Point Cabling
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Better availability
Saves money
Faster deployment
Support for multiple current &
future protocols
What are the standards?
• ANSI/TIA-942-A Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard
for Data Centers (US, approved April 2012, published Aug 2012;
Addendum 1 approved Feb 2013, available now)
• CENELEC EN 50173-5 Information Technology – Generic Cabling
Systems Part 5: Data Centres (2007, European Union).
Addendum 2 approved for publication in 2012
• ISO/IEC 24764 Information Technology – Generic Cabling for
Data Centre Premises (2010, international). Addendum 1
approved for publication in 2014
• ANSI/BICSI-002 Data Center Design and Implementation Best
Practices (2011, international). Revision in progress (~2014).
New standards & updates
• BICSI, ISO/IEC, CENELEC, and TIA are all very
busy revising and developing new standards
• They work in conjunction with each other and
organizations such as IEEE
BICSI-002 Data Center Best Practices
• ANSI/BICSI-002 Data Center Design and
Implementation Best Practices Standard
• Developed by 150+ committee members worldwide
(mostly users, engineers, consultants)
• Meant to supplement, not replace existing data center
cabling standards by ISO/IEC, CENENLEC, TIA, and
others
• Under revision expected late 2014/early 2015
• Large document (~400 pages) covering a wide range of
subjects - electrical, mechanical, architectural, fire
protection, security, structural, commissioning,
telecom, etc.
TIA-942-A-1 Data center fabrics
• Switch fabrics provide high-bandwidth any-to-any
connectivity required for cloud computing
• Fabrics can and should be built using the standards
based cabling
• More cabling and higher bandwidth needed for
fabrics than traditional switch architecture
Traditional 3-Tier
Fat-Tree / Leaf & Spine
Switch Fabric
Balanced Twisted Pair Cabling
• Cat 5e & 6 for 1 Gigabit Ethernet to 100 m
• Cat 6A, 7, or 7A for 10G Ethernet to 100 m
• ISO/IEC requires and other standards
recommend Cat 6A minimum
• Cat 8 in development for 40GBase-T up to 30 m
(adequate for 80% of server connections);
25Gbase-T also under consideration
Switch-to-Server Link Length
% of data center links
30 meters
80%
40 meters
90%
100 meters
100%
Optical Fiber Cabling
• Laser optimized 50/125 um multimode fiber
(OM3 or OM4) less expensive than singlemode fiber for lengths <=150 m
• 40G uses 8 MM fibers and MPO connector
• 100G uses 20 MM fibers and either two 12
fiber MPOs or one 24 fiber MPO connector
• 4-lane/8-fiber 100G (Mar 2015) will cost less,
use less power, and is expected to support at
least 70m over OM3, 100m over OM4.
Optical Fiber Cabling
• 16-fiber and 32-fiber MPOs being developed
by TIA (TIA-604.18 FOCIS-18)
• More efficient use of fibers for 40G & 4-lane
100G which use 8 fibers (12-fiber MPOs have
4-unused fibers)
• 400G Ethernet will probably use 32
multimode fibers
Summary
• Standards-based structured cabling optimizes cost,
flexibility, and availability
• Standards are continuously updated:
– CENELEC: European Union
– TIA: US, Canada, and US-based companies outside US
– ISO/IEC: most other countries
• BICSI standards are international best practices that
work with other standards
• Consider future needs to support 10/40/100G and data
center fabrics needed for clouds
– Cat 6A, 7, or 7A for balanced-pair cable
– OM4 for multimode fiber terminated on MPOs (with multiples of 8 fibers)
• New 4-lane 100G Ethernet (Mar 2015)
• New Cat 8 / 40GBase-T (Feb 2016)
Thank you
Jonathan Jew
President J&M Consultants, Inc.
Email: jew@j-and-m.com
Co-chair BICSI data center subcommittee – www.bicsi.org
Co-editor TIA-942-A, Editor TIA-942-A-1
Chair TIA TR-42.6 telecom administration subcommittee
Vice-Chair TIA TR-42.1 commercial building cabling
Editor ISO/IEC TR 14763-2-1 telecom administration identifiers
US National Committee Project Manager ISO/IEC 24764 data
center standard
Data Center & Administration Section Editor –
ISO/IEC 14763-2 cabling planning & installation
Supplementary Information
Differences between standards
TIA
ISO/IEC
CENELEC
Balanced Pair
backbone
Cat 3 min
Cat 6A recommended
Cat 6A, 7, 7A
Cat 6, 6A, 7, 7A
Balanced Pair
Horizontal
Cat 6 min
Cat 6A recommended
Cat 6A, 7, 7A
Cat 6, 6A, 7, 7A
Multimode
Fiber
OM3 min
OM4 recommended
OM3 min
OM2 min
Coaxial cable
734/735 coax
None
None
MMF connector LC for 1 or 2/port
MPO for 3+/port
LC for 1 or 2/port
MPO for 3+/port
LC or MPO
SMF connector
at EDA
LC for 1 or 2/port
MPO for 3+/port
LC for 1 or 2/port
MPO for 3+/port
LC-PC
SMF connector
at Entrance Rm
LC for 1 or 2/port
MPO for 3+/port
Angled-LC
Angled-LC
ISO/IEC Category 8
• ISO/IEC TR 11801-99-1 – Balanced cabling for
40Gbps channels – (2014-2015) meant for IEEE
• Characterizes 30 meter channels (26 m with 2x2m
patch cords) to support 40 Gbps using existing Cat
6A, 7, 7A, and new Cat 8.1 and Cat 8.2 components
• Cat 8.1 for Class I channels is backward compatible
with Cat 6A
• Cat 8.2 for Class II channels compatible with Cat 7/7A
• IEEE 40GBase-T target is 30 m for Cat 8, unknown for
Cat 6A, 7, 7A
• Parallel effort in TIA underway
Ethernet channel lengths over multimode fiber
Fiber
Type
1G
10G
40G
100G
100G
# fibers
2
275 m
2
26 m
8
-
20
-
8
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550 m
82 m
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-
-
800 m
300 m
100 m
100 m
70 m*
1040 m
550 m
150 m
150 m
100 m*
OM1
OM2
OM3
OM4
Distances in red are specified by manufacturers but not in IEEE
standards.
*IEEE 802.3bm Standard for 4-lane 100G target 1Q2015
BICSI-002 Subjects Covered
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Site Selection
Architectural and Structural Design
Electrical Systems
Mechanical Systems (i.e., HVAC)
Fire Protection and Security
Building Automation Systems
Commissioning
Maintenance
BICSI-002 Subjects Covered
• Telecommunications
– Access Providers & Entrance Facilities
– Telecom Spaces
– Cabinets & Racks
– Cabling Pathways
– Telecom Cabling
– Field Testing
– Telecom Administration
• Information Technology