Even more Fiber. Is it just enough?

Data Center on the way to 400 G will need more than fiber. Ultra-High-Density solutions are required. More efficient infrastructure management is required. Future steps include use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and hybrid solutions.

Take care of operational efficiency

In the data center segment, data growth is boosting demand for efficiencies in the areas of energy management and operational efficiencies. Migration to 100, 200, and 400 Gbit/s will continue. That requires more cabling, Ultra-High-Density solutions, and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) to optimize capacity and space usage.

Future steps include intuitive user interfaces and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to keep infrastructure manageable.

The trend towards using more fiber is increasing, with 40 and 100 Gbit/s requiring eight fibers in parallel pairs and higher speeds requiring 16 or 32 pairs. Highly flexible two-layer leaf-spine architectures are replacing traditional three-tier architecture to avoid congestion, reduce latencies, and support high availability.

Enterprise DC is increasingly moving into the cloud. This is bringing new demand and complexity in areas including security, rollout speeds, monitoring, data availability, expertise, planning reliability, and customization.

Growing Hyperscale investments

Globally, Hyperscale data centers are on the rise, with unprecedented investments. According to Cisco, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook are investing $120 billion in building and expanding data centers. ResearchAndMarkets predict Data Center construction market growth with a CAGR of almost 9% between 2019 and 2023.

The colocation market has shrunk slightly during corona times, partly due to the oversupply of colocation space.

Hybrid solutions – a way forward

We are also seeing increasing use of hybrid solutions. They require highly compact distribution technology, including monitoring and management software.

We are also seeing a trend towards integrated DC solutions including racks, power cooling, monitoring, cabling.

Edge DCs supporting low latency applications are still increasingly being rolled out. These are frequently used to bring often-referenced content such as streaming content and cloud applications closer to users. In the same way, they are needed in the fast-growing cell tower backhaul market. In this way, they close the circle with 5G and vice-versa.

Share expertise

Dealing with these developments and finding the best possible solution for your specific challenges and business goals can be complex. For manufacturers and developers, it is vital to share expertise and engage in a dialogue with different target audiences.

After all, there’s no single «one size fits all» solution.

Learn more about R&M’s Data Center solutions. https://www.rdm.com/Markets/Data-Center

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