Since the first 32GFC Gen 6 Fibre Channel devices for storage area networking went into production in 2016 the amount of world-wide data has increased by four times. The industry, led by the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA), is prepared for the next bump in bandwidth with the FCIA predicting that “2021 will be the year of 64GFC Gen 7.”
We live, work, and play in a connected world but that would not be possible if there were not a set of standards to guide the installation, maintenance and testing of products and technologies.
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is responsible for the voluntary standards for telecommunications cabling infrastructure in user-owned buildings, such as commercial buildings, residential buildings, homes, data centers, and industrial buildings.
Structured cabling is much more than preventing your data center floor from looking like a big bowl of pasta. Sure, structured cabling will take care of “spaghetti cabling” issues or that tangled rats’ nest of wires often lurking in a business backroom.
Structured cabling is a standardized framework that creates an accepted architecture that controls, powers, and manages your wired and wireless network including connecting equipment, hardware, software, pathways, work areas and facilities in your building or on your campus.
If the data center is at the heart of business in the digital age, then this past year has been a significant stress test as this crucial infrastructure has been under pressure from emerging technologies and world events. While evolving technologies mean that data centers can never be static and are in a constant state of change, the confluence of emerging technologies such as 5G, AI, IoT and Edge are putting unprecedented high-bandwidth and low-latency demands on data centers.
Add in the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the pace at which companies embraced new technologies, and asked data centers to become even more flexible and reliable as the economy shifted to remote work seemingly overnight.
IT Departments around the globe launch into 2021 with the task of optimizing their data center operations with limited financial resources as they continue to navigate the overwhelming effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic fallout.