Cabling is the foundation of any communications infrastructure. This important component has seen tremendous technological improvements in the last couple of years. As the needs for bandwidth and to run more applications on the network increases, the cabling infrastructure assumes importance, throwing challenges at CIOs as they go in for a particular solution. The best part of cabling technology is that there are clearly laid out standards, unlike other technologies, creating added confusion in the minds of decision makers at the enterprise level.

Things to Consider
One should look at the future and the ways the company is growing before investing in cabling. Product and installation should also be considered parallely. For electronics, only the quality and performance is considersed, but when it comes to cabling, multiple components have to be assembled and linked together. There is a need to have the right integrator also as there are multiple vendors and multiple products. Fortunately, in structured cabling, there are very clearly defined standards which specify the category of cables to be used, for which applications, and the kind of performance to expect.

Vendors are creating good platforms for product selection. One should be careful about the fact that structured cabling is a system that goes into a building during the construction phase. Before the company moves into the building, it has to be wired which means that the building has to be planned for cabling first. Cabling is something that cannot be replaced like the PC. Another thing to be careful about is the cabling media selection, which should be future proof and should support at least 3-4 generations of infrastructure.

An important question to ask isdo vendors of the structured cabling solution being considered, provide positive assistance with consultancy, design, implementation and active on-going support, including a guarantee and warranty program?

Installation is Key
Today, since multiple products are available, most vendors have taken an initiative to give training and certifications to installers so that they can do installation as a certified installer. So the vendors can select the system integrators who are certified installers and, based on that certification, get warranty for that system. Some key components of structured cabling infrastructure are cable, connectivity, and patch panels, so there is no point in getting a product warranty. Enterprises should look at obtaining a systems warranty, which is possible to get from the manufacturer for a long term. Fifteen years is the minimum that one should expect and it can go on to even twenty-five. The catch is that the installer certified by the vendors from whom the solution is being procured should do the installation

Enterprise can also go for a kind of software or Web-based monitoring solution, which will help them manage their network from their desktop. Many a times rectifying a problem is very easy if problem is identified fast. Where there are mission critical applications running on the network, downtime becomes very important

Documented evidence of recognized, independent compliance testing of proposed solution performance in both optical fiber and copper media is necessary. They should ensure that a real-time, regular and independent monitoring of off the shelf product from the vendor, by independent testing laboratories, is there. One should also consider local supply of physical hardware and availability of trained preferred installer companies.

Key Cabling Considerations
Enterprises should take into account reliability, manageability, and flexibility of the cabling network. Adhering to standards and going to the integrator, who are partners of vendors and consider future proofing, can achieve reliability. The management of cabling infrastructure can be taken care by opting for a good cable management solution. Traditional network management tools offer limited value because information through these is manually collected. The manual process is time consuming, sometimes inaccurate, and can prove to be costly in terms of actual money, man-hours, and network downtime. Cost is an important factor but once it comes to the overall network infrastructure (computer, network interface and switching equipment, communications software, and cable), typically 5-7% is the total investment that goes into cabling. If the network is large and difficult to manage, or where continuous monitoring is required, customers can look at physical layer management solution. Not more than four hours of downtime per year is what the acceptable global standard is. Organizations need to make sure it needs that kind of reliability.

Copper vs Fiber
Fiber is still very expensive if one wants to connect the computer. Even though the price of fiber has come down, the electronics prices have not come down that much. The copper NIC is cheaper than fiber, still cost prohibitive. However, fiber is advisable for the backbone connectivity in a campus network setup, where one needs to connect buildings or floors or the data center. Copper finds its place in the horizontal cabling, a trend which will continue to dominate. Today, even 10G Ethernet is possible over copper, something not even considered some years back.

Fiber is still considered as a less than cost effective media for the horizontal media to workstation. Copper continues to develop greater bandwidth abilities although active interface hardware at the top-end bit throughput for copper support is still prohibitive.

Copper is the only media that will support PoE, therefore, will continue to be predominant in the horizontal. As more novel devices are attached to the IP network, centralized power delivery will be common place. VoIP and other technologies in wireless, video, environment control and security are realizing this need as well.

Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in

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