[AusNOG] Copper versus fibre in the DC

[Bevan Slattery]

It's fibre.  Regardless off all the other merits (and there are plenty) the reality is that modern large DC's simply cannot natively support copper across the entire facility.  In NEXTDC the longest possible copper path from one customer to the frame and back to another customer can be 105m and that's within the same hall!!  That pushes the limit of copper already.

Across the entire facility the farthest is something like 200m (hall 1 to hall 6).  Not copper supportable.  The same problem occurs at Equinix and Global Switch.

SMFibre is the only consistent interface choice that's works everywhere from the DC to the carriers providing services including metro DF.

So if you've got the opportunity to "reset" your infrastructure/core because your are moving into a DC, then there really is only one choice.

B

And megaport supports 10G fibre in case you wanted to test things out ;)


Sent from my iPhone

On 11/10/2013, at 8:12 PM, Alastair Waddell <awaddell at legion.com.au> wrote:

> Hi AusNOG,
> 
> I expect there's strong opinions about this.
> 
> As I'm relocating DCs, its an opportunity to re-assess carrier interconnect terminations. 
> 
> I've been reading how copper (CAT7) is still valid with 10Gb/s ethernet and at the same time how the transceiver is a point of latency where the optics must be converted to electrical signal.
> 
> I figure the transceiver is also a point of failure that's absent in copper although such an argument must surely factor the qualify of the cable/RJ and it's subsequent handling (but how hard can it be!)
> 
> So: 
> 
> * Is copper a valid or even a 'better' choice to terminate carriers in the DC for 1Gb/s and beyond to 10Gb/s? *
> 
> PS KISS and risk mitigation rule in my little world. My fallback position is that fibre is still preferred as the 'safe' option especially wrt 10Gb/s. I just want to canvass all options. I don't want to repeat the exercise with the carriers at some future date if I can avoid it. It probably means, sub 1Gb/s top-of-rack kit today (looking at 4948/4900M or Juniper equivalents) and new kit at somewhere near 1Gb/s throughput with a preference to avoid carrier re-cabling. 
> 
> 
> "With the release of the IEEE 802.3an standard, 10 Gb/s over balanced twisted-pair cabling (10GBASE-T) is the fastest growing and is expected to be the most widely adopted 10GbE option. "
> 
> "At 1 Gb/s speeds, balanced twisted-pair compatible electronics offer better latency performance than fibre; however, considering latency at 10 Gb/s, currently fibre components perform better than balanced twisted-pair compatible 10GBASE-T electronics"
> 
> "Since optical fibre electronics cannot autonegotiate, a move from 1000BASE-xx to 10GBASE-xx requires a hardware change. In contrast, both 1GbE and 10GbE can be supported by 10GBASE-T balanced twisted-pair compatible equipment."
> 
> http://www.siemon.com/uk/white_papers/08-07-10-copper-fiber-options-data-center.asp
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> -- 
> Alastair Waddell
> Legion Internet
> Australia
> 
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