10GE: Packing A Punch

Kashi Vishweshran, director, BNA Technology Consulting, agrees, “The demand for 10GE cabling is likely to pick up only after this standard crosses a critical mass in terms of implementation in back-bone or data center segment.” Kumar Natarajan, regional director, India, Panduit adds, “We are still quite a distance away in using CAT 7 in the market space. There is not much need for such high-speed bandwidth applications today and hence the volume requirements will be low for some time.”

Despite early deployments of Cat6a and Cat 7 by the likes of ADC Krone, Systimax and Tyco, a majority of cable vendors are in the wait and watch mode. Vendors like D-Link, Panduit, BNA Consulting, and DAX Networks are ready to join the 10GE bandwagon and hope to add to the ripple.

Shopping for 10GE cabling solutions (India specific):
Vendor	Product Brand	Features	No of Installations(end to end)
Tyco	AMP NETCONNECT XG	An end-to-end solution for twisted pair and fibre optics on 10GE. Consists of cable, connectors, and patch panel designs that overcome Alien Crosstalk (ANEXT) and to enable 10GE transmission over a full 100-meter channel.	10-15 installations on fibre.3-4 installations on copper twisted pair.
Systimax	GigaSPEED X10D Solution	Systimax Labs used the Modal Decomposition Modelling tool to evaluate the 1,024 interactions between adjacent, as well as within, cabling components to achieve at a substantial reduction in alien crosstalk.	NA
D-Link	D-Link 10GE over copper	This comprises of unshielded twisted pair patch-panel 24 port, single –dual and quad information outlets, patch cords, and UTP solid cables of of 305 meters.	Two experimental installations and 15-20 enquiries in line.
ADC Krone	TrueNet CopperTen	World's first UTP structured cabling system. The 4-pair plenum data cable has oblique elliptical offset filler for improved alien crosstalk. The patch panels come with polymer design helps eliminate alien Crosstalk.	13-15 installations
Molex	Cat6 STP	Cabling solution on shielded copper pair.	2-3 installations under implementation
Panduit	TX6 10GIG Copper Cabling System	Solution supports 4-connector channel up to 100-meters and exceeds the electrical channel requirements of the 10 Gigabit IEEE 802.3an Standard. TheTX6 10GIG is backed with an end-to-end 25 year system warranty.	None so far
Belden	IBDN System 10GX.	The system's cable incorporates an innovative SpiralFleX design to reduce Alien crosstalk by randomizing the distance between the cables.	200 drops so far on one site
Siemon	10G 6A UTP	This is a complete, end-to-end UTP augmented category 6 structured cabling system.	Over one million drops done in the past one year
	10G 6A F/UTP	This solution performs as well in secure or high EMI environments as it does in standard office spaces, by virtue of its screened construction.
	Category 7/Class F TERA	TERA utilizes fully-shielded S/FTP cable and fully shielded connectivity. Additional shielding is integrated into the outlets and plugs, eliminating all potential emissions from the overall cabling system. Besides, it claims to offer performance up to and beyond 10Gb/s.
Reichle & De-Massari AG (R&M)	STAR Real10	It includes both shielded and unshielded solutions. Company claims that shielded connections using the STAR Real10 range only takes about ten seconds longer than a UTP connection, and no additional tools are needed either.	Over 8000 drops

Challenging Task
Despite the fact that some vendors have announced new infrastructure cables claiming to support 10GE many issues still need to be addressed. Issues such as price, power dissipation, and user manageability make it difficult for IT managers to roll out 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections using existing technologies. Delivering 10GE services over UTP cables is not an easy task.

While the published 10GBase-T standard includes the necessary transmission requirements, there is some confusion regarding the cabling options. Because the transmission requirements in the 10GBase-T standard exceed those specified for Category 6/Class E, 10GBase-T will only achieve limited distances over Category 6/Class E UTP cabling.

Little is known about the affects of ANEXT (alien Crosstalk) of installed cabling and whether or not conventional design and installations methods can be used. ANEXT is a source of noise from surrounding cables that attack the victim cable. (See figure below). In the traditional method of managing patch cords, there is a management panel for every 2 patch panels and the patch cords are dressed along either side of the cabinet. This again introduces ANEXT problem. So there is an issue of how patch cords should be managed in the existing and new cabling systems.

Tyco supports shielded copper over unshielded (UTP). Shetty says, “Although the 10Gbase-T standard claims to have minimized the problem of ANEXT, it is true for ideal circumstances like neat installation and ideal environment of deployment. In reality, there will be still a large scope of electromagnetic interference and crosstalk. So we recommend fibre or shielded option for copper as it circumvents the problem of alien crosstalk. Shielded option provides you larger headroom than UTP, giving you more space to make changes.”

Dileep Kumar of ADC Krone counters that argument in support for UTP. He says, “Termination of shielded solution is difficult and time consuming. When the earthing is not done properly, a shielded solution is worse than a UTP solution since the shield will act like an antenna and attract unwanted signals into the transmitting pair. This is exactly the reason for different standards to consider a UTP solution.”

What Customers Should Know
End users must be aware that different cabling standards exist and bring with them different levels of capability. Vendors will claim to “meet the standards,” but end users should ask, “Which one?” and fully understand the response. It is recommended to refer to the current ISO/IEC Class EA specification, as it is more stringent than the others, and compliance to this global specification offers peace of mind.

Shenoy believes that Cat 6a will take some times for acceptability not only in India, but also across the globe. “The primary reason is the lack of availability of active devices and servers that will have NIC cards of this capability. The second reason being the huge cost; Cat6a is approximately 80% costlier than the regular Cat 6,” he adds. But the market is optimistic that cost will soon dive down. Shetty says, “As volume of Cat6a will expand, and more and more electronics will be introduced, 10GE cabling solution will become more affordable in the next few years.”

The real challenge, therefore, before the customer is to identify the purpose of choosing a 10 Gigabit Ethernet network and to assess the impact of some unresolved issues. At the same time, by their nature, Cat 5e and Cat 6 cables were not designed to support 10-Gbit data rates and reach necessary to make copper-based 10 GE connections an effective option for enterprise and data center deployments.

So expect the wait-and-watch period to be very short, and enterprises may well be advised to take the leap before the competitor. After all, limiting your options today due to your cabling choices may prove costly in the end.

Malovika Rao
malovikar@cybermedia.co.in

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