Gone are the days when structured cabling systems, once installed, would serve for 20 long years? Yes, beyond doubt. 

Will the cabling still serve for 15 years? Doubtful.

What about 10 years? Maybe yes, but who knows?

That's the biggest common question facing enterprises today: how long can one protect a cabling investment?

A LAN cabling system that suffices for applications today may get labeled as inefficient just a few years down the line. Such is the pace at which expectations of bandwidth, speed, et al are rising in the wake of newer generations of resource hungry applications.

Issues, Problems, and Challenges
The arrival of 10G-over-copper solutions in the market in the past months generated a good deal of curiosity about its possibilities and potential benefits. However, absence of support at the active component level-the switch in particular-delayed a takeoff.

Not everybody is keen about 10G though. Isn't it?

True, at least in the immediate run. But then network managers will like to evaluate the technology for all possibilities before they say 'no' clear and aloud.

Moreover, they will like to understand and review their cabling roadmap in the wake of recent developments. The more specific things here could be: which tech, among Cat 5e, Cat 6, and Cat A6 will have the longest shelf life? Or, is Cat 6 the path of golden mean?

As many users already know, Cat A6-augmented Cat 6-is the proposed standard for 10G-over-UTP.

Coming to 10G-over-UTP, pre-standard rollouts by at least two major vendors in the last few months generated a good deal of interest among enterprises about the technology.

The initial hesitation continues to be there and most of the users will wait for the feedback to come from early adopters. At the time of writing this article, industry sources informed that the first order for 10G-over-UTP deployment has already been placed. One hopes to talk more about that in a subsequent issue.

Technology apart, enterprises are also concerned about price and price-performance issues. One big issue here is: why doesn't a structured cabling solution give the touted performance despite the use of standard-compliant cables.

This brings up the issue of component-level compliance into play, as against the hitherto focus on channel-level compliance.

Network managers are also keen to evaluate and compare value-adds offered by various vendors. They are increasingly waking up to the benefits of intelligent features of the cabling systems.

Probable Solutions
10G cabling: One thing is clear. While fiber is a proven medium for running 10G, copper is yet to gain that acclaim. Moreover, things are still in a pre-standards stage, with the ratification not expected before mid-2006.

In the immediate run, 10G-over-UTP may be deployed only by select enterprises. Others may rather stick to the safer pasture of fiber. However, once support over active devices, especially switches, becomes available, more enterprises should feel assured about the technology.

As of now, 10G on fiber is already a reality since active devices are available. A mid-way approach could be 10G-over-STP.

Early adopters: The deployment of 10G-over-copper will initially take off at the data centers and in intra-building backbones, once the active devices are ready. However, such deployments may need 1000 Base T pick up volumes at the desktop so as to justify 10G in the backbone.

Activity on actives front: It is important to keep in mind that active components can be retrofitted into an installation that has next-level passive networks already installed. The active components for the network are not yet ready, but then enterprises can keen in mind the ease in replacing the active components. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible to change the structured cabling without a total shut down.

Also, historically, upgrades in networking technology have been driven by vendors of passive components rather than those of active. This has been specifically true over the last 5-6 years since the advent of Cat 5e. Vendors of active components provide offerings to match the available bandwidth once new passive solutions stabilize. Going by the argument, 10G-over-copper could be no exception. Once some global structured cabling vendors are promising to provide stable solutions, one can expect commercial rollout of appropriate switching within the next 10-12 months. It is being said that Foundry Networks and Cisco have plans to launch product in the near future.

Adieu Cat 5e?: That's the big question, really. In response to a similar question regarding Cat 5 a few years ago, the answer had been an overwhelming yes. With Cat 5e, it's not the same, at least not so simple.

Had 10G-over-copper solutions not been launched, the default process would have been to replace Cat 5e with Cat 6. Now, there can be a smarter option. One can go for a combo of Cat 5e and Cat A6, instead of having only Cat 6 in the network. Exercising such an option will, however, depend on the applications running on the network.

The reason is that Cat 5e networks are compatible with all available transmission technologies except 1000BaseTX. The only technology that will require higher category cabling is 10GbaseT. However, even Cat 6 does not reach that requirement. So one sees a situation wherein Cat 5e and Cat A6 will coexist. Customers who need 1G applications can use Cat5e and those who want to move up can go for Cat A6.

So contrary to the popular perception, the coming of 10G-over-copper solutions does not spell the end of Cat 5e. In fact, 10G will have a far greater impact on Cat 6 instead.

But is Cat 6 passé then?: No. Within the 1G framework, Cat 6 offers certain distinct advantages over Cat 5e. These are in terms of headroom on various electrical parameters like power sum attenuation cross talk ratio (PSACR) and have an impact on organizations that are using newer applications.

So selecting Cat 6 over Cat 5e will be the reasonable approach for setups where sudden, exponential rises in resource-hungry apps is not frequent.

The pricing: One may like to keep in view here that the 10G-over-UTP solutions will be costlier than Cat 6 solutions as of now and buyers will have to pay a premium for having the new technology. Estimates, however, vary from vendor to vendor over the premium.

According to an estimate, a pre-standard Cat A6 installation could be up to three times costlier than a Cat 6 installation. Another claim is that customers can expect to pay upwards of a 30 percent premium on material to deploy 10Gig solutions to a full 100m.

What does that wide gap in estimates mean? Two things. One, vendors are ready to negotiate on material prices. Two, service and support components are going to be pretty high as compared to Cat 6 installations.

Yet another way of estimating Cat A6 costs could be a comparison with 10G fiber. It is understood that 10G copper networks will be approximately 50 percent cheaper than 10G fiber networks. This approach assumes that it's still early days to compare a 1G copper network to a 10G copper network.

Ultimately, although the initial offering will be expensive to deploy, increased volumes will bring the cost of 10Gig-over-copper down relatively quickly. In particular, the deployment of 10G on a larger scale will only be possible if the cost of per 10G port comes within the buying capacity of corporate customers. It may take another year for these products to start gaining some ground in India. Till that time the technology itself will continue to mature.

The Compliance Factor: The whole point of setting standards is to ensure that the user is able to access the best available and suited technologies within each segment-UTP cable, connecting hardware, patch cords and other equipment. Further, it ensures that users end up with fully standards-compliant solutions.

The EIA/TIA Cat 6 standard underlined the need for 'interoperability' or, in other words, for component-level compliance. This simply means that each component in the passive network must individually meet the standard set for it, apart from the channel (all components put together) meeting the overall requirement.

When each component meets the standard, customers can virtually pick and choose products from different vendors based on the technology strengths of each vendor. This is the evolved 'mix and match' philosophy that is prevalent in most developed markets.

This dynamics allows users to cherry-pick, i.e. access best-in-class technology in each product family. More significantly, it puts pressure on vendors to keep improving the qualities of their end-to-end solutions or else face the prospect of the user eliminating a low-performance portion and picking it up from elsewhere.

Component-level compliance became more important with the emergence of Cat 6 because the objective of Cat 6 was to provide headroom for future applications much over Cat 5e. This implies that the best technology should be made available to users.

Some vendors adopt the easy way out by not revealing component-level performance to customers. They bundle their Cat 6 offering under 'channel compliance' and get away. The customer realizes this only when new applications do not work very well with the solution. The safeguard for users is to insist on detailed component-level specifications of the products being evaluated by them.

In 10G applications, one has to meet the alien cross talks. One has to also assure that the system meets Shanon's information carrying capacity. All this obviously leads to emphasis on component-level compliance as per the standards.

Never forget the fiber: Nothing beats fiber, only the cost, which of course, can be prohibitive to many enterprises. And while cost of fiber itself has come down significantly, the overall cost in terms of actives, installation, etc. remains higher as compared to copper options.

The new developments here are OM3 multimode fiber that can support bandwidth of 2000/500 Mhz-km, and the OM3+ multimode fiber that can support bandwidth of 6000/500 Mhz-km. With these developments, the tester should have the fiber modules with laser sources to ensure standards-compliant certification.

As the demand for higher bandwidth is increasing on the backbone, markets on multimode fiber will start moving towards OM3 and OM3+.

Some vendors are also offering specialized fiber-based solutions for data centers and storage area networks, that are available with 62.5/125 and 50/125 micron cables in fiber counts of up to 72 in multiples of 12 fibers. The main advantage of such solutions is that once installed there is no testing required. An attraction is that these are modular components that are pre-terminated and tested at the factory prior to shipment. One just needs to connect the pieces for the link to be up.

Even though the rapid advancement in copper performance has spoiled the chances of fiber-to the-desktop to a large extent, there is nothing to beat fiber in the backbone. Fiber will always remain a better choice in the backbone simply because of its unlimited bandwidth, plus the distance it can support vis-à-vis copper.

New Tech Trends
Gray Matters: Intelligent cabling systems are increasingly the buzzword today. These are real-time physical layer management systems for enterprise networks. An intelligent system consists of an end-to-end structured cabling system with intelligent patch panels and software agents that provide a complete view of physical layer connectivity and its relation to the logical layers.

This physical layer management tool collects real-time information used to automatically maintain the connectivity database. The system 'visualizes' the data on the computer screen, guiding the network manager in making all the connections, checking their integrity, and documenting them in the connectivity database.

The system makes it easy to achieve maximum utilization and efficiency, quickly identify and troubleshoot problems, react in real time to changes, and perform short-term and long-range planning.

New intelligent features: The latest features include higher security to the user and a stronger interoperability platform. In addition, there is also the automatic device discovery option when connected to a managed switch.

Today, software is smart enough to determine the configuration of the managed switch and discover the devices attached to the switch. This feature allows network manager to discover and track IP devices such as computers, IP telephones, and network printers from a central location.

With the growth of multi-location facilities, large campuses, and large buildings, the importance of effective management of valuable network resources has become very critical. The need to troubleshoot remotely has gone up considerably. Also, the availability of the highly trained network management team has become quite difficult and expensive. In such a scenario, intelligent systems become quite desirable.

Single-vendor approach: Every vendor uses a different technology for intelligent cabling. Some uses extra pins in the patch cords and patch panels to check the connectivity of the system while others use internal switches for patching the ports with each other. Some use LED systems to indicate connectivity but others vendors don't. That is why it is strongly recommended that an intelligent cabling solution should be sourced from a single vendor.

Procurement and Deployment Tips
First and foremost, enterprises should go for the latest products, both copper and fiber, approved and tested for performance by a third party as a complete system. This will help them build a future-proof network.

In high-availability environments, like data centers, which are the nerve centers and run the critical business functions, intelligent cabling solutions should be used. Cabling with built-in intelligence will simplify the MACs and verify that it is completed accurately.

The need for intelligent cabling is also becoming critical in view of the fact that the security and communication link is becoming more and more important in the network. Intelligent cabling systems will be an answer in that the system can link physical network awareness to active network management platforms.

Single vendor solutions, from reliable and leading vendors, are best as these eliminate compliancy errors that may develop while using multi-vendor products. Deployed as an end-to-end solution, it ensures consistency in performance and delivery of bandwidth.

The solution should be future proof. It should have features that avoid unnecessary downtime, usually associated with cabling problems.

While working with a network installer one must ensure that he is a vendor-certified/trained engineer and offers an effective network solution that is easy to implement and support. While many vendors offer a variety of warranties today, ensure that your network is not just certified for components but also tested for performance by a third-party for performance.

For data centers, a need for separate standard is being recognized by vendors and is being discussed at the standards bodies.

Must-do for Network Managers: Designing is the most important criteria for setting up a good infrastructure. Cabling lays a physical layer for the active products to run and most of the time it is found that fault occurs due to inferior cabling done or due to poor designs itself.

Network managers must educate themselves on what latest technologies are available in the market place. They should also check with the vendors whether the products they are supplying meets the international standards or it is a proprietary standard.

The interoperability and backward compatibility of the technology and products should also be kept in mind. If there is no need to go for intelligent cabling today itself, he must not invest money unnecessarily. But at the same time he should design the solution in such a way that it can be upgradeable to the intelligent cabling system if the need arises in future without discarding the old one.

Products should meet international standards. One should always ask for test reports from third-party labs to check the performance of the product. One can also check if the facility for pre-dispatch inspection of products and pre-dispatch test reports at factory location is available.

Ideally, one should buy all standard products from a single vendor to avoid the warranty-related issues. If best-of-class products are not available from a single vendor, then such warranties can be provided by network integrator. Of course, in such case, it's best that that the integrator is the interface with the customer.

Last but not the least, one must see the record of the vendor in terms of after-sales support and services since most of the leading brands are more or less at par in the performance.

As thumb rules, a network manager should look at the following factors while designing and installing a network:

• Flexibility
• Being ready for future applications
• Standards compliance
• Vendor support

From responses of CIOs and IT heads who attended a vendor-sponsored seminar series, it was inferred that 44 percent of organizations recognized the importance of upgrading their networks and considered future-proofing their backbone cabling infrastructure using the latest 10G Ethernet infrastructure within the next two years. Of the total respondents, 31 percent said they had plans to extend 10 G Ethernet into the horizontal within the next two years, and 71 percent within next five years. When questioned about the most influential factors for investment in a new cabling infrastructure, performance was top ranked at 57 percent, whilst reliability also scored a high 21 percent.