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Don't you just love the thrills on screen-Spiderman leaping from one building to the other; or Charlie's Angels doing a somersault before delivering an astounding punch. These are incredible stunts performed with perfection, using wires, almost seeming invisible. Much like the wires or cables in your organization running to and fro desktops, servers and network utilities, strapping your valuable IT assets together to the data center. Structured cabling, the hero behind-the-scene, makes it possible for critical business functions to be carried out.

India is recording the fastest growth in the cabling industry at 22% as per AMI Partners, an independent analyst firm. The Indian market opportunity is estimated to be worth around $100 mn now and cabling for data centers is growing at 46%.

In 2005, 13.8% of the structured cabling business in the region came from data centers but research suggests that in 2010, they will contribute about 32% of the structured cabling business in the region. In 2010, the Indian structured cabling market will be worth $345 mn, according to AMI Partners. The structured cabling market in the Asia Pacific (including Japan) should touch $1.53 bn 2010, with a CAGR of 11% from 2005 to 2010.

According to Raju Chellam, VP, Asia Pacific, AMI Partners, key verticals like financial services, transportation, IT and media houses are getting more and more data centric, and setting up more data centers. The primary challenges for IT managers of data centers are keeping ahead of the access capability and storage capacity.

Data is Crucial
A good data center is invisible to the end user. The end user only sees the services or transactions that take place, whether it is a bank transaction, a file transfer, participating in a video conferencing or simply sending an email. Likewise, in the data center, a good cabling infrastructure should be "invisible" to the IT professional. Despite running under your office flooring, or climbing up walls, the cabling infrastructure is the least of concerns for an IT professional.

When you think of cabling for your data center, you cannot ignore the key objectives-high quality and reliability of a data center; high performance to support various kinds of services; shortest deployment time for moves, adds and changes (MACs); high density options and integration into the infrastructure management.

Kumar Natarajan, regional director, India and South West Asia, Panduit, says, "Business models have gone through a complete cycle from centralized data centers to decentralized and now back to centralized. Businesses realize that data is their strongest asset and as such are making strides to assure its availability, security, and redundancy."

The data center model continues to evolve, enabling greater efficiency, robustness, and flexibility. Some would place storage and Storage Area Network (SAN) technology at the strategic center of tomorrow's data center, while others focus on grid computing to better utilize processing power. Having a single robust data center is also no longer enough for businesses like financial institutions that require a duplicate "back-up data center". Many organizations are turning to third-party data center services for disaster recovery and outsourcing of specific business processes.

Don't Ignore the Basics
All data centers are built keeping in mind a few key support infrastructures like, power supply and backup, cooling and environmental control, physical security, connectivity to outside networks, Network Operations Center (NOC), cabling and grounding. "70% of the network down time is caused by cabling infrastructure," says Dileep Kumar, product manager, Enterprise Networks, ADC Krone. He advises that planning for the cabling should be done first and foremost. "Since cabling infrastructure must enter the building first, much before the active hardware, planning for cabling should be done that early," he adds.

When selecting fiber and copper cable, connectivity and cable management solutions for the data center, it is important to choose products and services that satisfy the three principles of data center cabling infrastructure design-space planning, reliability and manageability

Kevin Lloyd-Bisley, global technical manager, Molex, reiterates that cabling system designers must be involved from the conception to completion of data center projects. "Study the standards, agree capacities and involve all specialists in the early design stage so everything is integrated. Agree on the computer room layout and cabinet layout from which your capacities will tell how much cabling is required," he advises the CIOs of the enterprise planning a new data center.

It is also imperative for the enterprise to plan the design of data center keeping in mind the requirements and support infrastructure. "Requirements of an enterprise change very frequently. Estimating business needs is critical," says Mylaraiah JN, regional sales manager, AMP NetConnect, Tyco Electronics. He says that with many MACs there is a possibility of losing sight of support infrastructure factors like power and cooling. "I would say clients must spend more time in planning for a smooth maintenance," he adds.

Every data center must have a cabling infrastructure that addresses some common concerns: how to manage a large number of cables in a changing environment, how to select cabling with sufficient bandwidth, and how to route cables efficiently throughout the facility.

A company should perform a business impact analysis before selecting the appropriate structured cabling technology for its premises. "The analysis should take into account the length of occupancy of the premises, the LAN technology currently in use, and the migration plan to newer (and higher data rate) technology," advises Dr TC Tan, distinguished member of technical staff, Systimax Labs.

The most common mistake companies make when selecting structured cabling systems is to use a 'mix-and-match' approach, ie, using cables from vendor A and connector/connecting hardware from vendor B. "This approach may be acceptable for Category 5 systems but becomes problematic for Category 5e, Category 6, and Category 6A systems due to additional parameter requirements such as return loss and higher frequency specifications," Dr Tan adds further. The other mistake a company tends to make is to select a solution based on the lowest price, irrespective of the vendor's track record.

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