When looking at the complexity of today’s data centers and the sheer number of applications that they must support—WAN, LAN, SAN, video, proprietary consolesand peripherals, and several building systems—it is striking to realize that the first data center telecommunications infrastructure standard, ANSI/TIA-942, which provides a structured cabling solution for data centers, was completed only 12 years ago, in 2005. Until then, everyone used proprietary, point-to-point cabling systems to connect mainframes, minicomputers and peripherals. The cables were essentially single use, with a unique design—some almost an inch thick—connecting each peripheral. Often, these cables were simply abandoned in place because it was impossible to figure out where they went. Eventually, there was so much cabling under the floors that the tiles no longer closed. Read More.
This article, written by Jonathan Jew on behalf of the Telecommunications Industry Association, appeared in the Sept/Oct 2017 issue of ICT Today.