Enabling Rapid Multitenant Data Center Connections

Just as business meetings have transitioned from boardrooms to Zoom and other video platforms, enterprises are increasingly accessing their data and applications from the most efficient locations: multitenant data centers (MTDCs). These facilities provide rental services ranging from individual server racks to complete purpose-built modules. But what exactly is an MTDC, and what is essential to support its vast workloads effectively? The answer lies in the design and implementation of a robust fiber cabling in multitenant data centers that ensures reliability, flexibility, scalability, and sustainability.

What is MTDC?

Multitenant data centers, also known as colocation data centers, are large data center facilities that are shared by numerous organizations and highly interconnected with telecommunications, cloud computing providers and other service providers. They offer an alternative that helps enterprises keep costs down. The enterprise clients have the option to outsource their entire data center solution or just a portion of it to an MTDC. Many businesses opt for a hybrid approach, managing some core resources internally within their own data centers while leveraging MTDCs and cloud services for additional storage and processing needs.

What are the Challenges for MTDC Cabling?

Multitenant data centers may manage physical fiber level "Cross-Connects" between a tenant and a carrier or a tenant and another tenant, then the fiber optic cabling is more complicated. MTDCs rely on highly scalable and reliable fiber cabling to meet the client's dynamic and uninterrupted transmission needs.

Dynamic Development Requires Scalable Cabling in MTDC

Scalability is a fundamental requirement for MTDC cabling infrastructure due to the dynamic nature of tenant enterprises' demands and technological advancements. This refers not only to the physical expansion of the data center, such as adding servers, switches, or storage devices, but also to the scalability of the infrastructure to support migration paths for increased data rates. For instance, a company may start with a few server racks and gradually expand to multiple racks or even entire data halls.

A scalable data center cabling system allows for such expansions seamlessly, minimizing disruptions and ensuring continuous operation. One specific example is the utilization of high-density fiber optic cabling, which provides ample capacity for future growth and can be easily upgraded to support higher data rates, such as transitioning from 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps connections, without significant infrastructure changes.

Uninterrupted Service Needs Reliable Cabling in MTDC

As the Uptime Institute defines, Tier 4 data centers have an uptime requirement of 99.995%, which translates to less than half an hour of downtime annually in multi-tenant data centers. Any failure in the cabling system can lead to significant downtime, affecting multiple tenants and potentially causing substantial financial losses. Therefore, a reliable, consistent data center cabling infrastructure is necessary for MTDCs to provide uninterrupted transmissions, especially when the network migrates to higher rates.

What is the Featured Fiber Cabling in MTDC?

Addressing these challenges is essential for MTDCs to deliver scalable and reliable fiber cabling to their clients. FS provides rich fiber cabling solutions and products for MTDCs. Explore how the solutions benefit multitenant data center cabling.

Modular FHD/FHU Series Support Flexible Connectivity

FHD and FHU series are a comprehensive portfolio of high-density products for copper and fiber connectivity, helping MTDCs put more connections into increasingly crowded data center spaces. In a typical MTDC configuration, many MTDCs usually use separate cabinets or ODFs as intermediate cabling distribution points in the meet-me-room. Then, from here, data is delivered to customer cages on different floors or areas via amounts of fibers. With FHD/FHU installed on the cabinets or ODFs, they can simplify cabling (including moves, adds, and changes), and complete expansions in a shorter time. This highly promotes cabling physical layer flexibility.

FHD and FHU series include FHD fiber enclosure, FHD LC/SC/MTP® adapter panels, FHD MTP® to LC/MTP® to MTP® cassettes, FHD splice trays, FHU fiber adapter panels, FHU MTP® to LC cassettes, and so on. FHD enclosures are compatible with all FHD cassettes, panels, and splice trays. In extremely dense situations, one 4U fiber enclosure can accommodate 12 FHD fiber adapter panels or cassettes that can house 432 fibers (LC) or 3456 fibers (MTP®-24), which is quite suitable for MTDC high-density cabling no matter how many fibers need to grow, or how quickly the network needs to be up and running.

As for FHU series, the fiber panels and cassettes can be installed on racks directly, providing more housing options for MTDCs environment. The following shows a 10G connection diagram of FHD and FHU series.

Multifiber MTP® Fibers Enhance Transmission Reliability

The Caged Area, where end-users place their infrastructure requires uninterrupted transmission, otherwise, they may result in business economic losses. Selecting high-density fiber optic cables like MTP® fiber cable can improve transmission reliability. By incorporating multiple fibers into a single cable, MTP® cables reduce the bulk and complexity of managing numerous standard fiber cables. This minimizes the risk of cable tangling, and connection errors, enhancing overall reliability in Caged Area.

Currently, the main MTP® products are 8-fiber, 12-fiber, and 24-fiber. All can support virtually any multimode technologies as well as many single mode technologies. As MTDCs demands grow, these MTP® cables allow seamless upgrades and expansions without extensive reconfiguration. This ability to scale efficiently reduces downtime and ensures continuous data transmission.

Combination of MTP® and FHD Series Accommodates Faster Speed

Additionally, as mentioned above, deploying an organized cabling system with FHD series enables MTDCs to easily tap into linking more clients as the business grows. It can not be ignored that FHD fiber cabling solution also can support fast bandwidth migration without having to touch the trunks. All FHD fiber adapter panels and cassettes provide open access to individual fibers. They protect every connection and keep the fiber infrastructure accessible and manageable. Moreover, both the FHD series and MTP® products use color-coding designs for fast identifications. For example, OM3/OM4 MTP® to LC cassettes adopt aqua LC interfaces. The boots color of MTP® products vary, such as MTP®-12 cables use black boots while MTP®-24 boots are red. Therefore, easier and faster moves, adds, and changes can be reached.

The combination of multifiber MTP® fiber and FHD high-density products increases the data-carrying capacity of the physical infrastructure in multitenant data centers. The following figure shows a 10G link with MTP®-24 fiber and MTP® to LC cassettes. When upgrading to 100G, just use 100G-SR BiDi instead of the SFP modules while reserving the MTP®-24 fiber jumper system. Explore more solutions about seamless migrations with MTP®-24 and FHD cabling system here.

Conclusion

Enabling rapid connections in multitenant data centers (MTDCs) requires a robust, scalable, and reliable cabling infrastructure. FS excels with tailored solutions. With a complete range of FS FHD and FHU series products, FS ensures high-density and flexible connectivity, essential for the dynamic environments of MTDCs. The extensive MTP® and LC fiber product inventory guarantees stable quality and reliable performance, backed by a dependable supply chain that ensures prompt delivery. FS's solutions enable MTDCs to manage their cabling infrastructure efficiently, supporting seamless expansions and migrations to higher data rates, ultimately delivering uninterrupted and high-speed connectivity to their clients.