Today, we are in the perfect storm of needing to store and manage increasing amounts of data while keeping resources and costs to a minimum and allowing for the additional requirements needed to scale flexibly. Keeping your data center fully optimized and continually eliminating latency, reducing downtime, and maintaining compliance as standards evolve is a big challenge! But countless enterprises have met this demand through MTDC. They found themselves in need of a more cost-effective and flexible option than a private data center, while gaining more control than a cloud service. What is a multi-tenant or colocation data center? A multi-tenant data center/colocation data center is a data center facility, a space where businesses can rent servers and other computing hardware. In short, MTDC is like a real estate business, subletting space to clients and supporting their building, cooling, power, bandwidth and physical security requirements. Historically, customers have achieved this by building their own data centers, but now a considerable number of enterprises have begun to use MTDC to host and manage their data center facilities. They can be leased by rack, cabinet, cage or entire data hall. Corporate customers can choose to outsource all or part of their data center solutions to MTDC. Many enterprise customers will choose a hybrid model, internally manage some core resources through self-built data centers, and then store data through MTDC and cloud computing services. This not only helps customers flexibly expand as needed, but also eliminates many potential risks. Want to move your data to MTDC? Read “Multi-tenant Data Centers Will Be Key to Efficient Data Management” to learn how computer room facilities can be properly future-proofed. Image source: Photo courtesy of Corning

1. Outdoor fiber optic cable

In order to highlight how the MTDC should be wired, we will start with the outdoor optical cable that the MTDC may have to make a choice. For simplicity, we will focus on three types of single-mode fiber optic cables, and they are often used interchangeably. Most people in the industry are very familiar with loose tube fiber optic cables, after all, they have been around for more than 40 years. It can be said that if your fiber core requirement is less than 144 cores, then the loose tube type optical cable is very suitable. But if the fiber count exceeds 144, the difference in splicing time compared to ribbon cable starts to become larger. If your fiber count exceeds 288 cores, it will start to make more business sense to route with ribbon cable. In the MTDC space, there are two outdoor fiber optic cable solutions that are particularly important. The micro-conduit solution can help MTDC well to help customers achieve “buy-as-you-grow”, while the data center interconnect provides the extreme density required to connect multiple data center campuses. Microducts are tiny plastic conduits that subdivide the internal conduit space into smaller compartments into which tiny fiber optic cables can be installed by blowing, spraying or pushing. If you use ductwork with multiple paths, micro-fiber cables allow you to achieve higher extreme densities. Another way MTDCs are interested is that they can physically separate paths for each tenant and still have the flexibility to scale when connecting customers to the network. Driven by the hyperscale data center campus, data center interconnection applications have become an important part of the network field. MTDCs are rapidly adopting this solution and have started connecting multiple buildings, requiring sufficient bandwidth between them. But at the same time, it also brings greater risk, because any mistake can damage not only a few fibers, but at least 288 fibers. It’s an unresolved fact: high fiber counts + increased risk = increased installation time. For more information on what is driving the growth of the data center interconnect space, read “Growth in the Data Center Interconnect Business.”

Image source: Photo courtesy of Corning

2. access room

An access room may also be called a telecommunications room, entrance room or carrier access room. This is the part of the data center where outdoor fiber optic cables are terminated in the entry closet before being connected to the main distribution area or rack. On-site termination and strict service level agreements will reduce the chance of error. At a higher level, the biggest goal of MTDC is to reduce risk. A network downtime can not only irritate end users, but can also cost millions of dollars. In the access room, MTDC transitions outdoor optical cables to indoor optical cables. Solutions are often field terminated and rely on MTDC supplied or outsourced fusion splicers. It is important to use a solution that is optimized for splicing efficiency, both to improve ease of deployment and to reduce labor costs. If the number of fiber cores entering the MTDC is low density, it is also reasonable to mechanically cold-splice or splice a single fiber. But considering MTDC’s emphasis on risk, thermal fusion makes more sense, because it can better avoid cable failures and weak signals. If we want to put more fiber into the access room, then large-scale thermal fusion will be more efficient at scale. Taking a step back and finding a manufacturer that offers a variety of field termination options is critical to meeting the needs of individual MTDCs. It is worth mentioning that many MTDCs are often unable to quickly increase the manpower of the facility, which also leads to the relative inexperience of many existing personnel. So it’s important to look for a manufacturer who can provide training on all deployment types from pre-wired to cabinets, and to learn about the range of free services a solution provider can offer, such as looking at the bill of materials, double-checking field service to avoid The installation process did not go as planned.

3. main distribution area

The main distribution area can also be called the cross-connect area, which is the distribution center point of the structured cabling system in the data center. The easiest way to mitigate risk is to take precautions, but what does that mean? By investing early in a structured cabling solution and utilizing the main distribution area to simplify cabling (including moves, adds and changes), you can help customers go live within 2 to 3 days. Regardless of the quality of your underlying wiring, spending time grabbing different lengths of patch cords, splicers, and other equipment can be stressful. The key to minimizing this pressure is investing in more streamlined product solutions. Where multiple lengths of patch cords would otherwise need to be managed, the new solution requires only one length of patch cord for all cross-connect situations across two racks. Structured cabling is not only good for current customers to move, add or change (MAC), but also for attracting potential customers. MTDC can confidently take customers to the data center for a visit. And if the customer’s impression of the data center is disorganized, the customer is likely to choose another place.

4. cage area

The cage area is where end users store their infrastructure. The main challenges to be solved here are usually how to bill the end user and prepare the infrastructure for the future. Looking specifically at passive infrastructure, the goal is to maximize rack space in order to take up less space and thus reduce charges to be made in the cage area. Solution density is a primary consideration when leasing space in MTDC due to the space and power charges that need to be charged to customers. The higher the density, the less flexibility to make changes, so MTDC needed to make sure to choose a solution that maximized density while maintaining ease of use. Infrastructure density can be increased while saving power by using port breakout solutions. In this way, 1 40G port can replace 4 separate 10G ports, thereby reducing the number of chassis and line cards by 2/3 (thus reducing power consumption), and reducing the deployment cost per port. An important part of finding the right solution is considering how to plan and prepare your system for the future. There are a large number of 2-fiber and 8-fiber solutions on the market for both singlemode and multimode fibers. During the transition from 1G to 10G, cabling is easy because everything runs on duplex fiber. And once the market hits 40G, life will get busier. For the first time, the decision between 2- to 8-fiber systems needs to be re-evaluated. There are many factors to consider, such as cost, application, and what the user wants to do. Typically MTDC run lengths are best suited for use with parallel optics, and parallel optics can be further benefited by using a port breakout approach that can triple switch port density for larger networks or more hosts. looking to the future In the MTDC space, it is critical to have flexible solutions for all types of applications, from outdoor fiber optic cables to cage areas. New trends in edge computing, 5G , virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence are driving bandwidth requirements across all customer segments. By allocating the correct amount of rack space and anticipating the amount of fiber that customers will ultimately expect, MTDCs can differentiate themselves from the competition. Those companies that will aggressively invest in their structured cabling infrastructure will stand out and gain share in this market. This will become increasingly important as enterprises and service providers develop new strategies to grow and scale their digital business capabilities and outcomes. Future trends such as edge data centers and 5G will benefit companies that can provide connectivity-oriented trends as new applications change the way we create, collect, process and analyze data.