Emerging technology programs across the federal government have come together under the common goal of fighting the spread of the coronavirus. AI and other tools such as supercomputing and advanced data analytics will play a significant, if not understated role, in the administration’s long-term response to COVID-19, the disease caused by this strain of the virus.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves throughout the world. As organizations around the globe scramble to help slow the spread of the virus, some companies find themselves with increased responsibility. Data centers, in particular, have a crucial role to fill. With nearly 400,000 cases globally, the coronavirus is not only disrupting social life, but it’s also changing the face of business. Internet needs are both growing and shifting, and data centers have to account for this change. Here are some of the ways data centers are serving communities amid the crisis.
During this unprecedented time, there is a lot of uncertainty. That’s why Mission Critical magazine is working closely with Clear Seas Research, a BNP Media company, to keep you up-to-date on coronavirus coverage and how it is affecting the industry.
The introduction of ever higher speeds makes it clear that the use of parallelization technologies is becoming increasingly important. This is due to the fact that the serial “lane speed” in multimode receivers is currently max. 50 Gigabit/s, but at the same time 100, 200 or 400 Gigabit/s are required.
Conventional optical fibers contain a glass core at the center of the fiber through which light is transmitted.However, not only does this glass center limit the speed of the light as it passes through, but it also adversely affects other aspects of propagation, limiting its performance. Hollow-core fibers replace the glass core with air or a vacuum, and replace the cladding with photonic crystals. Hollow-core fibers have lower signal loss and 30% higher speed of light than glass or plastic fibers.
Understanding the role of fiber optic cassettes will become increasingly important as companies move toward 40G/100G, and managing the cable plant becomes more complicated. Fiber optic cassettes are modular components that take fibers from a trunk cable and distribute them to a duplex cable. They help manage the fiber connections by simplifying cable management without running new cables. In high-density network applications, cassettes ensure the efficient use of space and enable quick deployment, high reliability which eases moves, adds and changes and allows network administrators to refresh frequencies.
Edge sites are typically smaller than traditional data centers, requiring far less physical space, and often turning up in places that weren’t originally designed for IT networks. Edge computing racks often are deployed in closets or repurposed rooms in hospitals, schools, or even military sites in the middle of the desert.
The growth of the IoT has been pushing telecom, data and computing services away from centralized locations like the TR to the outer edges of the network and closer to end users to minimize latency. These locations include manufacturing floors, warehouses, and multibuilding sites, such as school campuses, which may not have a dedicated room available for the network.
Row-level airflow management refers to improving cold aisle and hot aisle separation. It’s typically done once you’ve made improvements at the rack level (e.g. blanking panels) and raised floor level (e.g. brush grommets). When we talk to data center operators about improving airflow efficiency at the row, they’ll jump ahead to containment a little too quickly. The fact is, there are several areas in the row that can be addressed without engaging in a full-blown containment initiative.
Right now, optical technologies comfortably support lane speeds of 50 Gb/s for multimode fiber with 100 Gb/s lanes soon to follow. In their search for bigger, faster pipes, network operators are focusing on two areas: improved optics and the increasing use of multiplexing. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive. Many of the most attractive technologies involve both multiplexing and improved optics.
