The EDGE8 from Corning is the industry’s first modular, tip-to-tip optical cabling system to feature an eight-fibre (Base-8) cabling design, the company claims. Aimed at data centres and storage area networks (SANs), the Base-8 design maximises per-rack-unit density for better network scalability and improved link performance.
Driven by increasing adoption of cloud computing and a growing demand for streaming video, data centres and SANs are migrating to faster transmission speeds. Corning’s EDGE8 provides simple, efficient and cost-effective migration to transmission speeds up to 400Gb/s.
“Corning’s EDGE8 solutions help data centre operators deliver an optimal end-user experience, while mitigating the uncertainty associated with ever-increasing transmission speeds and continually evolving standards,” said Stuart Hoiness, senior vice president of enterprise networks, Corning Optical Communications. “Installing a Base-8 cabling system like EDGE8 today provides the simplest, most flexible path to 40, 100, and 400 gigabits per second in the future.”
EDGE8 cables, with eight-fibre MTP connectors, make it easy to match the fibre count in data centre networks and SANs with today’s Base-8 QSFP transceivers, resulting in 100 per cent fibre utilisation, and streamlined one-to-one port mapping leaving no unused fibre/connectors.
EDGE8 modules also offer a 30 per cent improvement in insertion loss resulting in longer duplex link distances, and up to 50 per cent reduction in link attenuation by eliminating the need for conversion modules.
EDGE8 is an extension of Corning’s EDGE Solutions cabling system, which is currently deployed in over 50,000 data centres across 30 countries around the world. EDGE Solutions help operators maximise every inch of valuable data centre real estate with optical cables so light and compact that just one cable can replace as many as 72 copper cables. Plus, all EDGE Solutions cables are fibre-based, so they consume about a quarter of the power per port of copper, saving money and reducing heat, while reducing overall carbon emissions for a smaller impact on the environment.