Focus on MTP-link

Characterized by providing ideal plug-and-play solutions for structure cabling, pre-terminated cabling system has gained great popularity among data center manager in recent years, and it is considered as the norm for data center network deployment. In this cabling system, optical link is accomplished by pre-terminated cabling assemblies, such as MTP/MPO trunk cable, MTP/MPO to LC breakout cable, MTP/MPO cassette and MTP/MPO fiber optic patch panel. It not difficult to find that all these MTP/MPO fiber optic cable assemblies are based on the structure of MTP/MPO connector. And two types of MTP/MPO connectors—12 fiber MTP connector and 24 fiber MTP connector are commonly used for 40G and 100G transmission. This article will focus on MTP-link and share share some opinions about MTP-link performance with you.

About Space Utilization

High-density cabling makes the available space in data centers always precious. MTP/MPO fiber optic cable assemblies used in MTP-link that contributes to promoting space utilization are reputably appraised by data center managers. With massive cables being adopted in the data centers to carry out data transmission, MTP-link offers cabling solutions with much higher density and flexibility for data center upgrades.

About Insertion Loss

As well know that insertion loss is inevitable during the cabling. Generally, lower overall optical loss allows more margin for the network to operate, or in the case for some users, offers the option of more connections for patching locations. Therefore, components characterized by low insertion loss will be preferred. For both 12-fiber and 24-fiber MTP/MPO connector performance, the industry standard product rating is 0.5 dB maximum. And using low-loss ferrules, both 12 fiber MPO connector and 24 fiber MPO connector can be rated at 0.35 dB maximum. What’s more, there is no need to worry about higher fiber count will lead to higher insertion loss, because when using proper polishing techniques, 24-fiber MPO/MTP terminations can meet the same performance levels as 12-fiber MPO/MTP assemblies.

About Fiber Utilization

Both 12-fiber MPO cable and 24-fiber MPO cable can be used in 100G applications. When used in 4x25G solutions, 4 fibers of 12-fiber MPO cable will remain unused. As for 24-fiber MPO cable, it can be converted into three 8-fiber 100G channels that run over one cable, with all 24 fibers used to support data transmission. Maybe you feel confused about this, let me take an example. If you need to support twelve 100G channels with the 4x25G standard, by using 12-fiber MPO cable, you will need to install 12 connectors, or 144 fibers total, with 33% of the fiber wasted; while by using 24-fiber MPO cable supporting the same 12 channels, only 4 cables would be required, using 96 fibers total, at 100% fiber utilization.

About Network Performance

It is self-evident that MTP-link offers consistent high levels of network performance for improved network integrity, because the assemblies are factory terminated and the transmission testing is performed by the manufacturer before shipment. This will reduce the likelihood of many problems that may occur with field terminations. Also, testing and troubleshooting time can be greatly saved.

Conclusion

By using MTP components, MTP-link can provide fast installation, high density and high performance cabling for data centers. As 40G and 100G Ethernet is now a trend and hotspot for data center cabling system, MTP-link is a great option for data center managers and the network deployment will benefit a lot from this cabling solution. I hope after reading this article, you can have an in-depth understanding of MTP-link.

Comparison Between Base-8 Connectivity and Base-12 Connectivity

As 10G network no longer satisfies the increasing demand for high speed data transmission, many data center managers turn to 40G network. Base-2 connectivity, based on increments of two fibers, is a common type of fiber optical link in 10G network. However, this kind of connectivity is not suitable for 40G network which needs high-density cabling. For 40G network cabling, there are two popular solutions—Base-8 connectivity and Base-12 connectivity. How much do you know about these two cabling solutions? Is there any difference between them? After reading this article, you will find the answer.

Base-12 Connectivity

In Base-12 system, Base-12 connectivity makes use of fiber optical links based on increments of 12 fibers. And 12-fiber or 24-fiber MTP/MPO optical connector assemblies are usually used to accomplish the links, such as 12-fiber or 24-fiber MTP trunk cable. Here is a figure of 24-fiber trunk cable used in Base-12 system for you.

Base-8 Connectivity

The Base-8 system still uses the MTP/MPO fiber connector, but the links are built in increments of 8 fibers (as shown in the following figure). Thus 8-fiber trunk cable, 16-fiber trunk cable and 24-fiber trunk cable can be easily found in Base-8 system. Here is a figure of 24-fiber trunk cable used in Base-8 system for you.

Comparison Between Base-8 Connectivity and Base-12 Connectivity

Since the number twelve is obviously larger than the number eight, Base-12 connectivity does provide the benefit of connector with higher fiber density compared to Base-8, and thus a larger number of fibers can be installed more quickly when using Base-12 connectivity. However, as 8-fiber transceivers are utilized in most deployments of 40G network, the benefit of matching the fiber count in the MTP backbone connectivity with the fiber count of the transceiver tends to outweigh the density benefit of Base-12 connectivity. In addition, in Base-12 connectivity, four fibers for transmit and four fibers for receive, leaving four fibers unused per connection. This will lead to a significant and costly loss in fiber network utilization. But Base-8 connectivity can be a more cost-effective option for end-to-end MPO to MPO channels and architectures. In fact, Base-8 connectivity is not an universal solution and Base-12 connectivity in some cases may still be more cost-effective. The following part describes the relative benefits when comparing Base-8 versus Base-12 connectivity for a data center deployment.

Benefits of Base-8 Connectivity

• Optimized for both 2-fiber and 8-fiber transceiver technologies.
• Enables 100% fiber utilization for 8-fiber transceiver systems without the additional cost and insertion loss of Base-12 to Base-8 conversion devices.
• Cable harnesses can easily route to all common port counts on switch line cards.
• Only requires unpinned MTP patch cords for any connections within the link.
• Most flexible solution for 40G, 100G and 400G transmission networks.

Benefits of Base-12 Connectivity

• Higher fiber per connector density than Base-8 connectivity.
• Compatible with the large installed base of existing Base-12 MTP deployments.
• Where proprietary vendor specific 40G duplex 2-fiber transceiver technologies are deployed, existing Base-12 data center infrastructures offer higher fiber density per connector (Note: the vendor specific technologies are incompatible with each other, and with parallel optics,which may add a level of management complexity in a multi-vendor environment.)

Conclusion

Base-12 connectivity has dominated the 40G network market for years, while the Base-8 connectivity is an additional option to ensure that data centers have the most cost-effective, future-proof network available. And both of them have their own benefits. As for which one to choose, it depends on the requirements of the network deployment. I hope this article can help you have a better understanding of this two cabling solutions.