The Importance of Electrical Safety

In today's networking environment, fibre optic cables reign supreme. They have become the industry standard for facilitating connections and the flow of information in offices, data centres and other similar premises. Fibre optic cables are based on the number of fibres that are present in the cable itself. Original fibre optic cables consisted of two fibres at a time (base-2 cables), and thicker cables were made by joining cables with increments of two.

Over time, most networking systems such as servers, storage equipment and transceivers used combinations of base-2 cables. Most popularly used were 6 combinations of base-2 cables, commonly referred to as base-12. Indeed, base-12 is now the widely used standard connectivity cable.

The introduction of Base-8

For many years, base-12 cables have served their purpose well, facilitating data centres and other locations to enjoy stable and reliable network connectivity. However, newer equipment manufacturers have incorporated an interesting switch. Equipment is now being produced with ports that contain base-8 fibres.

Base-8 refers to the use of 8 fibres in each connecting port at a time, as opposed to 12. Base-8 was developed to reduce the number of fibres that each network cable would require at any given time.  While it is a more effective port/cable system, equipment with base-8 ports brings about complications when you only have base-12 cables to use.

You may choose to simply use a base-12 cable to connect to a base-8 machine, but this causes 4 fibres to remain unused. This results in significant wastage and underutilisation of capacity, especially in larger establishments. A better alternative is to consider switching to base-8 connectivity in line with the new equipment ports that use 8 fibres.

 Why you should switch to Base-8

Along with your new server equipment that uses base-8 ports, it is important to consider switching all fibre optic cables and remaining machines to base-8. Indeed, a data centre can remain entangled with multiple cables, connectors and adaptors if you attempt to run base-8 and base-12 at the same time.

The best solution is to fully adopt base-8 equipment and cables in order to streamline your facility. In this way, you reduce equipment costs, space consumption and compatibility issues. Base-8 fibres are also more efficient because they use fewer fibres than base-12 and they incorporate modern network connectivity features. And because this is the choice of the future, you will essentially be "future proofing" your premises with base-8 connectivity.

For more information, contact your local electricians.