Over the past few years, LAN connectivity has continued to advance rapidly in anticipation of growing demand for end-to-end network bandwidth. For example, the standard for data transmission at 10 Gbps over UTP copper is rapidly proceeding toward completion, as network-intensive applications, such as voice- and video-over-IP, are reaching maturity. At the same time, new applications, such as grid computing, are emerging to make even greater demands on the physical layer of LAN infrastructures.

For many years, cabling has been seen as a cost to the business, but the important role cabling plays within the network is being recognized by network managers, and high-performance cabling is viewed as a good investment, according to a recent study by Systimax Solutions. A total of 2,165 network and IT professionals in 48 countries were polled, at organizations of all sizes and across a wide range of industry sectors.

Category 6 or 10-Gbps augmented Category 6 copper cabling is the preferred choice for new installations of 72% of respondents to the survey. More than half (56%) would install Category 6 (CAT 6) cabling, while 16% would opt for augmented Category 6 cabling (CAT 6a), showing a possible shift toward this new type of 10-Gbps copper cabling despite the fact that development of the CAT 6A cabling standards has only recently commenced and market awareness of CAT 6A is still low.

Category 5e, meanwhile, is fast approaching obsolescence, with only 17% of respondents selecting this option.

Where fiber cabling is required, 51% would choose multimode fiber and a further 28% would install laser-optimized multimode fiber (OM3). In 2002, only 4% of respondents were using the OM3 fiber technology.

Within five years, most respondents expect to be running primarily 1 Gbps (53%) or 10 Gbps (30%) over their horizontal cabling. In five years, 61% expect to be running 10 Gbps and 26% 40 Gbps in their backbones.

When asked to select the single most important factor in making their cabling investment decision, 30% of respondents cited technical performance of the solution. Total life-cycle cost was rated second at 15%; quality of product was rated third with 14%; and a total solution offering and initial cost were rated fourth and fifth, with 13% and 11%, respectively.

More than half of all respondents (54%) have responsibility for their organizations’ data centers and rated the top three issues faced when implementing a data center as security (16%), network performance (15%) and redundancy (15%).

For a new data center installation, 48% of respondents would select Category 6 cabling and 30% would select Category 6a cabling. When installing fiber cabling in the data center, respondents would select multimode fiber (47%) or laser-optimized multimode fiber (32%). Only 18% would select single-mode fiber.

Forty-five percent of respondents anticipate they will implement 10-Gigabit Ethernet in their data center horizontal within two years, while 10% have already implemented it in their backbone and a further 54% anticipate they will do so within two years.

When asked about the importance of effective cable and patch cord management within the rack and cabinet environment, 87% of respondents rated this as very high or high. Forty-nine percent of the respondents, however, have not yet considered intelligent patching to help manage their infrastructure. Intelligent patching currently is used by 19% of respondents, however, in either part or all of their network, and a further 26% plan to use it in new installations. Thirty-six percent of respondents rated their knowledge and understanding of intelligent patching as low or said they had no knowledge of it at all.

For more information from Systimax Solutions:
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