Are you doing Data Center Maintenance? Remember these 5 Points!

In this post, we are going to discuss some important factors you should keep in mind while planning and conducting your data center maintenance routine. Please note that the following guidelines are general in nature and relevant for most data centers regardless of the size and the technology being used.

Carrying on with data center maintenance brings plenty of benefits such as:

• Lesser unplanned downtimes
• Better safety
• Extended reliability
• Cut in energy consumption
• Extended equipment life
• Training opportunities (etc.)
• data center maintenance

1. Consult Equipment Manuals

Networking equipment used in data centers comes with vendor documents such as operation and maintenance manuals. These manuals contain all the relevant information about recommended maintenance timelines and practices. As someone in charge of a data center you have to ensure complete adherence to what is mentioned vendor documents. A proper preventive maintenance plan does guarantees not only system performance but also provides validation of your warranty.

2. Maintain Flawless & Up-to-date Documentation

You can enjoy a faster and easier to manage maintenance plan by writing down the procedures you are following, their frequency and the issues being faced. Documenting these procedures and their preservation on paper eliminates questions about what, where, why and when a maintenance activity took place. Thus, the onboarding process will be a lot smoother for new workers. Technicians will know what to do, by which procedure and how often.

Well-Kept documentation can assist you spot equipment or reliability related issues early resulting in the minimization of unnecessary downtimes. Last but not least, its documentation can save the day if a system breakdown does occur. Were there symptoms present before the failure? Was a skipped routine maintenance procedure part of the problem?

3. Test & Inspect

This is a great time to test and check UPS systems, power generators, batteries, routers, and switches ensure that they are working as expected. In this way, you will be able to minimize downtime by addressing the uncovered issues.

Here it is important to mention that a visual examination of connections and cabling should be a part of this process. Are cables labeled accurately and adequately? Does everything look neat and tidy? Is there a cable being twisted or bent? Is there a cable stack that requires to be taken care of?

4. Don’t Forget to Clean

Data center maintenance does not involve inspections and tests only — it calls for seemingly simple cleaning tasks also. Dust, for example, can turn into a bigger problem by blocking airflow and creating overheating issues. Regular removal of dirt can make equipment perform better and last longer. So, keep this point in mind during the planning phase and ensure that you have the right inventory of tools such as vacuum cleaners and brushes available.

5. Perform Safety Checks

Safety and security systems are not related to data center performance directly. However, data center maintenance offers you an excellent opportunity to check certain security features. Ensure that the entry and exit doors of the data center close and lock correctly. Are the surveillance and access control systems operating normally and capturing the information you expect and need? Are the emergency exit signs working as expected? Moreover, you should also ensure the health of firefighting equipment also. Most data center operators get their firefighting cylinders refilled during turnarounds.

Conclusion

Data center maintenance offers excellent opportunities for the operations and maintenance team. However, you should go with a comprehensive plan and well-fabricated schedule. By involving your team and following the guidelines as mentioned in the vendor’s documents, you will be able to end up with a replenished data center at your service.

HTFuture aim to be your Reliable Partner for different kinds of Compatible transceiver (QSFP28 for data center, QSFP+, SFP, XFP, SFP+, PON, Tunable, Copper, BIDI etc) DAC, AOC | OTN optical transmission system|DWDM Mux Demux|OADM | OTU | EDFA | NMS | DCM | OLP | OBP etc| 

More information, welcome to contact Ivy, contact Ivy. Email: sales6@htfuture.com Skype: live:sales6_1683

HTFuture team are ready and happy to assist you.

What are the differences between 25G DAC and AOC cable?

25G Ethernet has been hitting the web world at a sudden rate and may eventually become the fastest IEEE Ethernet standard ever completed.

25G cable is divided into 25G SFP28 direct attach cable and 25G SFP28 active optical cable, both of them can transmit data at 25Gbps. What are the differences between them?

HTFuture will focus on the differences between the two cables.

What is a 25G Direct Attach Cable?

25G DAC cable using silver conductor and foam insulation core, it has good attenuation performance and low delay performance, which make the signal transmission is correct, and can increase the transmission speed, is a short connection solution instead of the optical transceiver, the price is much cheaper than the same type of optical transceiver, in short distance connection applications has been widely welcomed.

What is a 25G Active Optical Cable?

25G AOC cable can be overcome the bandwidth limitation of traditional high-speed cable, and the 25G active optical cable can provide an ideal alternative solution for high-speed cable and short-distance SFP28 optical module, and the signal is more complete and higher performance. It is widely used in high-speed, high-density, and low-power data center networks.

What is difference in structure between 25G Direct Attach Cable and 25G Active Optical Cable?

The 25G DAC is made up of a copper cable and a fiber-optic transceivers at both ends. The connector is similar to the interface of the optical transceiver.But the connector modules on high-speed cables do not have expensive lasers, which greatly reduces the cost of short-range applications.

The 25G AOC consists of optical transceiver devices at both ends and composed of different length of OM3 or OM4 multimode optical fibers.The transceiver devices at both ends can provide the function of photoelectric conversion and optical transmission. This function ensures data transmission stability and application flexibility.

Compares to the 25G DAC, What are the advantages of 25G AOC?

1. The volume of 25G active optical cable is one-half of 25G high-speed cable, the weight is a quarter of it, so 25G active optical cable is much lighter than 25G high-speed cable;

2. 25G active optical cable also has better transmission performance and bit error rate, and the BER can reach 10–15;

3. 25G active optical cable has lower transmission power on the system link.

The 25G technology is the foundation of the 100G(4*25Gbps) Ethernet standard. Compared with the 40G technology, the 25G technology can provide higher port density and reduce cost, so the 25G technology has a promising prospect.

With the rapid development of 25G Ethernet technology, HTFuture has introduced two types of cables, 25G SFP28 DAC and 25G SFP28 AOC to meet the 25G network needs of customers. You can also select our 25G DAC cable or 25G AOC cable customized service according to your needs. 

For customized details, you can email to Ivy from HTFuture: sales6@htfuture.com.

How to Select Direct Attach Cable?

In today’s telecommunication market, high-qualified cables are always sought by users to satisfy the increasing demands of greater bandwidth and the growing amount of data transmission. As a result, direct attach cables have been designed to meet these requirements. Maybe you are not familiar with them and can’t determine which kind of direct attach cable is applicable for your networking servers. There is no need to worry. This post will introduce direct attach cables in details.

Definition of Direct Attach Cable

Direct attach cable (DAC), a kind of optical transceiver assembly, is a form of high speed cable with “transceivers” on either end used to connect switches to routers or servers. DACs are much cheaper than the regular optics, since the “transceivers” on both ends of DACs are not real optics and their components are without optical lasers. In storage area network, data center, and high-performance computing connectivity, they are preferable choice for their low cost, low power consumption and high performances.

Classifications of Direct Attach Cable

Direct attach cables can be divided into several types according to different standards. By Ethernet transmission rate and construction standard, 10G SFP+ cables, 40G QSFP+ cables, and 120G CXP cables are available. Classification according to the number of connectors is also feasible. Most DAC assemblies have one connector on each end of the cable, but there is a special kind of DAC assembly which may have 3 or 4 connectors on one end of the cable. Take QSFP+ to 4 SFP+ Passive Copper Direct Attach Breakout Cable for example, it features a single QSFP+ connector (SFF-8436) rated for 40-Gb/s on one end and 4 SFP+ connectors (SFF-8431), each rated for 10-Gb/s, on the other.

Based on material of cables used, there are direct attach copper cables and active optical cables.

Direct Attach Copper Cable — Direct attach copper cables are designed in either active or passive versions. The former provides signal processing electronics to avoid signal issue, thus to improve signal quality. What’s more, the former can transmit data over a longer distance than the latter which offers a direct electrical connection between corresponding cable ends. Nowadays, direct attach copper cables still have a place in market owing to their interchangeability, low cost and various data rates.

Active Optical Cable — Active optical cable (AOC) is one form of DAC. It integrates multi-mode optical fiber, fiber optic transceivers, control chip and modules. It uses electrical-to-optical conversion on the cable ends to improve speed and distance performance of the cable while mating with electrical interface standard. Compared with direct attach copper cable, its smaller size, electromagnetic interference immunity, lower interconnection loss and longer transmission distance make it popular among consumers.

Direct attach cables allow for greater bandwidth cost-effectively. As for which kind or kinds of DACs are suitable for network connectivity, it depends on specific situations. HTFuture supplies above-mentioned high-qualified DACs. Also, DACs can be customized in HTFuture to meet your different requirements.

More information about DACs, Welcome to conatct Ivy from HTFuture:

Email: sales6@htfuture.com Skype: live:sales6_1683

HTFuture team are ready and happy to assist you.