No one likes to talk about failures. But since networks are critical infrastructure not just to businesses but to everyone today, engineers and network operators must prepare for and prevent a wide range of potential failures. This can include redundant systems such as back-up generators for power or diverse fiber routes in the case of a fiber cut. But in reviewing the causes of network outages, Upstart Institute has found that a large majority of issues are caused by human errors. While software and automation have taken on many roles in the network to avoid human errors as the network scale has grown, humans are still involved in one area of the network – managing physical cross connects. But there are reliable solutions available today to bring automation to the physical fiber layer.
It may seem that automating a cross connect is more effort than it is worth. After all, cross connects have been done the same way for 20 years, why change now? But automation doesn’t just improve the initial connection process by greatly reducing the time to implement the cross-connect, it has many other benefits as well. Have you ever had the need to roll a connection since the technician plugged the Tx into the Rx port? Have you had to diagnose a high-loss link since the technician didn’t properly clean the fiber? Have you ever disconnected a wrong port since the inventory was incorrect, only to spend hours trying to diagnose the problem for an upset customer? Have you ever had an outage but needed to wait for a technician to take an OTDR trace to begin understanding the problem? All of these issues can be solved with an automated cross connect system such as the Telescent Network Topology Manager.
Of course, when you implement a new system you need to make sure you aren’t adding new points of failure. To refer to the title of the article, you want to make sure any new system fails like an escalator, not an elevator. When an escalator fails, it just becomes stairs and can still be used in a manual state. Of course, the same isn’t true for an elevator.
There have been a number of attempts in the past to automate cross connects using technologies such as MEMS and other free-space optics. However, these approaches lack the ability to offer latched connections. In these systems, all the connections are lost in the event of a power failure. Manufacturers of these systems may say that latched connections aren’t necessary since data centers have redundant power or additional batteries can be included with their system. Of course, network designers understand that the loss of power isn’t the only thing that can go wrong in a complex system. These automated cross-connect systems have internal circuitry and components and any issue with these subsystems can cause failure. For critical infrastructure, latched connections should be required for any automated cross connect system to be considered.
Telescent offers a fully latched, large scale robotic cross connect system. Telescent has designed and built a robotic Network Topology Manager (NTMTM) that offers many of the benefits of software control with physical interconnections. The robotic system allows connections, reconfigurations, and disconnections to be handled remotely while offering ultra-low loss and latching performance just like a regular fiber patch panel. Once the robot has automatically cleaned the fiber and placed it into the new connection, the connection will act like a latched, static patch panel. And since the Telescent system includes a power monitor, as well as other optional equipment such as an OTDR, any issue with the fiber, can be monitored and diagnosed remotely. The Telescent NTMTM offers a pay-as-you-grow model and can scale from a few hundred ports to over 1,000 ports in a single system and then scale further with a leaf-spine network configuration and orchestration software. And since reliability will be critical for remote operation, the Telescent NTMTM has been certified to NEBS Level 3, has passed multiple customer trials simulating a 10-year lifetime, and has over 1 billion port hours in live traffic operation.
With the Telescent NTM, data center operators can bring automation to the fiber layer, reduce human errors and build a more reliable and efficient network.