Long ago when I was a graduate student, I had to machine water cooling channels into several dozen copper plates. My project involved many high-power diode lasers as pump sources for a solid-state laser and each diode laser was mounted on a copper plate for heat removal. Luckily for me, the machine shop at the university included a numerically controlled milling machine. With this machine I could program a path for the mill and watch the machine automatically cut out the desired cooling channel. This was my first interaction with automation and it clearly improved the quality of the copper plates compared to if I had to machine the plates by hand.
Today automation is so common that we hardly think about it. The earliest type of automation was fixed automation – where a system was used to produce large quantities of the same item. But as software improved, systems with programmable or flexible automation were introduced such as the CNC milling machine I used in graduate school. As you would expect from the name, in flexible automation people program the machine to automate a range of activities. With this approach a machine can be designed to respond based on a variety of desired outputs.
Some of the key benefits driving the transition to automated systems are lower operating costs, increased productivity and better product quality. These benefits can also be obtained in the transition from manual to automated fiber cross connects. While the initial capital expense is slightly higher to implement a robotic cross connect, the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the robotic system is lower starting with the second port configuration due to OpEx savings for an on-site technician. When a truck roll is required, automation provides an even clearer TCO advantage. Productivity is also improved since the automated process can often be done faster and quality is improved by avoiding human errors.
While automation typically happens away from the customer’s view, another trend can directly increase the customer experience – self-service portals. Most of us probably first experienced self-service portals at airports where the kiosk replaced the long lines to get our boarding passes and drop off our luggage. Now self-service kiosks can be found everywhere from Home Depot to McDonald's. The popularity of kiosks has grown both with businesses and customers, and today more than 65% of customers said they would visit a restaurant more often if self-service kiosks were offered [1]. Businesses also like self-service kiosks since it can do everything that back-end automation can do – lower operating costs, increase production and improve product quality. Using a kiosk, the customer can type in their exact configuration for their burger and this can be delivered to them faster with fewer defects while requiring less support staff.
With the obvious customer benefits that automation and self-service kiosks offer, they have expanded into a range of businesses. With technology such as the Telescent robotic Network Topology Manager™ (NTM™), automation and self-service portals can now be used in fiber cross-connect management within data centers. While management of servers and routers has been automated in data centers through software defined networking (SDN), the interconnectivity at the fiber layer is still done manually. Telescent has designed and manufactured a large-scale robotic cross-connect that preserves the advantages of static patch panels such as latchability and low-loss while introducing the ability to remotely manage and control the connectivity at large scale with high reliability. While the initial capital expense is slightly higher to implement a robotic cross connect, if the fibers are touched more than twice over its installed lifetime the robotic system offers a lower total cost. Automating the interconnection clearly increases productivity since the fiber connections can be completed in minutes rather than taking days for the manual process. And the robot avoids human error, which the Uptime Institute claims is the cause of >70% network faults.
With the Telescent system, it is possible for a customer in a multi-tenant data center to log onto their customer portal that shows their existing connections. They can request a new connection through the portal, and after approval by the “Z” side customer the connection can be completed in minutes. Since the Telescent system includes a cleaning cartridge, a low loss connection is completed without any possibility of a rolled or swapped Tx/Rx connection. If there is ever an error in their network, using diagnostics within Telescent system a customer could request an OTDR trace of the connection and identify a potential fault point and initial a repair. Or customer can loop back onto itself remotely to check own performance and patch cord performance.
The Telescent NTM is NEBS Level 3 certified and has over 1 billion port-hours of service life. To learn more about implementing automation and self-service portals in your data center, contact Telescent now.
[1] Self-Order Kiosks Are Finally Having A Moment In The Fast Food Space (forbes.com)