Advantages and Disadvantages of OM5 Fiber in Data Center

Data centers are the main storage houses to store and distribute data on the internet.  With the growing demands like high bandwidth videos, it is hard to say how much data is being uploaded and downloaded every second on the internet. To cope up with the demand of great bandwidth and high- speed applications, data centers of modern times needs to be upgraded. One such up gradation is OM5 fiber cable also known as wideband multimode fiber(WBMMF). In this post we will see both sides of the same coin, means adoption of OM5 fiber in data centers is beneficial or not.

 

Revolution in Data Center Deployment

 

With the data centers shifting to support more digital strategies, we have to gear up to tackle new challenges, more users and an ever-evolving digital world. Data rates have grown from 10G, 40G and now beyond 100G in many data center networks. According to Cisco Forecast overview 94 percent of workloads and compute instances will be processed by data centers by 2021. This clearly shows higher bandwidth and greater access are major elements for a data center’s architecture.

 

What is OM5 Fiber and will it benefit a Data Center?

 

OM5 is a big innovation in fiber optics and is a new generation of multimode fiber. It is designed to complement Short Wave Division Multiplexing (SWDM) to reduce the parallel fiber count to allow continued use of just two fibers that transmit 40G and 100G. OM5 fiber jumper is defined as wideband multimode fiber (WBMMF) as per new standards in IEC and TIA. It can work over a wide range of wavelength which varies between 850 nm and 950 nm. Let’s have a look

 

Pros and Cons of OM5 in a Data Center

 

GBIC-SHOP summarizes the pros and cons of OM5 cable and it cannot be denied that OM5 is to meet the high bandwidth challenges. 

 

Advantages:

 

Compatibility - OM5 cable has the same fiber size and shape as of its predecessors OM4 and OM5. Therefore one doesn’t have to root up the existing cabling setup and already existing ports can be used shifting it to a high-speed data center network. We can say OM5 is fully compatible with the existing cabling infrastructure of data centers.

 

Extendibility - OM5 fiber jumpers are considered as an advanced version because of their ability to combine 100G-SWDM4 and parallel transmission technology.  OM4 patch cord can support link length only up to 100m. OM5 can achieve 200/400G Ethernet applications by using this 8-core WBMMF standard patch cable.

 

Cost – SWDM technology has reduced the number of fiber, the overall cost of achieving high bandwidth with OM5 is considerably reduced. OM5 fiber is beneficial for data center deployments when it comes to cost parameter. In most of the data centers, short reach connection is common, so multimode fiber cable(MMF) is the most cost-effective.

 

Disadvantages:

As we know that OM5 fiber cable has been standardized last year, its price is higher than OM4. Moreover, its corresponding transceiver 100G-SWDM4 has limited production. However, OM5 will surely be popular in coming times and increase in demand will bring a reduction in price.