How to Use Fiber Enclosure in Data Center

by Fiber-MART.COM

Data center fiber optic cabling becomes increasingly difficult and complex due to high fiber count and the special characteristics of optical fiber. During high density cabling, installers should not only consider about the high density and easy-to-manage requirements, but also the requirements for fiber optic cable protection and reliable network performance. A variety of fiber enclosures have been widely used to optimize fiber cabling in data centers or server rooms. Especially for those high density cabling environments, the fiber enclosures are becoming the must-have components. Fiber enclosures come into many types. And their usages are flexible. You can get more than twice the result with half the effort if you know how to make right use and full use of fiber enclosures.

 

Why Do You Need Fiber Enclosure in Data Center?

Fiber enclosure helps to make full used of the spaces in data center by combining most of the fiber optic connections in strong standards modules, providing solid protection of data center links and increasing cabling density. People working in data centers can get easy access to fiber connections and easy cable management. Thus, the cost of data center installation and maintenance can be effectively reduced.

 

The most commonly used fiber enclosure in data center is usually industry standards 1U rack mount fiber enclosure. Now 4U or larger rack mount fiber enclosures are also becoming popular driven by the increasing of fiber counts in data center. Except standards rack mount fiber enclosures, a lot of data centers or server rooms use customized fiber enclosures for their special requirements. The following will take several examples to introduce the applications and usages of the most commonly used standard rack mount fiber enclosures in data centers.

 

Design of Fiber Enclosure in Data Center

For most applications in data center, rack mount type fiber enclosures are used. Generally there are two types (as shown in the following picture) of rack mount enclosures: fiber enclosure with a removable lid and slide-out fiber enclosure. The slide-out version is usually more expensive than the other version. But slide-out fiber enclosure can allow customers to remove the whole enclosure from the rack, thus, it can provide easier internal fiber connection access.

 

The design of fiber enclosure front panel is also very important, which can directly determine how many optical fiber connections a fiber enclosure could provide. The front panel designs of fiber enclosures are also various. There are two most commonly used designs of the fiber enclosure front panels (as shown in the following picture). One is fixed front panel which can be loaded with appropriate fiber optic adapters. The other is removable front pane l that can accommodate several fiber optic adapter panels or cassettes.

 

Three Methods to Use Fiber Enclosures

The using of the fiber enclosure is largely depended on what you insert into the fiber enclosure and which kind of front panel you choose for the fiber enclosure. Here take 1U rack mount fiber enclosure as example to introduce three most popular ways of using fiber enclosures.

 

Fiber Enclosure Using Removable Fiber Adapter Panels

 

The cabling method of fiber enclosure using several removable fiber adapter panels (FAPs) is generally the same as those using fixed adapter panels. It incorporates several FAPs on the front panel. This type of fiber enclosure can provide higher cabling density and more flexible cable management environment. Generally up to 3 FAPs can be installed on a 1U front panel. However, fiber-mart.COM can provide FAPs which is smaller. Up to 4 FAPs can be installed on a 1U front panel with each providing connections up to 24 fibers. 

 

fiber-mart.COM Fiber Enclosure Solutions

If the above mentioned fiber enclosure still cannot satisfy your fiber count requirement, then a larger fiber enclosure up to 2/3/4U or higher fiber enclosure is required. In fiber-mart.COM, a 4U fiber enclosure can provide up to 288 optical fiber connections. Full series of fiber enclosures are provided. The adapter type, port number, fiber type and color of a fiber enclosure and related components can all be customized in fiber-mart.COM. Kindly contact sales@fiber-mart.com for more details.