Networks continue to evolve and grow. The need for more and more storage continues, even in a challenging economic environment. Infonetics recently published their forecast for storage area network switch and adapter port growth. Figure 1 shows that even though 2009 was a down year, the next five years are predicted to have very good growth. Also, next-generation data centers will migrate to higher speeds like 40G and 100G.
As data centers grow and migrate to higher speeds, backbone cabling becomes a key design area. The backbone cabling system is a key component that influences the design and functionality of all the other components in the data center. In the past, most backbone cabling systems consisted of cables that were terminated with standard two-fiber duplex connectors. Now many systems are moving to cabling systems that use 12-fiber and, in the future, 24-fiber connectors.