Networking

Electricity is one of the things that we rely on most in modern life and work, which is even more fundamental than the Internet. It has been utilized to serve human beings for centuries, and the technologies and standards in this filed have been developed and improved for better usage globally. The computer power cord C13 is a typical example of the achievements through power cord standardization. Do you know why use the letter C and the number 13 to name it? This post will explain the standards that power connectors comply to and the most commonly used power cord types. International Power Cord Types: C13, C15 and C19 C13 power cord is specified by the power cord standard IEC 60320, which is recognized as an international standard by most countries in the world. The standard determines the electrical, mechanical, thermal requirements and safety operations of the specified power cord type . It also describes the shape, size and dimensions of the appliance to be connected to wit...

When it comes to connecting a lot of VoIP phones and IP cameras, a 48-port PoE switch is great for powering them. Whether it is for home use or business use, a 48-port PoE switch can best solve the problems of installing these PoE network devices in places that has no power lines. Due to the high capacity and power supply feature, a 48-port PoE switch price is often higher than a standard 48-port Ethernet switch with no PoE. In this post, we will introduce some cheap 48-port PoE switches and do a comparison between them. Comparison of Four 48-Port PoE Switches Prices and Functions The four 48-port PoE switches that we’re going to discuss are UniFi US-48-500W, TP-Link T1600G-52PS, D-Link DGS-1210-52MP/ME and FS S1600-48T4S . They are inexpensive compared with most enterprise class 48-port PoE switches. Let’s have a look at these switches. Difference Between the Four 48-Port PoE Switches The table below gives some basic parameters of these four switches, including the ...

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) has been earning a good reputation in data centers, whether it is of the entire branch offices, the IT duties of small and medium businesses (SMBs) or the virtual desktop infrastructure deployments. HCI offers numerous integrated services such as backup, data protection and solid-state drive storage, and allows seamless management and expansion of various compute, storage and network devices, i.e., users can scale the network flexibly by adding a new appliance to the hyper-converged cluster. For SMBs, the requirements for network switches is not the same as large enterprises when adding a 10G appliance. This post is to suggest some affordable 10G SFP+ switches for SMBs during hyper-converged appliance (HCA) expansion. 10G SFP+ Switches Requirements for SMB HCA Expansion In today’s SMBs, applications are requiring higher data rate and some management features. For a SMB with a considerable size, the core switches might be requir...

For recent years, the advent of 10Gbase-t copper solutions has seen growing adoption. Compared to fiber optics, copper has made great advances in latency and power consumption. 10Gbase-t is thus becoming more popular in network switches and servers. If you have not got any 10G switches, you should get 10Gbase-t switches, such as 12 port, 24 port, or 48 port 10gbase-t switches which are cost-effective 10g sfp+ copper switches for data centers. This post mainly talks about 48 port 10gbase-t switch. Why You Need 48 Port 10gbase-t Switch? Like other BASE-T technologies, 10gbase-t uses the standard RJ45 Ethernet jack. 10gbase-t is backward compatible, auto-negotiating between higher and lower speeds, thereby not forcing an all-at-once network equipment upgrade. It means that the 10G copper connections can also work with 1 Gigabit Ethernet devices without requiring any expensive hardware replacements. The ability to autonegotiate between 1 and 10 gigabit speeds allows 10gbase-t server u...

Fiber optic waterproof cables are widely used in outdoor applications to connect the major fiber optic lines or receivers or splice enclosures. According to different requirements, both fiber optic patch cords and fiber optic pigtails are available. Water proof fiber cable usually adds a water blocking material between the outer jacket and the inner fiber (or inner jacket) to protect the fiber surface from unwanted damage, such as an armored cable or loose-tube gel-filled cable, or water-tolerable tight-buffered cable. Since there are different types of structure for waterproof cables, is there an easy way to determine which waterproof fiber optic patch cable to choose? In order to help select a right waterproof fiber optic cable quickly, this post will introduce the basic knowledge of waterproof ratings and the features of our waterproof fiber optic cable. How Is a Waterproof Cable Rated? Like choosing any other fiber optic patch cables, the connector type, fiber count, fiber t...

In order to meet the overwhelming trend of growing bandwidth, different standards for single-mode and multimode fibers are published, and parallel fiber connector (MTP/MPO) is designed to solve the problem of increasing fiber count. Though the fiber types are changing, the use of the parallel connector seems not to be outdated, not only for present 40G and 100G applications, but also for future 200G and 400G. This post will discuss the issue on a new fiber type and the role of parallel fiber in 40GbE and beyond networks. Overview on Multimode and Single-mode Fibers Since the establishment of multimode fiber in the early 1980s, there has been OM1 and OM2, and laser optimized OM3 and OM4 fibers for 10GbE, 40GbE and 100GbE. OM5, the officially designated wideband multimode fiber (WBMMF), is a new fiber medium specified in ANSI/TIA-492AAAE. The channel capacity of multimode fiber has multiplied by using parallel transmission over several fiber strands. In terms of single-mode fiber,...

Multifiber MTP/MPO cable is a preferable choice for high-density telecom and datacom cabling. For the outer jacket of MTP/MPO cable, there are many terms to describe it, such as CM, LSZH, CMP, CMR, PVC, etc. FS.COM carries several of these technologies. Do you know the differences between them? And what are the characteristics of each type? Most importantly, which one do you need for the task? This post will introduce some major jacket types for  MTP/MPO cables  and the other acronyms for communication cable ratings. Figure 1: MTP/MPO cabling. CMP CMP (plenum-rated) MTP/MPO cable complies the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 60332-1 flammability standard. CMP MTP/MPO cable is designed to be used in plenum spaces, where air circulation for heating and air conditioning systems can be facilitated, by providing pathways for either heated/conditioned or return airflows. Typical plenum spaces are between the structural ceiling and the drop ceiling or under a ...