This technical document explores the state of the cabling industry: where it has been and where it is headed. It assesses what it takes to succeed in the face of the exponentially increasing need for contractors to manage multiple environments, media, standards, and technologies. In this new world of multi-platform cabling, what do cabling professionals need to do differently to ensure success and profitability? What does it take to navigate the evolving landscape of media, standards, and more? And how can we, as a professional community, change the game in project management?
The Evolution of Data Communication Cabling:
Around the year 2000, data centers and the networks that stemmed from them stagnated in a fairly archetypal design and haven't changed much since. Racks with servers and layers of switches formed these data centers. Copper connections ran to desktop computers, routers connected to the internet, and devices were inserted for security, storage, and other applications. The number one challenge for cabling contractors: the speed of certification.
But major changes are underway. Standalone servers and storage devices have been virtualized, and this virtualization is driving greater density and a subsequent demand for even better performance in the data center. The traditional data center network, built with a three-tier architecture of access, aggregation, and core switches, is collapsing into a single-hop network structure that promises to deliver significantly improved performance. Organizations are beginning to replace proprietary switches with software-defined networks built with raw hardware and open-source traffic management software.
In the horizontal section of the network, the Ethernet connection is being overlaid by a growing number of Wi-Fi-connected devices. The "bring your own device" (BYOD) era is driving a significant impact on networks. Surveys indicate that over 80% of organizations now allow users to bring personal devices to wireless LANs. And with its propagation problems, interference, vulnerable access points, constant evolution, and so on, Wi-Fi adds strain and complexity to the underlying infrastructure.
A key reason for the stagnation in the networking industry over the past decade is the effectiveness of 1 Gbps copper connections. These cables were very common, affordable, fast enough, and relatively easy to install and test multiple times. But that era is coming to an end as we move from 1 Gbps copper to 10 Gbps copper, 40 Gbps fiber, and even 100 Gbps fiber. As more data travels over connections, each cable becomes much more critical.
New Challenges:
The issue of new standards further complicates matters. Where Cat 5 cable once dominated, there is now Cat 5e, Cat 6, Cat 6a, and Cat 7 copper cable, in addition to multiple types of fiber. A wide range of standards, measurements, and compliance requirements exist within the industry, such as TIA vs. ISO, EF, and TCL.
CDNEXT, TCLT, ELTCTL, etc. And for Wi-Fi, there's 802.11a, b, g, and soon ac (gigabit) and eventually ad (7 gigabit). The traditional notion, "pull this Cat 6 cable and connect it to the server rack, pull this Cat 6 cable and connect it to the switch, pull this Cat 5e cable for the LAN," is disappearing. At the same time, the people responsible for deploying and maintaining this infrastructure (cabling installers, project managers, network administrators, etc.) are struggling with limited resources. The most obvious constraints are time and money, undoubtedly: the need to do more, faster, and for less.
Labor shortages and lack of specialization are two less recognized problems. There is a shortage of trained personnel available to do the work (specifically in terms of the installer/installation ratio), and those who are available may have limited specialization. As in many industries, there is a growing divide between project managers with professional certifications and substantial experience across a wide range of installations and testing requirements, and technicians or installers with more limited training, isolated specialization, and who may even be temporary workers.
Not only is the complexity increasing, but the volume of cabling installation and certification remains high (see Figure 1). According to surveys, nearly 95 percent of contractors expect to certify the same volume (59 percent) or a higher volume (34 percent) of links next year (see Figure 2). Testing and certification are key requirements for these installations, and not just for the obvious need to ensure everything is working. Certification reports are typically required for payment, for fulfilling manufacturer warranties, and for facilitating troubleshooting.
However, due to the workload and resource scarcity, mobile installation and testing teams and independent service levels are common. Generally, nearly 90 percent of these connections are fixed individually and immediately, meaning that if a tool or expert is unavailable, work stops until it arrives. Furthermore, testing equipment travels with these teams: In a recent survey, 55 percent of installers moved their tools several times a month, not only from one site to another, but also back to the same site.
To further complicate matters, installations are not without their problems: In recent surveys of Fluke Networks customers, 91 percent of North American installers, 90 percent of Asian installers, and 97 percent of European installers reported at least one problem. More than half of the respondents in the US and Europe reported seven or more problems. In Asia, this increases to ten or more problems (see Figure 3). While these problems frequently relate to issues with the cabling or the installation itself, they are equally (if not more) likely to be due to errors in the process: incorrect limits on tests, incorrect configurations or parameters; test data being scattered across multiple testers; mismatched results, incomplete reports or tests, and so on.
And these problems add up, according to the study. In total, in any given month, more than 22,000 hours are spent in the US, 18,000 hours in Asia, and 4,000 hours in Europe troubleshooting cabling infrastructure issues. That equates to 45 hours (US), 61 hours (Asia), and 26 hours (Europe) per 1,000 cable links on average, depending on the region. Simply put, errors, complexity, and rework can add anywhere from one to one and a half weeks of work to a typical 1,000-link project. This is a global problem, with a global reach but a unique geographic impact.
Right now, the industry is awash in “multiples”: multiple cables, multiple standards, multiple equipment, multiple tools, multiple projects, multiple testing regimes, multiple skill levels, and more. This presents two opposing forces—increasing complexity and finely stretched specialization—on a collision course that affects the fundamental connectivity of technology.
Critical Point
: The implication is that if something doesn't change, some other factor has to give way. If complexity continues to increase and resources don't increase proportionally, then there will be a steady increase in either the time or cost per installation. It will take longer to test and certify links, slowing growth until volume, complexity, and resources reach an unstable equilibrium; or the cost will start to rise, allowing specialization and additional resources to keep pace with the growth in volume and complexity.
Imagined Potential
Clearly, what's needed is greater efficiency and agility, and that means tools can take on a larger role in the installation process, thereby generating a greater impact on the business. Even so, over the last decade, the nature of that efficiency and impact has evolved.
When Fluke Networks pioneered the modern cable certifier, the DTX CableAnalyzer Series, in 2004, it met the demand for speed in testing every link. The DTX revolutionized the industry, generating accurate and reliable results many times faster than anything else on the market. As a result, it is now the industry-leading solution and has been for nearly a decade.
But as the industry has evolved, the tools must evolve with it. While testing and troubleshooting are central to certification, there's an even greater opportunity to reduce time, cost, complexity, and errors throughout the rest of the process. Let's look at certification at the project level (see Figure 4).
Planning: The project manager typically handles the first part of the installation and certification process. Currently, most installers manage the testing and certification of multiple jobs simultaneously, each with its own equipment, testing tools, and requirements. This is not only time-consuming, but the increased complexity can lead to costly errors—and that's happening.
Configuration: The next phase is configuration, ensuring that the requirements are understood and that the tool is correctly configured to verify those parameters. Complexity increases in this area as well: there are multiple media types, different categories, and varying standards. For frontline technicians, the impact is either having to wait for a specific expert to configure the tool or risking costly errors that require rework.
Verification: Verification can always be faster. But again, the speed of current verifiers is such that the ability to gain a huge advantage in this part of the process is limited; there are currently much greater gains to be made in other areas.
Problem-solving: The variety in the skill levels of technicians, or even the simple lack of familiarity with certain types of facilities or different standards, usually implies delays in projects until the necessary specialization is available to solve the problem.
Report generation: Report generation has become the downfall of the installation in many ways. Not only is it increasingly complex when working in an environment with multiple vouchers, equipment, and standards, plus testing regimes that make generating required reports a time-consuming process, but it's also the part where errors and oversights in the early stages of certification become visible, causing delays.
System acceptance is a growing challenge for customers. If installers, who live and breathe wiring, are overwhelmed by the increasingly complex system, imagine what that means for customers. Multiple complex reports, varied testing regimes, and so on can impact system acceptance.
The Future of Certification:
All things being equal, one possible response to these requirements would be to add more expert project managers to the process so they could apply the necessary insight, training, and oversight to eliminate errors and improve efficiency. Unfortunately, this is not economically viable.
The solution, then, is a verification tool that helps assume this function, managing both the verification process and the verifications themselves.
What's needed is a new, much more agile solution capable of handling every part of the certification process, from planning to system acceptance and multiple testing scenarios. Furthermore, this solution would incorporate built-in intelligence and a revolutionary touchscreen interface that would guide technicians through the testing and project requirements, regardless of their background. Built from the ground up for a "multiple" environment, it would help project managers and technicians meet the new challenges associated with cabling certification.
Looking again at the six-step certification process, such a solution would generate significant benefits:
Planning: The appropriate tool would incorporate project management capabilities to seamlessly plan and manage multiple jobs, different cable types or testing regimes, multiple teams, and more. In short, this would be practical for handling all the complexity that arises in typical cabling installation, thus improving efficiency and eliminating costly errors.
Configuration: The test configuration wizards would generate a guided reference and link budget configuration, as well as incorporate built-in standards to ensure that the correct tests are performed (see Figure 5). This approach eliminates the delay due to “waiting for an expert” and further reduces errors.
Verification: As mentioned, verification can always be faster, and the tools continue to improve in speed. Most importantly, the built-in wizards and graphical interface will quickly guide the customer to the correct verification configuration, further improving speed.
Problem-solving: The ability to explore and identify the root cause (see Figure 6), as opposed to a simple pass/fail, is critical for effective problem-solving. This exploration, along with the graphically accurate wiring map, allows technicians of varying skill levels to quickly identify and correct problems.
Report generation: As shown, report generation is evolving, and the need for flexibility and agility never ends. To overcome this challenge, verification tools must incorporate a project system that manages results across multiple teams, media, and verifiers to monitor and integrate results into a single report throughout the project (see Figure 7). Furthermore, the dramatic improvements made in earlier segments of the certification process should largely eliminate common errors and oversights, accelerating project completion.
System acceptance: If complexity tends to "complicate" system acceptance, then the antidote is a clear system that uses concise statistics, event maps, and ISO level V-level certification to generate insight into the quality of work without having to search through thousands of reports.
Stay Agile.
If the future of cabling infrastructure and technology in general is becoming increasingly complex, then more must be demanded of the tools to stay current. We must be more agile. And today, that means much more than just pure speed. Keeping cabling infrastructure healthy and on par with the rest of the industry means focusing on the entire certification process, optimizing workflow as needed, around the multitude of requirements for ever-growing jobs to accelerate system adoption. Contractors who fail to evolve successfully to meet these complexities will simply be replaced by those who can.
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Article provided by Fluke Networks
