While Cisco's UPOE already offers 60W, next year's ratified PoE standards will open the door to more PoE-enabled devices than ever before. This, combined with Power over HDBASE-T, which delivers up to 100W of DC power along with video signals, paves the way for PoE LED lighting, LED TVs, digital signage, and much more.
At the same time, many companies will strive to leverage their existing installed base to support new technologies. Approved in September of this year, the new IEEE 802.3bz standard for 2.5/5GBASE-T is designed to work with Category 5e and 6 cabling, which still accounts for more than 80% of the installed base. Primarily aimed at supporting the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi applications, these new standards will pave the way next year for more 2.5G/5GBASE-T products.
From a testing perspective, these trends drive the need for both DC loop resistance and DC impedance, unbalancing testing to ensure proper Ethernet transmission between four-pair Type 3 and Type 4 PoE, especially for Gigabit Ethernet and beyond. And for those looking to deploy the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi over their existing Category 5 and 6 cabling, there will be a need to test the new 2.5/5GBASE-T standard on existing installations, as not all Category 5e and 6 cables will necessarily support these speeds.
Fortunately, the DSX-5000 CableAnalyzer (with the latest firmware) is ready to perform all these tests.
New names in the data center
To support the unprecedented need to access, transmit, and store more information, many enterprise data centers are turning to cloud and colocation facilities with the capacity and services to help them expand with less capital expenditure, while others are upgrading their existing fiber links. Regardless of the data center type, both copper and fiber technologies are advancing to support this demand.
With the TIA approving the ANSI/TIA-568-C.2-1 standard for Category 8 cabling systems, it's safe to say that 2017 will bring the availability of Category 8 solutions for use in shorter data center switch-to-server connections of 30 meters or less. When these products arrive on the market, look to Fluke Networks, which will announce support for these new standards and a way to upgrade your existing DSX-5000 to support them.
And fiber will also see some changes. Wideband multimode fiber (WBMMF), now called OM5, will feature bandwidth characteristics at a wavelength of 953 nm to support wavelength division multiplexing, opening the door to running 100 Gig over a duplex fiber connection and future 400 Gig applications over the standard 8-fiber MPO interface.
The good news is that testing the new OM5 fiber (when it becomes available) won't be complicated. It has all the same specifications as the previous multimode fiber, with the exception of the attenuation parameters specified for the 953 nm wavelength. And if you're already testing at 850 nm and 1300 nm wavelengths using your chosen method, you can continue doing so for OM5.
The test teams are holding their own.
So while we're confident we have testing covered for what's coming in 2017, the testing teams themselves are ready to deliver all the benefits the world is starting to experience with IoT and cloud computing.
As users of Fluke Network's Versi equipment become more familiar with and comfortable using LinkWare Live (with nearly three million results uploaded so far), 2017 will see an increase in test results submitted from any location, rather than being brought back to the office. This translates to improved overall team productivity and faster troubleshooting, as results can be shared among all stakeholders—engineers, installers, project managers, and consultants—from anywhere and on any device.
And with remote configuration, those most familiar with the project and asset tracking will see the geographical location of the test equipment, improving accuracy and saving time, something that has always been, and will continue to be, a trend.
