Optical fiber network

Alexandre1982 · May 2, 2014

Hi guys,

I am in charge of a project at work, I have to redo the entire network system. And I offered the option of optical fiber and the project was well received by management. Now I have to find the necessary equipment in this transition. The problem is that I find a little information on the optical fiber networking.
I'm looking for hybrid optical switch and network wiring, equipment, and all adapter card. There is there anyone who could point me in the right direction.

Thank you
Alexandre

boosted1g · May 2, 2014

By fiber network, do you mean a fiber internet ISP, do you mean fiber from one telco room or building to another, or do you mean fiber to all PCs?

Alexandre1982 · May 3, 2014

boosted1g :

We are signing a new contract with our internet provider for Optic Fiber so we want to remove all the old cabling to put fiber instead of CAT5/6 cables because a lots of improvement is currently under process and we dont have the choice to expand and find faster better and more durable solution and I have to remove the entire cabling in the building so optic is the next standart so we dont want to redo everything in couple years. Most of the computers will have optic network card it's only into one building. The setup gonna have 1 main switch '' 40 slots'' + 4 small switch ''4 or 6 slots. 1 data server + 1 untangle server

boosted1g · May 3, 2014

Ok.

You need to subcontract this, plain and simple.
I am just being honest and don't mean to come off as being rude, but if you need this amount of direction at this phase then you should not be taking on this task. You are not asking for someone here with computer skills to help you diagnose a PC to save $100 at the repair shop, you are wanting a $70k plus salary network professional to do a consultation for you for free. It takes a large enough amount of specialty knowledge to be able to install a copper network, and that is just to install the infrastructure, not including configuring switches, subneting VLAN, etc. Fiber networks require even more specialty equipment (and more expensive) for running and termination of the cable over copper. I know this is not the answer you want, but I don't want you to get neck deep into this project, spend a ton of money and company time and then not be able to get the network running.

Also the cost of an all fiber network is very high, every component of it is more expensive. Unless the business will utilize 10 gigabit bandwidth at your workstations or have heavy RF saturation in your building, the cost usually outweighs the benefits for most businesses. Many companies use fiber for their backbone between switches, but only a very small percent deploy an all fiber network at this time. I fully understand wanting to be proactive, and looking to the future which is smart, but we are still years away from the average business utilizing 10 gigabit fiber.

Alexandre1982 · May 3, 2014

Thanks for the reply,

For sure I was hoping a better and more positive response but we have to face reality !! I did know it's gonna be more complicated and more expensive for sure and the management knows it too. I was hoping to be able doing it by my self. Because I built the actual setup without issue I was hoping being able to built the new one with a lot of research and reading. That's why I started here. There is one thing I dont understand I found 4 slots optical switch for about 250$ optical cable is a liltle more expensive than CAT5 on internet it's not that expensive why poeple are saying it's so expensive off corse you need special tools to test the cable and thing like that but from my point of view it's not extrem!!

But well thanks for your time.
Alexandre

USAFRet · May 3, 2014

I agree with boosted1g. There are times when it is more cost effective to farm it out, and times when it is not.
This is one of those times when it is.

You can wing it, buying all the stuff, stringing the fiber, etc, etc. And then in 6 months, pay a networking specialist to come in and do it all over again, this time correctly.
Or, you can pay the specialist to do it right the first time.

And there are a LOT more questions that need to be asked and answered before the first part number crosses the spreadsheet.

abailey · May 3, 2014

Since this is a business I would build a business case for why you need fiber to the desktop. You will probably find that the use does not support the cost. I work for a public Biotech company and we still use 100Mbit to the desktop. We moved into a space that had fiber run to all the offices already (as well as Cat5e) and we still did not use the fiber because I could not find a good reason to support the higher NIC and switch port cost. If your upgrading anyhow maybe look into putting in some CAT6a cable that can do 10Gbit for future use but won't force you to purchase all new workstation NICs and switches right now.

bill001g · May 3, 2014

You have a huge misunderstanding about optical. There really is no such thing as a optical switch...they are working on them though. You sure aren't going to find one for $250.

What they do is covert the optical signal back to copper at the interface. Even if the in and out ports of the switch are both optical the signals have been converted to copper inside the switch. If it were to output it on a copper port to run to a user machine it will run just as fast.

I doubt they will even give you a fiber handoff. It might be fiber to the building but many ISP do not actually deliver a dark fiber.

Lets just say they drop a dark fiber pair in your building. Do you even have any idea what light frequencies they are using. There are many options. If you were to need a 10g spf+ running 1550nm just the optics alone are well over $500 and then you need a port in a router that can really run 10g. Even 1g zx optics are not cheap.

You have similar issues when you run fiber inside the building. There are all kinds of details like if you need 50 or 62.5 or are you just going to use single mode fiber all the way.

If you are worried about future proofing a cable layout just run cat6a so you can use 10g in the future if you ever need it. Most end users machines can't even run a gig of traffic. The only reason to run fiber is if you needed more than 10g. The 40g or 100g are only optical other than some special copper cables used on stacking switches. ....If you can afford a machine (ie disk array) that actually has 40g interfaces you should already have high paid IT storage guys working for you that know all about high speed lan network design.

Alexandre1982 · May 4, 2014

Thanks guys for all your time and reply.

I was getting nervous with the first reply the last one make me realized that its way over my knowledge. At least I can admit that. I am gonna just explain the situation to my boss better telling him that it might be a mistake starting on this I mean I dont really know what I am going into. I believe The Cat6 is the best and the more option to go with.

bill001g · May 4, 2014

I strongly suspect your current cabling will meet the business needs for a number of years. Unless you HAVE to replace the cabling say because they are tearing out walls I would leave the cables alone. If you HAVE to replace or add cable I would use cat6a since this will go to 10g and the costs have come way down. Again even copper cabling is not always simple when you are in a commercial building. You most times must use plenum or fire resistant cable. Some cities actually require a licensed electrification to run it.
You are best served by ensuring your switches have all gig ports and the switches are what is called nonblocking or wirespeed. On a 48 port switch it would say 96g throughput or switching. This is a very common feature so you may already have it.

Your other concern would be if your router can actually pass the amount of traffic you need. This is very hard to actually figure out because it is really based on the number of users and the number of open sessions. Almost every router will try to claim it can pass almost 1g of traffic but it only does in the simple case of a single user with a single session. It depends how much bandwidth you are getting and how much you really think you can use. I guess the best way to put this is if a $200 router can deliver 1g why would a large company spend $5000 if the cheap routers really worked as good. I suspect you actually will have no issues with a consumer router with as few users as you have. Bandwidth on a business connection tends to be much less per user because the big uses...porn,hd video,games,torrent etc are generally not acceptable uses.

Alexandre1982 · May 4, 2014

I really have to redo the cabling the guy who started the network before I got that job did a very bad job he installed very poor quality cable with no shield on around 250feets cable are disintagred when i toutched them. He got paid not for the contract but for hours rate I suspect him to try to make the more hours possible instead of making the best job possible. I found so much mistake in his setup thing that make me believe he just want to make money instead of giving a good service. first week I got there I had to reinforce the security cause it has nothing to secure the network even the wireless was not secure I mean damn its a bussiness you cannot leave those door open so many to tell.

Ireally dont have choice current cables are falling apart soI will go on cat6 and rethink the configuration

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