American Fiber Systems Integrates Fibre Channel Connectivity
First introduced by the Sun Market in 1994, Fibre Channel connectivity gave telecom an industry standard for faster throughput. The new fiber optic technology allowed for higher signaling rates over longer distances—much faster than copper or electrical solutions. The previous standard of SCSI, a parallel interface with an extremely high cable core and connector count, was quickly replaced with the more reliable Fibre Channel, which contained less internal cabling within server and storage systems, and included re-routing abilities.
For some time, however, the technology only allowed for connectivity between the computer and storage farm with Fibre Channel in the same room. It would be years before Fibre Channel connectivity would sufficiently mature to meet the modern demands of enterprise businesses and carriers. But today, Wavelength and high speed SONET equipment can now be used to extend the original Fibre Channel legacy interface so data centers can be set up at diverse locations.
Unfortunately, most phone companies are not able to integrate and readily provide this type of technology to their customers. And it will become more difficult for them to do so as telecom companies reduce their capital expenditures budgets.
The good news is that an NEF carrier partner is picking up the slack– privately-owned network provider, American Fiber Systems. The award-winning provider has integrated Fibre Channel technology into their recent network upgrade in Atlanta, allowing customers easy access to managed wavelength services over metro fiber networks.
”It’s no secret that the ILECs either can’t offer a much more difficult and complex route to gain this type of access,” said Mike D’Angelo, Senior Vice President of American Fiber Systems. “We’re making it faster and easier for companies who are growing and essentially tapping out of bandwidth, leaving them no room to expand.”
AFS’s network upgrade gives enterprise businesses and carriers an efficient and cost effective way to provide enhanced services, such as OC-192 support, 10 Gbps service levels, and the ability to consolidate multiple backhaul services and diverse routes for existing backhaul circuits.
The massive increase in information technology over recent years has led to an increased need for enterprise bandwidth, speed, and reliability. Businesses have experienced a rise in high-performance communications, improvements in storage, processors, and workstations, as well as collective moves to distributed architectures. The result is bandwidth-heavy, data-intensive, high-speed networking applications that have become critical to day-to-day business functionality and require a new level of performance. Continuity of these functions and the assurance of reliable disaster recovery has become a necessity to business success and longevity.
Despite the American economic situation, the market for managed services in the U.S. is expected to be greater than $34 billion by 2013, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. As the trend continues, enterprise businesses and carriers are looking for cost effective ways to increase their bandwidth, speed, and reliability.
The American Fiber Systems upgrade provides a more cost-effective option for those wishing to establish or upgrade a remote data center.
Carriers are looking for cost effective ways to offer customers a variety of wavelength speeds, easier access to more intricate business continuity, and bullet-proof disaster recovery services. In addition, they need last mile providers who are ready, willing and able to offer these types of better options. And like carriers, enterprises are also looking at new options to connect to data centers, through such networks as those with Fibre Channel connectivity.
“Metro area businesses are growing, and essentially tapping out of bandwidth—which leaves them no room to expand,” says Mike D’Angelo, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at American Fiber Systems. “The addition of managed wavelength services gives Atlanta enterprises readily available capacity levels with the flip of a switch.” Fibre Channel, a highly-reliable, gigabit interconnect technology allows concurrent communications among workstations, mainframes, servers, data storage systems, and other peripherals using SCSI and IP protocols. It provides interconnect systems for multiple topologies that can scale to a total system bandwidth on the order of a terabit per second. Fibre Channel delivers a new level of reliability and throughput. Switches, hubs, storage systems, storage devices, and adapters are among the products that are on the market today, providing the ability to implement a total system solution.
Have questions about American Fiber Systems and Fiber Channel connectivity? Contact NEF today to learn more.
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