Fiber Optic Network

In the telcos, singlemode fiber is used to connect long distance switches, central offices
and SLCs (subscriber loop carriers, small switches in pedestals in subdivisions or office
parks or in the basement of a larger building). Practically every telco's network is now
fiber optics except the connection to the home. Fiber to the home is not yet cost effective
- especially since most homes do not want (nor are willing to pay) for the high speed
services that would justify fiber optics.

CATV companies "overbuild" with fiber. They lash fiber cable onto the aerial "hardline"
coax used for the rest of the network or pull it in the same conduit underground. The fiber
allows them to break their network into smaller service areas that prevent large numbers
of customers from being affected in an outage, making for better service and customer
relations. The fiber also gives them a return path which they use for Internet and
telephone connections, increasing their revenue potential.

LANs (local area networks) use fiber optics primarily in the backbone but increasingly to
the desk. The LAN backbone often needs longer distance than copper cable (Cat 5/5e/6)
can provide and of course, the fiber offers higher bandwidth for future expansion. Most
large corporate LANs use fiber backbones with copper wire to the desktop. Fiber to the
desk can be cost effective if properly designed.

Lots of other networks use fiber. CCTV is often on fiber for it's distance capability.
Industrial plants use lots of fiber or distance and noise immunity. Utilities use it for
network management, liking its immunity to noise also. The military uses it because it's
hard to tap or jam. Airplanes use it for that reason too, but also like the lighter weight of
fiber.
Designing Cable Networks

I guess this is too big a topic for a overview! But we'll pass along some hints to make life
easier. First and foremost, visit the work site and check it out thoroughly. Know the
"standards" but use common sense in designing the installation. Don't cut corners which
may affect performance or reliability. Consider what are the possible problems and work
around or prevent them. There ain't no substitute for common sense here!

Fiber's extra distance capability makes it possible to do things not possible with copper
wire. For example, you can install all the electronics for a network in one
communications closet for a building and run straight to the desktop with fiber. With
copper, you can only go about 90 meters (less than 300 feet), so you need to keep the
electronics close to the desk. With fiber, you only need passive patch panels locally to
allow for moves. Upgrades are easy, since the fiber is only loafing at today's network
speed!
Is Copper Really Cheaper Than Fiber?

When it comes to costs, fiber optics is always assumed to be much more expensive than
copper cabling. Whatever you look at - cable, terminations or networking electronics -
fiber costs more, although as copper gets faster (e.g. Cat 6) it gets more expensive, almost
as much as fiber. So isn't it obvious that fiber networks are more expensive than copper?
Maybe not! There is more to consider in making the decision.

Why Use Fiber?

If fiber is more expensive, why have all the telephone networks been converted to fiber?
And why are all the CATV systems converting to fiber too? Are their networks that
different? Is there something they know we don't? Telcos use fiber to connect all their
central offices and long distance switches because it has thousands of times the
bandwidth of copper wire and can carry signals hundreds of times further before needing
a repeater. The CATV companies use fiber because it give them greater reliability and the
opportunity to offer new services, like phone service and Internet connections. Both
telcos and CATV operators use fiber for economic reasons, but their cost justification
requires adopting new network architectures to take advantage of fiber's strengths. A
properly designed premises cabling network can also be less expensive when done in
fiber instead of copper. There are several good examples of fiber being less expensive, so
lets examine them.
Industrial Networks

In an industrial environment, electromagnetic interference (EMI) is often a big problem.

Motors, relays, welders and other industrial equipment generate a tremendous amount of
electrical noise that can cause major problems with copper cabling, especially unshielded
cable like Cat 5. In order to run copper cable in an industrial environment, it is often
necessary to pull it through conduit to provide adequate shielding. With fiber optics, you
have complete immunity to EMI. You only need to choose a cable type that is rugged
enough for the installation, with breakout cable being a good choice for it's heavy-duty
construction. The fiber optic cable can be installed easily from point to point, passing
right next to major sources of EMI with no effect. Conversion from copper networks is
easy with media converters, gadgets that convert most types of systems to fiber optics.
Even with the cost of the media converters, the fiber optic network will be less than
copper run in conduit.

Long Cable Runs

Most networks are designed around structured cabling installed per EIA/TIA 568
standards. This standard calls for 90 meters (295 feet) of permanently installed
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable and 10 meters (33 feet) of patchcords. But suppose
you need to connect two buildings or more? The distance often exceeds the 90 meters by
the time you include the runs between the buildings plus what you need inside each
building. By the time you buy special aerial or underground waterproof copper cable and
repeaters, you will usually spend more than if you bought some outside plant fiber optic
cable and a couple of inexpensive media converters. It's guaranteed cheaper if you go
more than two links (180 meters.)

Centralized Fiber LANs

When most contractors and end users look at fiber optics versus Cat 5e cabling for a
LAN, they compare the same old copper LAN with fiber directly replacing the copper
links. The fiber optic cable is a bit more expensive than Cat 5e and terminations are a
little more too, but the big difference is the electronics which are $200 or more per link
extra for fiber. However, the real difference comes if you use a centralized fiber optic
network - shown on the right of the diagram above. Since fiber does not have the 90
meter distance limitation of UTP cable, you can place all electronics in one location in or
near the computer room. The telecom closet is only used for passive connection of
backbone fiber optic cables, so no power, UPS, ground or air conditioning is needed.
These auxiliary services, necessary with Cat 5 hubs, cost a tremendous amount of money
in each closet. In addition, having all the fiber optic hubs in one location means better
utilization of the hardware, with fewer unused ports. Since ports in modular hubs must be
added in modules of 8 or 16, it's not uncommon with a hub in a telecom closet to have
many of the ports in a module empty . With a centralized fiber system, you can add
modules more efficiently as you are supporting many more desktop locations but need
never have more than a one module with open ports.

High Speed Networking

It was over a year after Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) became available on fiber optics that it
finally become available on Cat 5e. It took another couple of years before GbE on copper
became significantly less expensive. In order to get GbE to work over Cat 5e, the
electronics must be very complicated, and consequently as expensive as fiber. A newer
version is in the wings, awaiting a Cat 6 standard, but that means the version running
over Cat 5e will be obsolete before it even gets started! Finally, we went to a major
distributor's seminar on advanced cabling recently and the copper marketing guy told us
to go fiber for GbE.

Advantages of Fiber Optics

Why are fiber-optic systems revolutionizing telecommunications? Compared to

conventional metal wire (copper wire), optical fibers are:

• Less expensive - Several miles of optical cable can be made cheaper than
equivalent lengths of copper wire. This saves your provider (cable TV, Internet)
and you money.
• Thinner - Optical fibers can be drawn to smaller diameters than copper wire.
• Higher carrying capacity - Because optical fibers are thinner than copper wires,
more fibers can be bundled into a given-diameter cable than copper wires. This
allows more phone lines to go over the same cable or more channels to come
through the cable into your cable TV box.
• Less signal degradation - The loss of signal in optical fiber is less than in copper
wire.
 • Light signals - Unlike electrical signals in copper wires, light signals from one
fiber do not interfere with those of other fibers in the same cable. This means
clearer phone conversations or TV reception.
• Low power - Because signals in optical fibers degrade less, lower-power
transmitters can be used instead of the high-voltage electrical transmitters needed
for copper wires. Again, this saves your provider and you money.
• Digital signals - Optical fibers are ideally suited for carrying digital information,
which is especially useful in computer networks.
• Non-flammable - Because no electricity is passed through optical fibers, there is
no fire hazard.
• Lightweight - An optical cable weighs less than a comparable copper wire cable.
Fiber-optic cables take up less space in the ground.
• Flexible - Because fiber optics are so flexible and can transmit and receive light,
they are used in many flexible digital cameras for the following purposes:
 Medical imaging - in bronchoscopes, endoscopes, laparoscopes
 Mechanical imaging - inspecting mechanical welds in pipes and engines
(in airplanes, rockets, space shuttles, cars)
 Plumbing - to inspect sewer lines

Because of these advantages, you see fiber optics in many industries, most notably
telecommunications and computer networks. For example, if you telephone Europe from the
United States (or vice versa) and the signal is bounced off a communications satellite, you
often hear an echo on the line. But with transatlantic fiber-optic cables, you have a direct
connection with no echoes. Fibre Channel topologies

There are three major Fibre Channel topologies, describing how a number of ports are
connected together. A port in Fibre Channel terminology is any entity that actively
communicates over the network, not necessarily a hardware port. This port is usually
implemented in a device such as disk storage, an HBA on a server or a Fibre Channel
switch.

• Point-to-Point (FC-P2P). Two devices are connected directly to each other. This
is the simplest topology, with limited connectivity.
 • Arbitrated loop (FC-AL). In this design, all devices are in a loop or ring, similar
to token ring networking. Adding or removing a device from the loop causes all
activity on the loop to be interrupted. The failure of one device causes a break in
the ring. Fibre Channel hubs exist to connect multiple devices together and may
bypass failed ports. A loop may also be made by cabling each port to the next in a
ring.
o A minimal loop containing only two ports, while appearing to be similar
to FC-P2P, differs considerably in terms of the protocol.
o Only one pair of ports can communicate concurrently on a loop.

• Switched fabric (FC-SW). All devices or loops of devices are connected to Fibre
Channel switches, similar conceptually to modern Ethernet implementations.
Advantages of this topology over FC-P2P or FC-AL include:
o The switches manage the state of the fabric, providing optimized
interconnections.
o The traffic between two ports flows through the switches only, it is not
transmitted to any other port.
o Failure of a port is isolated and should not affect operation of other ports.
o Multiple pairs of ports may communicate simultaneously in a fabric.

Attribute Point-to-Point Arbitrated loop Switched fabric

Max ports 2 127 ~16777216 (224)

Address size N/A 8-bit ALPA 24-bit port ID

 Loop fails (until port
Side effect of port failure Link fails N/A
bypassed)

Mixing different link

No No Yes
rates

Frame delivery In order In order Not guaranteed

Access to medium Dedicated Arbitrated Dedicated

Layers

Fibre Channel does not follow the OSI model layering, but is split similarly into 5 layers,
namely:

• FC4 — Protocol Mapping layer, in which application protocols, such as SCSI or

IP, are encapsulated into a PDU for delivery to FC2.
• FC3 — Common Services layer, a thin layer that could eventually implement
functions like encryption or RAID redundancy algorithms;
• FC2 — Network layer, defined by the FC-PI-2 standard, consists of the core of
Fibre Channel, and defines the main protocols;
• FC1 — Data Link layer, which implements line coding of signals;
• FC0 — PHY, includes cabling, connectors etc.;

Layers FC0 through FC2 are also known as FC-PH, the physical layers of Fibre Channel.

Fibre Channel routers operate up to FC4 level (i.e. they may operate as SCSI routers),
switches up to FC2, and hubs on FC0 only.

Fibre Channel products are available at 1, 2, 4, 8, 10 and 20 Gbit/s. Products based on the
1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/s standards should be interoperable and backward compatible. The 10
Gbit/s standard and its 20 Gbit/s derivative, however, are not backward compatible with
any of the slower speed devices, as they differ considerably on FC1 level in using
64b/66b encoding instead of 8b/10b encoding, and are primarily used as inter-switch
links.

Ports

FC topologies and port types

The following types of ports are defined by Fibre Channel:

• node ports
o N_port is a port on the node (e.g. host or storage device) used with both
FC-P2P or FC-SW topologies. Also known as Node port.
o NL_port is a port on the node used with an FC-AL topology. Also known
as Node Loop port.
o F_port is a port on the switch that connects to a node point-to-point (i.e.
connects to an N_port). Also known as Fabric port. An F_port is not loop
capable.
 o FL_port is a port on the switch that connects to a FC-AL loop (i.e. to
NL_ports). Also known as Fabric Loop port.
o E_port is the connection between two fibre channel switches. Also known
as an Expansion port. When E_ports between two switches form a link,
that link is referred to as an inter-switch link (ISL).
o EX_port is the connection between a fibre channel router and a fibre
channel switch. On the side of the switch it looks like a normal E_port, but
on the side of the router it is a EX_port.
o TE_port * a Cisco addition to Fibre Channel, now adopted as a standard.
It is an extended ISL or EISL. The TE_port provides not only standard
E_port functions but allows for routing of multiple VSANs (Virtual
SANs). This is accomplished by modifying the standard Fibre Channel
frame (vsan tagging) upon ingress/egress of the VSAN environment. Also
known as Trunking E_port.
o VE_Port a Brocade addition, FCIP interconnected E-Port/ISL, i.e. fabrics
will merge.
o VEX_Port a Brocade addition, is a FCIP interconnected EX-Port, routing
needed via lsan zoning to connect initiator to a target.

• general (catch-all) types

o Auto or auto-sensing port found in Cisco switches, can automatically
become an E_, TE_, F_, or FL_port as needed.
o Fx_port a generic port that can become a F_port (when connected to a
N_port) or a FL_port (when connected to a NL_port). Found only on
Cisco devices where oversubscription is a factor.
o G_port or generic port on a switch can operate as an E_port or F_port.
Found on Brocade and McData switches.
o L_port is the loose term used for any arbitrated loop port, NL_port or
FL_port. Also known as Loop port.
o U_port is the loose term used for any arbitrated port. Also known as
Universal port. Found only on Brocade switches.
(*Note: The term "trunking" is not a standard Fibre Channel term and is used by vendors
interchangeably. For example: A trunk (an aggregation of ISLs) in a Brocade device is
referred to as a Port Channel by Cisco. Whereas Cisco refers to trunking as an EISL.)