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Justification for using copper for server NIC, not fiber

news2010a
Level 3
Level 3

Hi,

Anyone here could show me any documentation which could help me justify the use of gigbit copper NIC on servers instead of fiber?

In my experience servers typically doesn't gain much from having a fiber connection instead of 1000MB copper, but if you ever found a document showing a quantitative approach to justify this, please let me know.

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Tony.henry
Level 1
Level 1

News2010a,

Not sure what environment you've got, but surely price is an almost universal justification.

Fiber NIC's are few and far between whilst most servers can be purchased with a 10/100/1000 Mb copper interface. Fiber patches and interfaces to switch infrastructure cost more and are less dense than their copper equivelent.

Only justification I have for fibre terminations is Security (see paranoid, defence type installs), electrically noisy environments and distance requirements.

IMO should be pretty easy to justify just on cost benefits alone. What issues are you dealing with that make it hard?

Tony

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3 Replies 3

Tony.henry
Level 1
Level 1

News2010a,

Not sure what environment you've got, but surely price is an almost universal justification.

Fiber NIC's are few and far between whilst most servers can be purchased with a 10/100/1000 Mb copper interface. Fiber patches and interfaces to switch infrastructure cost more and are less dense than their copper equivelent.

Only justification I have for fibre terminations is Security (see paranoid, defence type installs), electrically noisy environments and distance requirements.

IMO should be pretty easy to justify just on cost benefits alone. What issues are you dealing with that make it hard?

Tony

Thanks. Just user/manager persistence with the misconception that fiber is much faster than copper. In this case we know that 10/100/1000 Mb copper can deliver the same or very similar Gigabit performance.

Thanks.

Yep, think I understand better now. Good luck in that fight. I would start by detailing how much it costs to populate a rack with copper as opposed to fibre. Then show how much less space your going to take with copper as opposed to fibre. both are cost factors.

If you wanted to go really nuts you could add the cost of patch leads to the whole mix.

Tony

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