From the August, 2013 Issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance Magazine
by Patrick McLaughlin
The last time I visited the eye doctor was an interesting experience. For years I have had myopia, requiring corrective lenses for distance vision. More recently I've also acquired hyperopia and along with it, the need for a prescription to see things up close. In other words, I need reading glasses.
The most interesting part for me though, was when the doctor explained that I could choose to continue wearing contact lenses as I have been for years, but wear a different-strength lens in each eye. One would correct the myopia and the other would correct the hyperopia. I tried it, didn't mind it, and now it's my routine. What has become obvious to me is how much I do in fact need the corrective lenses. When I try to use my "reading" eye to see long distances, it doesn't work out so well. And vice versa.
As a person, the importance of seeing well is self-evident. As a business operation and particularly in the management of a network along with its cabling system, vision is equally important but not always so easily obtained.
Several of the articles in this month's issue address vision, visibility and other optically related topics in their on ways. For example, as the TIA sets out to revise its specifications for cabling an enterprise for wireless access points, it is doing so with the vision of what is to come in wireless networking. Specifically, a backhaul data rate that could exceed 7 Gbits/sec. 7-Gbit wireless LANs. Who saw that coming? Thankfully, some did.
Elsewhere, a plea is made for enterprise users to have the vision into their own networks' futures to stop installing 62.5-micron OM1 multimode optical fiber. OFS's John Kamino points out the most frequently given reasons users still install OM1, and he has reasons why in each case, there's a better option.
And several providers of managed connectivity systems discuss the disadvantages that have resulted from a network's physical layer remaining a blind spot in overall network management. The article's purpose is to point out technological advancements that have enabled Layer 1 to become a visible, rather than invisible, part of the network. Furthermore, some of these advances are doing more than ever before to tie Layer 1 into the network's higher layers for network management with fewer seams (if not completely seamless).
Modifying the phrase "seeing is believing," in these cases, "seeing is managing." I'll see you next month. ::
PATRICK McLAUGHLIN
Chief Editor
[email protected]
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