| | July 20248 Network InfrastructureThe enormous growth in demand for bandwidth among both consumers and global enterprises means that data centers need to be constantly expanding to supply more computing, storage and networking capacity. In addition, there are new applications in machine learning using Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) that increase connectivity demands in the data center. Increasingly, more and more of this storage and computation happens at hyperscale data centers ­ the term used for massive business-critical facilities designed to efficiently support robust, scalable applications. These hyperscale centers, along with edge compute sites, are growing quickly along with market demand, and are expected to have total revenues of $108 billion by 2025. There are now approximately 600 of these hyperscale centers in operation globally, twice the number of five years ago.The business of hyperscale data centers varies greatly from Cloud Platforms (SAAS, PAAS), to social media, internet search, gaming platforms, and others. It's not hard to browse some of these companies' quarterly reports to see that these are financially lucrative businesses. There is an obvious motive to continue to invest, yet key challenges limit the ability to easily scale. Of course, capital resources are always a limit, but these companies have healthy cash flows, thus often it is the availability of other resources ­ land, power availability, construction labor ­ that is the obstacle. As a supplier of fiber optic cabling and connectivity solutions, Corning is doing its part in speeding up the installation of these solutions. In any fiber optic network, the fastest way to connect two ports is to use a cable that is preterminated with connectors at both ends. There's no splicing or field connectorization of cables required, which results in greatly reduced installation time, and By Brian Rhoney, Director, Data Center Market Development, CorningHOW NEXT-GENERATION CONNECTIVITY CAN HELP HYPERSCALE DATA CENTERS MEET GROWING DEMANDno scrambling to hire trained splice technicians in a labor-constrained environment. For Data Center Interconnect (DCI) applications, where multiple data center buildings need to be connected within a campus, the challenge of using preterminated cables comes down to the number of fibers that need to be run outdoors between buildings, and the available conduit space available to pull the terminated cables through. Hyperscale centers, as you might imagine, need to run a massive amount of fiber between buildings, meaning that typical preterminated cables would require huge protective pulling grips. So huge, in fact that they would never fit through Brian RhoneyIN MY OPINION
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