Question on in-rack 10GbE cabling

[chuckk281]

Brenda had a cabling question:

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This is not a BladeSystem question. However, since the ProLiant networking expertise is on this PDL, I thought this is the best place to post.

I have a customer that is trying to avoid the cost of fibre for 10GbE cabling for server to top of rack switches.  We have had odd network issues using the DAC cables.  I think we are using the wrong DAC cables. We have very dense racks with 40 or 43 dl360p with 2 x 10GbE Intel NICs.   Our two densest rack configs have:

·         Rack config A: 80 DACs and 80 FC cables for storage

·         Rack config B: 86 DACs

I was wondering if anyone has experience, good or bad, with CAT 6 or CAT 6A cabling for the short distance it takes to go from server to top of rack switches?  With regard to CAT 6, do we need the more robust CAT 6A for this density of cables?

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From Richard:

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10GBase-T is appealing but is it actually any more noise-robust than DAC, and isn't fibre inevitable?  (Eg 40 GbE) Or at least isn't the end of RJ-45 inevitiable?

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Input from Dan:

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An alternative to DAC that's coming or just launched depending on vendor is Active Optical Cable (AOC).

Its like a DAC in that it uses a molded cable+transceiver design but it uses Fiber as the medium.

Depending on cost, this would be the next best thing to DAC and would almost entirely eliminate cross talk.

40Gb is also being offered in QSFP versions of AOC.

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