New device designed specifically for data centre testing, troubleshooting and documentation

Fujikura Europe, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of fibre optic cables and equipment, has launched AFL’s NOYES M310 OTDR into Europe. It is specifically designed to address the technical challenges associated with emerging data centre architectures and increasing network speeds.

The M310 combines short dead zones and generous dynamic range, enabling technicians to easily troubleshoot short fibre runs, patch panels, jumpers and fan-out cassettes. An integrated Visible Fault Locator provides a quick means of validating fibre polarity and identifying workmanship issues such as broken, kinked or crushed fibres. It also includes an integrated Optical Power Meter (OPM) and when used in conjunction with OTDR Pass/Fail limits, it enables the accurate capture of tier 1 and tier 2 loss measurements.

Neil Bessant, Divisional Manager at Fujikura Europe, said growth in the data centre segment had exploded in recent years and engineers need tools specifically designed for them.

“As we all know, the data centre market is in a state of rapid expansion. Data centres are critical to a wide range of enterprises in the financial, retail, manufacturing, government, military, healthcare and educational sectors. The costs of an outage are great and it is imperative that network personnel be able to troubleshoot and restore an operation quickly,” said Bessant.

“With this unique OTDR we are providing engineers with every tool required to effectively and efficiently manage their data centre network. In Top of Rack (TOR) and End of Row (EOR) data centre configurations there are ultra-short fibre links, numerous patch panels and cross-connections. The ability to pinpoint faults to any point in a short cable or cassette and get the network back online is crucial,” he added.

The M310 OTDR is equipped with a Test Results Manager 2.0 (TRM®) companion PC software package to allow users to create acceptance reports conforming to all industry guidelines. TRM 2.0 enables users to create customised cover pages with their company logos and generate results pages showing dual wavelength traces and event tables, end-face image, event map and loss data for each fibre.

The M310, named as a finalist in the prestigious Test & Measurement World 2013 Best in Test Awards competition, is housed in a rugged, lightweight, easy to hold package with an easy-to-use Touch and Test™ user interface.