Norden is a manufacturer of electrical and optical solutions, catering to a wide spectrum of industries – Telecommunication, Building, Industrial and Utilities. The UK headquartered company is fast expanding its global presence entering new markets with wider product offerings. Joseph K. John, GM, Norden Communication Middle East discusses the solutions and the company’s focus in the region

Discuss your solutions focus around data centre connectivity solutions?

Norden is focused on providing high end components for Data center and server room connectivity.  High density fiber, copper systems allows higher density of servers and ports in data center environment.  Factory terminated high density cabling solutions reduce installation time and cost.

Norden MTP high density cabling solutions utilizes multi fiber push on ferrule providing connection of 12 or 24 fibers. MTP provides superior physical and optical characteristics for precision alignment with spring loaded mechanism and guide pins.  4U MTP® Patch Panel can accommodate 288 LC terminations per panel, providing higher bandwidth requirement for 10G/40G/100G.

Norden DataPro range of high density copper patching solution helps in reduction of usage in rack space, 1U 48 port patch panels and angular range of patch panels are ideally suited for Data center.

Norden  DataCAB range of floor standing racks are designed for communication rooms and data centers. The smart design and professional engineering provides easy installation and maintenance. Aisle Cabinet comes with end-of-row dual sliding doors and ceiling panels that enclose the cold aisle between rows of DataCAB Cabinets to prevent mixing of cold and hot air, optimizing cool air delivery

Please discuss the growth in the data center segment in the region?

The number of large data centers for co-location, dedicated servers, cloud servers, managed hosting, IP transit and many other hosting services are very small in the Middle East market compared to other regions. But there is gradual and steady growth in enterprise data centers; the growth in size of data has encouraged companies to invest in data centers moving way from multiple server room architecture. Investment has shifted towards enhancing existing facilities and consolidation. Outsourcing data center facility is also on the rise.

From copper cables to fibre cables- discuss some trends- are fibre cables replacing copper in most instances? What are the trends in the region?

The requirement of large enterprises for fibre cables is increasing to keep up with their growth, their requirement for higher band width. Most enterprises are moving their applications and data to the cloud servers requiring high bandwidth to the desk. Wider use of mobile devices also increasing data traffics to wireless access points, making use of fiber cables a necessity.

Yes there is high uptake of fiber cables in ME and especially in GCC for enterprise networks. Fiber cables are extensively used in big campus installations in enterprises, education institutions and airports.

Copper is still widely used in enterprise networks due to higher cost of fiber electronics and transceivers; also require higher expertise and cost for installation. Copper is used mostly in horizontal runs since fibre is more susceptible to data loss in macro and micro bends, need careful handling while installation and terminations. Fiber is mostly considered in the vertical runs and backbones.

Data rates of 10GB and above is achieved through VCSELs transceivers optimized for 850nm wavelength for OM2/OM3/OM4 multimode fiber cables to 300m link. Whereas CAT6A copper cables can achieve 10GB data transfer to 100m link.

Single mode fiber cables using 10GBASE-E can have 40km link and 100GBASE-LR4 can reach 10km link lengths for use in large enterprise with big campus. Hence fiber cables are future proof installations.

Fiber cable is not affected by electromagnetic interference like copper cables giving reliable data transfers. Fiber cable data have better security against hacking and theft due to inbuilt encoding. Fiber cable runs have lesser weight and volume of material used hence use lesser raw materials and installation materials and lesser waste of energy, considered green solution in comparison with copper cabling.

Beside data centres, discuss other verticals that you help your partners focus?

Norden’s strength is its product range. It has a very wide range of product and accessories to give customers end to end solutions in cabling. Starting from cabinets, structured cabling, Extra Low Voltage (ELV) cabling and systems that can be used in all industries. We are constantly striving to bring innovative products to our customers to give them right value.

Norden provides cabling solutions for modern building suiting to the requirement of the owner – FTTX, proprietary network architecture, extra low voltage systems, building management systems. We customize design to requirement form cabinets, cables and connectivity components. Our cabling range for this segment includes data cables, telephone cables, fiber optic cables, coaxial cables, control and instrumentation cables, speaker cables, fire resistant cables, fire alarm cables.

In IT and telecommunication, solutions range from cabinets and containments, cables and network components to data center components, intelligent networks to intelligent power distribution units. There are also inside and outside plant network cables and components for telecommunication.

We also offer a wide range of cables and components for industrial control systems – instrumentation, multi-conductor, multi-pair, bus cables. Fibre and copper cables are used extensively in the distributed control system (DCS) and the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems widely used in utility systems.

Do you see data centre footprint reducing which essentially means lesser demand for products inside the data centre?

The size of data is increasing steadily with growth of in number of users; data storage space in-house and outsourced will increase to accommodate this growth. There may be a decline in new build data centers, updating and consolidation of existing ones are happening. Global hubs are getting created for virtual storage, hosting, collocation and cloud services, Dubai is a hub with great potential. There will be increase in usage of components for data center.

Discuss the size of your active partner network – do you have a distributor in the region or do you work directly with system integrators of the region?

Norden has its own warehouse facility in UAE, it is developing a strong second tier distribution network for the Middle East and Africa market. This multilayer multi location stock availability helps norden to provide quick and efficient services to its customers. In markets with immediate access from UAE Norden work directly with system integrators. In other locations we use our distributor network.

Discuss demand for DCIM solutions? What solutions do you offer in this segment?

Norden presently do not provide a full DCIM solution, we provide components that work with DCIM vendor solutions. New intelligent patching and power management solutions are new initiative from us.

Discuss the new solutions unveiled at GITEX?

Norden showcased the full range of products. The new intelligent patch panel and power management systems were launched during Gitex.

N-Connect answers the need of Infrastructure managers for a simple approach to port management tools. They want software that doesn’t require excessive training and a solution that is easy to install and upgrade. The Norden N-Connect system provides a straightforward solution that supports the core functions they use every day. As your network grows, simple updates allow the Norden S-Connect system to grow with you: additional Norden Device Scanners work together seamlessly, providing a single point of view of your network, regardless of size.

Building on NORDEN copper reliability and performance, NORDEN N- Connect Solutions combine hardware and software to provide you with a real-time, comprehensive view of your physical network infrastructure.

Data center managers use N- Power PDUs to prevent overloaded circuits that can damage and down equipment, and lost revenues. N- power PDUs allow local or remote viewing and alarms for issues that can arise at the outlet, breaker, circuit and aggregate level. With the advantage of seeing current usage feedback in an instant, the chances of overloading a PDU when adding, removing or adjusting equipment is minimized.

Remote monitoring is very simple. Just access a snapshot reading of the power usage through any internet connection. No external software is needed, and it’s compatible with SNMP and XML for easy tracking of critical data. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) data traps allow trending of that data.

All of this knowledge can help data center managers’ record and display information to watch for trends that can lead to better efficiency and less downtime.