would be well advised to take stock of the latest infrastructure solutions now available—as well as emerging new deployment processes such as off-site rack configuration and testing—to help them realize optimal return on their upgrade investments. The rules of AI data centers have changed, the pace has quickened, and the competition is getting fiercer. As it ever was, the planning and strategy at the foundation will determine the ultimate level of success. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Ken Hall is data center architect for North America at CommScope, responsible for technology and thought leadership for global scale, AI and Cloud data centers. In this role he has been instrumental in the development and release of high-speed, ultra-low loss optical fiber solutions to efficiently enable network migration for data center operators. Focused on cabling efficiencies for AI design and implementation, he continues to drive solutions for these rapidly evolving networks. Ken has nine patents to date for optical fiber connectors and infrastructure management systems. He is a BICSI Registered Telecommunications Distribution Designer (RCDD) and Network Technology Systems (NTS) designer. GLOSSARY Angled physical contact (APC) endface is a specific polish applied to the optical fiber optic connector that features an 8-degree angle. This deliberate angle is designed to significantly minimize signal interference by reducing optical return loss (back-reflection). Direct attach cables (DACs) and active electrical cables (AECs) are both high-speed copper cables used for short-to-medium distance connectivity. The key difference is that DACs are passive, while AECs contain active electronics to enhance signal quality and extend reach. DACs are a cost-effective, low-power solution for short-range connections. Active electrical cables are a more advanced solution that bridges the gap between passive copper and more expensive, higher-power optical cables. Multi-fiber push-on (MPO) connector is a high-density optical fiber connector that houses multiple fibers in a single, rectangular housing,
allowing for high-speed data transmission. It uses a push-pull mechanism for quick and easy connection and relies on guide pins for precise alignment of the optical fibers, which come in common configurations such as 8, 12, 16, or 24. Octal small form-factor pluggable (OSFP) is a high-speed, hot-pluggable transceiver form factor designed to meet the growing demand for higher bandwidth, supporting aggregate data rates of 400 Gbps, 800 Gbps, and beyond. Out-of-band (OOB) management is the use of a dedicated, isolated network channel to manage and monitor IT infrastructure devices (e.g., servers, switches, and routers) separately from the primary production network. This separation ensures that administrators have continuous, secure access to equipment, even if the primary network is down, the operating system is unresponsive, or a cyberattack has compromised the main channel. Pods are modular, scalable, and often prefabricated units designed to simplify the deployment and management of a data center. It is a self-contained environment with all necessary components engineered to work together seamlessly. Quad small form-factor pluggable double density (QSFP-DD port) is a high-speed network interface used to support ultra-high bandwidth applications, most commonly 400G and 800G Ethernet. The key feature is the "double density," which refers to doubling the number of high-speed electrical lanes from four (found in previous QSFP versions like QSFP28) to eight, while maintaining a very similar physical size. Spine-and-leaf is a two-layer data center network architecture where servers connect to “leaf” switches, and every leaf switch connects to every “spine” switch in a full-mesh topology. This design improves performance by providing high-bandwidth, low- latency paths for east-west traffic (server-to-server) commonly used by AI data centers.
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ICT TODAY
January/February/March 2026
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