Due to rapidly increasing bandwidth and security concerns, the adoption of fiber optic technology, an industry expected to reach around USD 3.72 Billion by 2022, has generated a lot of talk about what the future of connectivity holds. In fact, talk about the end of ethernet, or copper gigabit networks has been going on for years.

With new technology advances, covering longer distances and faster speeds, it may seem like a no-brainer to transition to fiber optic cables. Even with data center architecture under pressure to evolve, copper still remains as a bedrock because of its cost, performance and reliability.

Copper Gigabit is Not Going Away

In fact, this is why we see many industries expanding their copper footprint instead of switching to fiber. The global Industrial Ethernet cables market is expected to trend up with CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of around 17% by 2020.

Beyond the data center, copper is proving its worldwide demand in critical infrastructure, remote sites, legacy protocols, edge of the network, industrial ethernet, office space, server farms, the internet of things (IoT), and in developing countries.

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What a lot of these use cases have in common is the need for consistency in a demanding environment, where factors such as vibration, temperature, and water immersion must be taken into consideration when making your connectivity selection.

Recognizing the Need for Advancing Copper Gigabit Technology

Garland understands industry trends, and with copper accounting for 77% of the total market, we continue to offer new copper gigabit solutions while continuing to invest in research and development of new products. Pushed by the demand of integrating older technology, we have developed industry leading copper solutions for the DOD, industrial ethernet and custom military deployments for tanks and humvees, and are slated to release 2-3 new products in copper this year including 100BASE-FX and USB options.

With these ethernet environments in mind, Garland has worked to develop features for copper networks that set the industry standard including:

• Link Speed Synchronization: Allows the TAP to automatically negotiate issues to ensure the best possible rate of transmission between copper-based network traffic streams and all connected devices.
• Link Failure Propagation: Used in HA network designs, LFP allows the connected network devices to detect if a failure occurs on the adjacent network. When one side of a link is lost, LFP brings down the rest of the link automatically to allow the network to identify the failure.
• Media Conversion: Media matching from a network TAP is a more cost-effective solution rather than purchasing expensive fiber transceivers.
• PoE (Power over Ethernet): By using a single cable to provide both data connection and electric power, monitoring VoIP, and IoT (security camera, wireless access point, home appliances) for industrial applications can be accomplished with a simple solution.
• Utilization Rules and Alerts: Setting utilization alerts for each monitoring port via the GUI/CLI interface allows you to ensure oversubscription doesn’t occur.

Looking to add copper TAPs to your next deployment, but not sure where to start? Join us for a brief network Design-IT consultation or demo. No obligation - it’s what we love to do!