Available Optics Optimize Uptime!

Optics Availability and Your Channel Partners

Whether you are architecting the latest hyperscale datacenter or putting in a small enterprise server and storage closet, every network engineer and supply chain manager at Integra Optics wants to ensure that all the equipment arrives when you need it.

Once you have mapped out your server and storage needs and determined how you are going to switch and route all that data, you need to decide how everything gets connected. That’s where your channel partner can help with those often overlooked optical connectivity components: transceivers and cables, jumpers and passive filters and muxes.

A channel partner knows that it doesn’t matter if your servers, switches, and routers come in if you don’t have the optics to connect them. Everyone is aware of the industry-wide shortages and supply chain pressures of late, and a strong optical provider will ensure that you deploy AND connect your equipment.

Inventory, Inventory, Inventory

Keeping stock on the shelves in the surest way to buffer those long lead-times and guarantee availability. A channel partner works with their customers and suppliers to anticipate industry and customer demand. Stocking is a financial commitment to put the parts on the shelves, locally, but there are a few tools that an optical provider can use to help.

• OEM Agnostic

Sharing optical volume across the variety of OEM servers, switches, and routers gives an optical provider purchasing strength and economies of scale when stocking optical transceivers. It also allows a datacenter architect to focus on the higher-level features and functionality in their network knowing that the optics are available regardless of their OEM of choice.

• On-site OEM coding

Stocking the raw, uncoded transceiver locally with the ability to code to the desired OEM platform is where a channel partner can truly leverage off economies of scale when supporting a wide range of OEM compatibility. Coding the raw transceivers at a local distribution center or even at your deployment site itself provides additional flexibility to such an availability model.

• Protocol Agnostic: Ethernet, OTN, Fibre Channel

Another tool in the availability model is to leverage off the fact that various digital communication protocols (Ethernet, OTN, FIbre Channel, CPRI, etc) strive to align their specifications to common raw optical transceivers. So, not only can a channel partner be OEM agnostic, but they can also share volume and stock across the various protocols, (eg, 10GBase-LR, 8G Fibre Channel, OTU2, CPRI Rate-8)

• High Volume or Niche

Supply chain challenges often come at you from the two extremes: the high-running parts you’re using everywhere; and the more niche items, those “corner-cases” of a particular reach or data-rate that are of lower-volume but can be a particular business case enabler. Again, a strong optical provider will work closely with customers to ensure that both ends of the supply chain volume spectrum are covered for you.

Optics and Availability: What you want and when you need it

A channel partner should be just that: a partner. Working closely and early on with datacenter architects and supply managers, they will be able to tailor the optical connectivity between the various elements of a datacenter to ensure that there are no surprises when it comes time to build it all out and tie it together. Talk to your channel partner or reach out to Integra Optics directly to see how we can help!