Corning Incorporated has announced its latest optical cabling innovation for data centers and storage area networks (SAN), EDGE solutions. 

EDGE8 is the industry's first modular, tip-to-tip optical cabling system to feature an eight-fiber (Base-8) cabling design that maximizes per-rack-unit density for better network scalability and improved link performance.

Driven by increasing adoption of cloud supercomputing and a growing demand for streaming video, data centers and SANs are migrating to faster transmission speeds to find and send data back to consumers as quickly as possible. Corning's EDGE8 is the most future-ready data center connectivity solution available for simple, efficient and cost-effective migration to transmission speeds up to 400 gigabits per second.

"Corning's EDGE8 solutions help data center operators deliver an optimal end-user experience, while mitigating the uncertainty associated with ever-increasing transmission speeds and continually evolving standards," said Stuart Hoiness, senior vice president of Enterprise Networks, Corning Optical Communications. "Installing a Base-8 cabling system like EDGE8 today provides the simplest, most flexible path to 40, 100, and 400 gigabits per second in the future."

EDGE8 solutions, with eight-fiber MTP connectors, make it easy to match the fiber count in the backbone of data center networks and SANs with today's Base-8 Quad Small Form Factor Plugable transceivers. This capability results in 100 percent fiber utilization, streamlined 1:1 port mapping, and up to 50 percent reduction in link attenuation by eliminating the need for conversion modules. EDGE8 furthers the benefits of Base-8 design with pinned MTP trunks that enable simple patch cable deployment and optimized harness mapping, resulting in no unused fiber/connectors. EDGE8 modules also offer a 30 percent improvement in insertion loss, resulting in longer duplex link distances.

EDGE8 is built on the foundation of Corning's family of EDGE solutions, currently deployed in over 50,000 data centers across 30 countries around the world. EDGE solutions help operators maximize every inch of valuable data-center real estate with optical cables so light and compact that just one cable can replace as many as 72 copper cables. Plus, all EDGE solutions are fiber-based, so they consume about one-fourth the power per port of copper, saving money, reducing heat, and decreasing overall carbon emissions for a smaller impact on the environment.