Advantages of Using Factory Terminated Panels

Patch panels have long been a mainstay in data centers.

Sometimes called patching panels, or rack-mount panels, closures, or enclosures, these panels serve as a network’s connective tissue. Whether a data center project involves new construction or post-build moves, adds, and changes (MACs), patch panel selection requires an understanding of ever-evolving varieties, styles, component footprints, and sometimes manufacturer-specific footprints.

While network operators are planning for their next project, they can make a more impactful choice than “which patch panel gets the job done?” Instead, they could choose factory-terminated panels and ultimately reduce the amount of time that installers spend on-site in the data center.

Your Choice of Panels will Impact a Deployment

While network operators are planning for their next project, they can make a more impactful choice than “which patch panel gets the job done?” Instead, they could choose factory-terminated panels and ultimately reduce the amount of time that installers spend on-site in the data center.

Sumitomo Electric Lightwave (SEL) offers two pre-terminated panel types, both packing serious advantages over the run-of-the-mill patch panel:

• Pre-terminated panels, or “pre-term panels,” take some of the installation work and risk of human error out of the installers’ hands. These panels feature factory-installed adapters and connectorized fibers, prepped and ready in the back to be spliced to incoming cable.
• Pre-stubbed panels, while still technically pre-term panels, are next-level pre-termination. The pre-stubbed approach eliminates splicing behind the panel, as it features a customer-specified cable length ready to pull, and possibly with a reel, depending on cable type.

Both types of factory-built panel assemblies offer key benefits that could impact a deployment’s bottom line.

Pre-Terminated Panels

When adapters are already in place and connectorized fibers are installed in the factory, projects are simplified. Installers spend less time in the data center. Results are more predictable. Instead of inserting adapters, connectorizing, and dressing out fibers on-site (to avoid tight bends and breakage), these steps are handled in SEL’s state-of-the-art manufacturing environment, enabling fast and easy “plug and play” installations at the customer’s site with reliable factory-tested results.

Pre-Stubbed Panels

All of the benefits outlined above carry over, and there is more. Since pre-stubbed panels feature a cable stub that’s ready to run to its next destination, installers are off to their next job site as well. They do not need to splice fibers onto the panel, eliminating the accompanying labor time and network dB loss.

Details like panel selection matter when planning data center projects, so it is worth exploring whether SEL’s pre-terminated panels and pre-stubbed panels are part of the solution that uniquely fits your needs.

Read more about how SEL can help you achieve Today’s Accelerated Deployment Speeds and Network Density Demands.

Contact us to learn how a holistic combination of standard and customized products can help optimize your data center for your next deployment.