The materials detail the merits of each solution on the basis of initial and lifecycle costs, including such subjects as power consumption and system performance. These factors are combined with application-specific needs such as channel length and system latency to provide truly actionable advice on data center cabling choices.
"Power consumption for 10 Gb/s switches is currently a major factor in the cost analysis of balanced twisted-pair vs. optical fiber cabling in the data center," reads an excerpt of the white paper. "With first generation 10GBASE-T chips operating at 10-17 watts per port, lower power consumption is a goal and a challenge for 10GBASE-T PHY manufacturers. This is certainly something to watch as next generation 10Gb/s chips are expected to have much lower power demands -- roughly one half of the first iterations. The same was seen in gigabit Ethernet, which from first generation chips to current technologies, saw a 94 percent decrease in power from 6 Watts per port to the 0.4 Watts per port figure we see today."
