Brand-Rex has developed a new advanced IIM (intelligent infrastructure management) solution for the Middle East market.
Based on RFID (radio-frequency identification) technology, the new SmartPatch IIM system consigns into history the need for special IIM patch-cords. That’s because the RFID tags are simply clipped onto any standard Brand-Rex copper or fibre patch cord.
Launching the new system, Aldo Strawbridge Brand-Rex regional manager IMEA said: “The importance of having 100 per cent available ICT services is business critical. This makes connectivity management business critical too. Our new SmartPatch IIM system brings to network managers intelligent infrastructure management that is highly affordable.”
The new Brand-Rex SmartPatch IIM solution comprise 1U or zero-U Cat 6 and Cat 6A copper patch panels plus LC-based single-mode and multi-mode fibre patch panels.
These intelligent patch panels take the established technology of Brand-Rex patch panels and add to that an RFID antenna assembly – to read the data in the RFID tags clipped onto standard Brand-Rex Cat6Plus, 10GPlus, LC multi-mode and LC single-mode patch cords.
A simple RFID antenna assembly on each patch panel connects to a scanner module which in turn conveys the real-time patching information to SmartPatch network management software running on a network server or on Brand-Rex SaaS (software as a service) cloud servers.
Designed to maximise available active equipment real-estate in the data centre or comms room, SmartPatch IIM patch panels and servers can be located in a number of so-called ‘Zero U’ locations such as the vertical cabling space within racks, above the rack or underfloor.
A fascinating development of this new RFID enabled IIM solution is that the RFID tags on each patch cord can serve not only as an identifier, but can be programmed to store the individual patch cord’s performance test data – such as connector and cable type, cable length, return-loss and attenuation. SmartPatch then conveys this information to the central server making it available in real-time to network managers and engineers through the SmartPatch network management portal or through their network operations centre (NOC) system.
