Our honorable PM Sri Narendra Modi once said, “Back in the days, people liked to settle down near river shores. Cities and villages were built on the shores of rivers and oceans. As times changed, cities began to emerge at locations where highways passed. But now, in the digital age, the whole population will settle in places where optical fibers are passing.” Optical fibers will always be the most preferred way to bring internet connectivity across the globe.

To fulfill the employee demands for accessing company data and applications to run business operations anytime and anywhere, today’s CTOs and CIOs are leaning towards building integrated IT infrastructure systems, aka converged & hyper-converged infrastructure solutions. Also, customers are demanding customized services and real-time fixing of issues, which makes hyper-converged system integration more critical than ever. 

At the heart of this system integration approach lies the modern data center, which is, in turn, powered by a vast optical fiber network, fully dense cabling, a large bandwidth, and zero to minimum-loss interconnect. Therefore, to realize the benefit of integrated infrastructure powered by 5G, IoT, data centers, etc., fiber deployment becomes paramount as it will ensure system integration services operate in real-time and with maximum efficiency.     

Traditional model of Integrated Infrastructure

With developing a traditional system integration service model, most firms have to spend a lot of time and effort buying infrastructure. The steps include-

• Assessing the total requirement of each infrastructure component like servers, storage, and networking for running IT operations smoothly 
• Purchasing each component from suitable vendors 
• Integrating each component to build the infrastructure 
• Configuring each component as per the requirement 
• Optimizing each component to meet the performance standards set by the company 
• Following up with vendors every time when there are issues and getting them fixed in real-time    

This approach will not only increase the cost of purchasing infrastructure but also create a risk of increasing the project completion time by weeks or months, leading to customer dissatisfaction and reduced profits. According to Microsoft’s recent paper published on IT spending breakdown:

• 53% of spending is made on purchasing, building, and maintaining existing infrastructure
• 36% of the expenditure is made on managing existing applications
• 11% of spending is made on developing new applications 

We can observe that only 11% is spent on IT innovation, prompting leaders to ensure more investment is made in this and reduce spending on building infrastructure.  

Evolving Model of Integrated Infrastructure 

By building integrated infrastructure powered by optic fiber, companies will be able to reduce up to 53% of costs on infrastructure. Each aspect of the integrated infrastructure lifecycle, like purchase, installation, management, scale, etc., is made simpler. The advantages of the system integration powered by optical fiber connectivity are:

• Easy scalability: grow & reduce infrastructure spending gradually 
• Business Agility: Faster response to business requirements
• Lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership): lower capital & operating costs. 

Role of Fiber in Building Integrated Infrastructure 

Optical Fiber Market growth rate by region- 2022-2027

Optical fiber deployments have accelerated across the globe as most companies are looking to digitally transform with the help of new technologies like AI, IoT, data centers, cloud computing, etc. As these are part of the integrated infrastructure development, they must be empowered with internet connectivity that is speedy, has higher bandwidth, low latency, affordable tariffs, etc. The maximum number of companies now have collaborated with CSPs that provide optical fiber connectivity solutions that offer everything that is needed to build and power hyperscale integrated infrastructure. Some of the key trends making fiber rollout projects gain traction among companies that are in the process of building integrated infrastructure are, 

• Optical fiber is a crucial part of both fixed broadband and mobile broadband networks. Accelerated fiber deployment is imperative to carry out massive backhaul amounts of data at higher speed, improved dependability and low to zero latency. Ex: In India, telcos are extending their offerings to both businesses and individual users by launching new spectrum installations. 
  As per Bharti Airtel, the DoT (Department of Telecom) is getting Rs 8,312 crore in August 2022 for the spectrum purchased in the recently concluded 5G auctions. Once the optical fiber rollout is completed across India, we can see the adoption of Converged Integrated infrastructure being deployed at scale.

• Optical fibers offer scalability, security, and unlimited bandwidth that is capable of handling the vast amount of backhaul traffic generated from integrated infrastructure. The bandwidth levels required for operating advanced technologies such as 5G, IoT, data centers, etc., can only be provided by optical fiber connectivity. This is because real-time data collection and transfer is imperative for running system integration services smoothly without any latency. The launch of 5G will enhance the data transfer capacity and bring lower latency to companies that are operating through integrated infrastructure systems.

Advantages that make Fiber important for building Integrated Infrastructure  

Benefits of Fiber Deployment in building Integrated Infrastructure

The major perks of using optical fibers for connecting integrated infrastructure are:

• High bandwidth: The demand for bandwidth will rise exponentially well into the future since integrated infrastructure uses the latest applications, like higher resolution video, VR, etc., to manage every task associated with the business.
• Speed: Fiber internet is superior to every other mode of internet connectivity, with data speeds ranging from 5 Mbps- 100 Gbps. Furthermore, as integrated infrastructure systems need data transfer in real-time and generate massive traffic, data speed should not drop at any time. Therefore, optical fiber is the only way to achieve very low to zero interruption.      
• Cloud Access: Most integrated infrastructure will be built on a cloud-driven system. From HR management tools to customer support to data storage, the cloud will take care of all operations, meaning most of the tasks will be completed online. In a few years, every organization, regardless of the scale, will move from on-premise infrastructure to cloud-based system integration services.
  The speed & bandwidth capabilities of optical fibers will help both employees, and customers get faster access to data and applications operated from the cloud. Therefore, fiber rollout acceleration has become the number one priority of most CSPs as they don’t want to miss out on opportunities of providing connectivity to integrated infrastructure systems launched at scale.  

• Signal Strength: The signal strength of optical fibers will not drop much over the distance since they are unaffected by weather conditions or interference. Organizations built on a vast landscape will have integrated infrastructure for big sizes. Optical fibers running their data centers will be ideal for achieving maximum efficiency with no slowdowns due to low connectivity.

• Latency: It is a term that describes delays that happen when data is processed over an internet connection. By using optical fiber, latency can be eliminated to a large extent, especially when downloading or uploading large files like HD videos. The significant benefits of lowering latency through optic fibers are-

• Security: Cybercrime is expected to cause monetary damages of up to $10.5 trillion by 2025 across the globe. If we ensure fiber rollout is successful, then cybercrime can be controlled to a large extent. The only way to bypass the security of fiber-optic Internet is only by physical means, like cutting the fiber to cause a signal breakdown. This can be easily managed by protecting optical fibers with 24×7 AI monitoring and fixing fiber cut issues in real time.  

Conclusion 

Integrated infrastructure is not only effective but a necessity to reduce costs and provide both employees and end users hassle-free access to data and applications. Furthermore, optical fiber availability is equally important for creating hyperscale system integration services since it is the best mode for powering them due to their incomparable advantages. Therefore, accelerating fiber rollout is not only a primary priority for CSPs but is also required to make integrated infrastructure reach hyperscale status across the globe.