Pre-Assembled Fiber Breakout Panels™

The increasing need to move more data at faster speeds means that 40 Gb switches have become a standard option for network backbones.

But 10 Gb equipment isn’t going away. Installers typically need to connect 10 Gb devices to about half the ports on 40 Gb switches. The question is how, since the 40 Gb ports and 10 Gb fiber cables aren’t compatible out of the box.

A common workaround is using a custom breakout or fan-out cable to split each 40 Gb port into four duplex LC cables compatible with 10 Gb devices. Although breakout cables are functional, unstructured cabling does not scale well to high-density installations. Trying to install, label, troubleshoot or reconfigure dozens or hundreds of breakout cables is extremely inefficient.

Tripp Lite has a better solution: N48K-series breakout fiber patch panels are shipped ready for plug-and-play deployment. They combine the functionality of breakout cables, the efficiency of structured cabling and the convenience of a pre-assembled kit.

The panels are pre-populated with modular fiber cassettes that include built-in, pre-labeled MTP cables and duplex LC ports. The MTP cables have 8 fibers to support popular Base-8 connectivity and provide full fiber utilization. Simply connect the MTP cables to the switch’s 40 Gb QSFP+ ports and add high-quality, off-the-shelf fiber patch cables to connect the front-facing duplex LC ports to the SFP+ ports of the 10 Gb devices.

Sized for pairing with 36-port and smaller switches, 1U panels split 15 40 Gb ports into 60 10 Gb ports. Sized for pairing with larger switches, 2U panels split 42 40 Gb ports into 168 10 Gb ports.

Versions are available for OM4 multimode and singlemode fiber.

To learn more about N48K-series breakout fiber patch panels, contact Tripp Lite at 773.869.1236 or solutions@tripplite.com.