 Welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcasts the newsroom for telecom professionals I'm Carl sketch Lee and joining me today is mr. Eric Highland program manager for a claim at Legrand welcome Eric Hey, Carl. How's it going today? Good. Good. Let's dive right in so Legrand It's a big global brand that is known for being a leader in electrical and digital building infrastructure and connected solutions But it also has its own division known as Legrand data power and control Can you tell us more about what inspired Legrand to create this division and what your team is trying to do? Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so as you said Legrand giant company lots of different fats is lots of different brands that fall underneath it data power and control DPC is Really focused on just the data center, right? So we have all these great innovative Strings right so to gather them all together arrows, right and gather them all into one quiver to focus on data center space is Is what the the goal of DPC is so we we take all the different pieces and innovative Subsections and try to put them in a house, right? And so everything that isn't a switcher router or a server Falls under that encompassing on under the umbrella of the DPC And so my my personal focus within that is on the connectivity side of things specifically in the fiber optics connectivity side of things and more specifically a claim is really the focus of Connectivity within fiber optics within the data center space, although really fiber optics everywhere But data center is where this kind of was born from so That's that's that's where I sit and kind of how Legrand's Silo's out and plays, you know, we're happy to play well with everybody with all the different pieces But to give us some direction and some functionality DPC is specifically more on the data center space Awesome. Well, thank you for that insightful answer Now let's talk about Legrand Infinium a claim a relatively new product that redefines fiber cabling connectivity By replacing pre terminated cassette based solutions with direct mating breakout connections So what makes this innovation a big deal for our viewers Eric many of whom are in the mission critical and data center industries? You know, maybe just tell us the top three big takeaways a data center executive should know about this product right off the bat Yeah, I think From from a overall connectivity perspective right like We came Fast history lesson 30 years ago cassettes were invented right in the early 90s If you took brave people and said how fast are we gonna go in 30 years? How fast are we gonna go in 50 years from a bandwidth perspective? They would panic at wide-eyed and say, I don't know 10 gig right and like we're now in this space We're casually having conversations around 100 gig and 400 gig and planning for 800 gig and 1.2 terabyte and so, you know, we've got this infrastructure that Was designed 30 years ago and the best it was ever gonna have to do was 10 gig right and like we're now Well way past that and so we're we're seeing You know infrastructure as a whole as an identity if we do our job, right? We're forgotten about you know, we're in the business of down is the dirtiest four-letter word And so having stuff that you now have to pay attention to when you're deploying new things and building new architectures Kind of defeats the purpose of being forgotten about and so like it's an opportunity for innovation to happen, right? We're we're there to enable Connectivity we're there to enable the evolution on the edge and the evolution on the edge has now gotten to the point where it's asking for things that Stuff designed 30 years ago isn't able to support and so now What that kind of turns into as far as? Punctual things is you know loss budgets are important now loss budgets are more important than they ever have been so paying attention To loss and how loss is created and then improving upon it is important, but anything that's new Can't be scary. It has to be approachable. So like as an overall design We need simplicity to be part of that deployment as well. And so, you know having space for It to be easy to deploy easy to think about and easy to Kind of touch and how it feels and also like what it's doing from a breakout perspective is important and impactful, right? And it also has to be fast not only from a bandwidth perspective, but from a deployment standpoint so like we want something that Takes into consideration not just our tree of like connectivity But looks at the whole campus and forest of what we're actually plugging into and how that works and thinking about what? The transceivers are and where they talk to each other and how they talk to each other and what they're supporting And so it's a really long way to say the three things are You know, we're able to do a simplicity from a design perspective as well as a connectivity perspective and and then also What and how those interactions happen and what they and how they behave with one another so Interesting yeah, that's so cool And I like that you said that it's not just about you know It is about simplifying and speeding installations enabling the higher density deployments as well But I think one of the points you touched on was that it's also about offering the industry's lowest optical loss by significant margin Can you tell us a bit more about that? How does the Infinium acclaim product enable that? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so In a word, it's alignment right like we have this big impending doom coming from an optical standpoint of like bandwidth is always increasing, right? And um, you know, I like to think about how light moves through Fibroptics the same way that water moves through a garden hose and so, you know bandwidth is just an increase in pressure So like if you've got a garden hose in your backyard and you screw another garden hose into it Like water wants to leak out right and that's the same thing with how light behaves in fiber optics There's always looking for a reason in a way to escape If you take that garden hose off the back of your house and plug it into the fire hydrant down the street That's kind of like where we go from you know 100 gig to 400 gig to 800 gig and so we're just increasing that pressure So much that that little leak in the backyard becomes A massive pond right and like just to really kind of pull out this analogy each droplet of water That doesn't make it it's in that pond is information that didn't make it to the other end and While computers are really good at making guesses about things they still need a bit of the puzzles put together before they can say what the picture is This all goes back to that's what we're seeing from like a panic perspective, but the reason that happens is because We built Stuff that was never supposed to support that pressure so like The where that falls apart where that starts being a consideration where we start looking at that is at the alignment part Right. So like that phrase direct mating breakout is really just ensuring that individual strands of fiber are Aligned perfectly and aligned in a way so that they can Are set up for success from a transfer and throughput perspective You know to get a little bit more into the technology Things that worked in the past still work now fiber still works as fiber LC connectors still are the cleanest best way to terminate a fiber so that you have Ensured directionality and loss and throughput is is minimalized. So like all that acclaim is doing is taking LC ferrules from the trunk side in a high density situation And aligning them with the LC ferrules that are on the patch cord side of things and that mdc connector so that Individually those fibers are set up for success, right? And so paying attention to alignment has gotten us To be able to say with confidence that our overall loss throughout the infrastructure Is you know 0.4 db where everybody else is performing around like the best anyone else is hoping to do is like dot 75 channel right so that's not insertion loss but full from transceiver to transceiver So the whole way the whole pathway from one end to another where the claim is Dot four where the best performing cassettes are dot 75 and like that difference because it's that you know db because It's logarithmic is like puts us in that place where we're pretty safe to say 3.2 terabyte isn't scary Not that it's theoretically even a thing that most people are talking about right now, but like that's the kind of You know the last thing we did last in 30 years the next thing we do Should at least last that long right and it's like we're in a position now Or we can start being excited about that kind of innovation in a space that is often forgotten about Yeah, that is so exciting. I mean that is a significant upside of this product it sounds like so I mean Probably our viewers think wonderful in theory Where does the rubber meet the road? We've heard that infinium acclaim has actually supported some very big names in the industry one of them being sisco In fact, I think that this product actually played a pretty crucial role in supporting last year's sisco live event So can you tell us a bit more about the role that acclaima played there and You know why that success was really important Yeah, absolutely. Um, I think that Overall, this is a brand new idea right so like we launched in april It's not quite a year old yet But we are seeing successes immediately from the people who care right for the people who are looking for The agility of a pre-terminated solution, but need that support and that performance from something that's uh, you know Anecdotally some of our better individual connections are equal to the splice connection So like having splice level performances and fiber that is a pre-terminated solution from an agility standpoint Matters and for the people it matters to usually is those bigger fun names right and for for sisco live sisco Maybe a surprise to some viewers. I don't probably think it's really a surprise Any of them likes to own all the connectivity in their Uh in sisco live in their different events right so like they bring to the event Their own knock with their own, you know servers and everything else and and all the connectivity that lives there is sisco connectivity um, so We worked with them to help build and design of full new Deployment that is sits inside of a container right and so they can ship it to all the different places and for them It was really impactful and important to have something they could unplug and plug back in quickly Because they're tearing stuff down and moving on to the next one at a pretty high rate of speed So having something that guarantees performance to support all those people walking around and all the different things that are plugged in but still allows for a quick move onto the next one was really um important to them and and it allowed us to really kind of flex our muscles and show how Different this architecture is but how it still is some simple to get out into the world and kind of interact with Amazing. Yeah. I mean this product sounds like such a win for the industry. It's technically astute. It's innovative and enables agility So what's ahead for infinium acclaim? Uh, you know, I think in the run up to this interview We heard that there may be a new suite of additional developments ahead for the product Are you able to tell us anything more about that? Yeah, absolutely. This is this one of those things. It's really fun, right? Like it's a brand new thing so like we came out with the beginning ideas of what this is and like I don't want to say the bare minimum but Change is hard and new things are scary And so we want this all to be approachable and so like Having a deployment plan is important not only for how this is going to go into your infrastructure But also how we're going to talk about this out in the world and how we're going to release our You know wobbly baby deer out into out of the nature, right? And so, you know the the next steps of this are really Twofold one like we know what we want from a productivity standpoint. We know what we want from a footprint standpoint Um, you know the initial version of this is something that was very modular that plugged into our existing uh enclosures and panels and things and so the next step is What can we really do like this this as a individual piece is very small, right? And so the connector itself has a lot of agility And the the conversion adapters have a lot of agility and where they can sit in the infrastructure Um and to get a little boring for most everybody. Apologies there gives us some spaces for Us to really start playing around with what connectivity and what cable management looks like in an enclosure But also out of an enclosure. So like, you know, there's this idea of zero you right? Like let's give all the rack space back to the compute and storage And do all the connectivity off to the side somewhere and so having a smaller more agile Footprint allows for us to start playing with like what zero you looks like and integrating it into our cabinets and into Lagrang again giant company like part of dbc and everything else is that we build cabinets and enclosures And and racks and whatnot. So like we can start integrating this footprint into the rest of the physical space so that The compute and storage can be totally occupied in all the r.u. Um That falls out in a lot of different ways, but probably from like how that's exciting and what that conceptually can look like and where that flexibility comes from more Like directly it's different different types of adapter panels different types of patch panels Um, you know, we can get some densities. We can get 384 fibers in a one r.u. Space which has some pretty interesting Applications for you know, large data centers, but also across connects and everything else. And so um really just kind of taking customer feedback and and turning that into products that are necessary and impactful to them And also a little bit of that Jurassic Park dancing on the edge of What we can do versus what we should do a little bit right and just kind of taking that into into consideration and making sure that Um We're having fun Innovation in this space doesn't happen very often. So like we're excited about it We're excited to push what the boundaries are as far as what this means and what flexibility can come out of this as a As a concept all the way from start to finish Very exciting very exciting. And I think this is such a great Way to um introduce legrond and your team to our viewers here today So one final question for me How can our viewers get in contact with your team if they want to learn more about a claim or obviously any of the other Wealth of solutions that legrond offers. Yeah. Uh, so legrond giant, uh Presence right like we are a global company probably the cleanest way I'm not knowing quite where all your audience is located right the cleanest way to do this is it's it's a little bit of a Cop out but probably going to the website, right? And um, if you go to legrond dot us if you're if you're in the us Um and legrond dot whatever country you're otherwise, you're just legrond.com And then you'll get driven wherever you are and then if you put in backslash a claim That'll take you right to the acclaim landing page. Um, and there's more information there and ways to contact your local local Acclaim people and the grand people for for the rest of it. So um, yeah Legrond dot us slash acclaim probably the cleanest way to do it Um, and things will find their way to me We'll end up having a conversation at one point or another but that's probably the safest way to make sure that everyone's covered from start to finish Awesome. Well, thank you so much eric for joining us today and obviously thank you to all our viewers for tuning in Uh, stay tuned for more episodes down the line and as always happy networking Thanks Carl