VIAVI Solutions

White Paper

New Car Smell

and the Art of Fiber
Network Maintenance
Author: Tyler Vander Ploeg, RCDD
 New car smell. There’s nothing like it. Ok, maybe not everyone
likes that smell. But owning a new car that drives well, isn’t in
need of any maintenance and doesn’t have any crumpled-up
pieces of paper or leftover smooshed French fries from your six
year old under the seats is a glorious thing.

Then there’s the pride of ownership. Having a or “standards” for ownership after you drive off seem like a stretch, but the same is true of your
new car feels a bit like a life milestone. You’ve the lot. Sure, the dealer puts an owner’s manual fiber network.
been driving a beater since college and a new car for recommended maintenance in the glove box,
is a sign to yourself and the world that you’re a but as an owner, there are not “standards” or laws Your company has invested lots of money to

responsible adult with a job and some means at associated with maintenance. The car is yours now. design, build, test and certify your network. You

your disposal. You have to decide when to wash it, what grade of should be proud that you can run 100G on those

When you drive your nice, new shiny car off of
the lot for the first time, you expect everything
to function as it should, and the car dealer backs
this up with a guarantee. It was built to factory
specifications. Behind the scenes, extreme care
and precision went into finely calibrated machines
that manufacture each part of the car, and the
workers in the factory have been well trained to
ensure the quality of production. For all of the
checks and balances, the laws and warranties that
go into new car ownership, there aren’t really laws
fuel you’ll put in the tank, when to purchase new
tires, change the oil and get a tune-up. After you
drive that car off the lot, the cars maintenance is
your responsibility. And if a warning light starts
blinking, there aren’t any laws preventing you from
simply ignoring them.
When someone is breathing in the glorious aroma
of new car smell, no one is thinking of future
ownership and maintenance headaches in the
years to come, and there’s nothing that requires
that they do—until something goes wrong. It may
new servers with optical QSFP switch ports and
redundant backbones. But do you really know
what to do if and when something goes wrong?
Network managers need to spend some time
thinking and developing good habits of routine
maintenance so they’re not sorry later. The
methods you relied on for the old 1G network are
no longer sufficient. As you push more over your
fiber, it is essential that your practices for handling
and testing allow you to get the best performance
you can from your network.

2 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance

Emerging Trends in Enterprise Physical Infrastructure
(What follows are trends we tend to see during the initial building of the
network. Though this may seem like too much information for a network
manager, it helps us make sense of the next couple sections).
Just a few years ago, there were contractors and network designers known
as “fiber specialists”. It was as if these folks had superpowers and knowledge
that was not yet commonplace. Nowadays though, there’s no such thing as
“fiber specialists” for the simple reason that fiber is everywhere!
These days fiber is the preferred method for achieving 40G and beyond
because the market simply demands it. Fiber is the new normal for enterprise
and datacenters including campus LAN, private datacenters, and multi-
tenant-datacenters. Fiber is not only in the backbone of Enterprise LANS any
more. Fiber has also expanded into the horizontal portion of many networks,
including financial institutions, shopping centers, and public stadiums
where they connect the DAS infrastructure. Fiber networks are expensive
though—and complex. That’s why the connectivity requirements have to be
standardized so end users can protect their investment and ensure a reliable
system. How we handle fiber is critical but how we handle CU does not
always translate directly over.
3 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance
Is Your Network Standards Compliant?
When your network was built, it was likely tested and certified to the current
standards at that time. But standards change rapidly in effort to keep pace
with growing bandwidth. It’s likely that your network applications have
increased in bandwidth over time, so your current network may no longer be
compliant with today’s standards.
Industry bodies work hard to develop standards in order to educate those
of us in the industry on these latest standards so we can adopt them as
networks become more complex and evolve over time. The generic cabling
standards that are used for customer premises applications include TIA 568
(used in North America) and ISO/IEC 11801(primarily used outside North
America).
The technicians and contractors out there in the field who build these
networks are required to prove their networks are compliant to these
standards. Fortunately, they are motivated to build your network right the
first time because if the network isn’t standards compliant, they don’t get
paid. But building a standards compliant network is no easy task.
New Industry Practices and Architectures down the copper pairs to the jack and plugging it in. But fiber is different.
Fiber requires more care when it’s being handled to prevent contamination
Building a standards compliant network is tough for lots of reasons, and strict
and damage. There are different fiber types as well as several different fiber
Loss Budgets are just one of the challenges network technicians face (<.5db
connectors and test tools that a copper technician is not likely to be familiar
loss per connection). Building and installing fiber within this budget seems
with. This requires more skill and knowledge.
doable on paper, but as we’ll discover later, this is sometimes more complex
than we first think. Whether you’re a field technicians or a network manager Another challenge to well-installed networks is frequent turnaround of
you know this is true. staff and the reality that as demand for fiber grows, the demand for staff
increases. That inevitably means there are many techs out there new to the
Like we said before, technicians must prove compliance as part of the
fiber industry in need of training. As there is more and more demand for fiber
overall installation of a network. No standards compliance, no paycheck.
though this will become an ongoing issue for the foreseeable future.
This insistence on compliance is sometimes set in place by the cabling and
connectivity manufacturers vendors. The warranties these manufacturers
provide for their products are contingent on thorough technician training Common Causes Of Network Downtime
that ensures a proper installation. Sometimes standards compliance is put
in place by design consultants as part of larger projects and often standards
compliance is written into the job specification for the install.

As loss budgets on network installations tighten and become more stringent,

bandwidth requirements are also increasing and we’re seeing standard loss
getting set as less than 0.5dB. Some design consultants even push for tighter
control above the standards. In the past, the standard allowable loss for one
fiber connection was .75dB, but now that is not good enough
The Days Of The Fiber Specialist Are Over
As we established earlier, at one time there were consultants and technicians
who were once known as “fiber specialists”, but this no longer exists for the
simple reason that fiber is everywhere! There are, however, still technicians in
the field who may still be new to the world of fiber. They may be seasoned in
installing copper networks, but copper best practices and skills may only go
so far. In copper installations, all the tech needs to worry about is punching
To go back to the analogy above, think about driving your nice new shiny car
off the dealer lot, but then a few months down the road your engine starts
making knocking noises and a dashboard light starts blinking. What could
be going on? Well, if you could get a deep-data diagnostic on the health
of your engine, you might find that there are high levels of iron in your oil.
What might the underlying cause be? It could be that the driver has racked
up 12,000 miles of driving without getting the oil changed even once. The
lesson? When a network is installed correctly, we know they do not change
themselves magically overnight. There are always other factors at play. In the
material world, entropy is sadly a fact of life and there are many reasons why
our networks don’t perform as they ought.

4 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance


Problem Unit of
Most Common Causes
Category Measure
Excess Link dB Contaminated or damaged
Loss connector end-faces
Physical stress on fiber by over-
bending (macro-bend)
Physical stress on fiber by
pinching or compression pressure
on fiber (micro-bend)
Bad splices
Link length exceeding maximum
design limits
Transmitter or Receiver actual
performance not matching
design specifications
Wrong fiber type used
Poor ORL dB Contaminated or damaged
Performance connector end-faces
Connector ORL performance
below standards
Wrong connector type used
(UPC vs. APC)
Connector pair not properly
mated
Bad or old mechanical splices
Optical Yes/No Incorrect port connected on
Polarity one end
or Port
Continuity Duplex cord reversed
MPO/MTP connector reversed
The table above shows some of the most common network
problems and causes for network downtime (sluggish engine), but
also identifies the underlying cause for each of these issues (failure
to change the oil).
5 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance
Contaminated Fiber Connections. As the table indicates, many of the
problems for both Link Loss and Poor ORL performance trace back to
Underlying Causes
contaminated fiber endfaces. Anyone who has worked in fiber over the
Inspection and cleaning
procedures not being followed past few years can relate to this. At VIAVI, we refer to this as Your Network’s
Poor fiber management in Dirty Little Secret (read about it here). But don’t just take our word for it, in
cabinets, patch panels, splice
trays/closures, slack loops, the graphic below you can see data on a study conducted by NTT-Advanced
routing
Technology that 98% of installers (purple) and 80% of network owners (blue)
Patch cords pinched in hinge
or cabinet door, or any other reported that issues with connector contamination was the greatest cause of
compresssion source
Poor splicing or mismatched
network failure.
fibers
Link designed to push beyond
standards limits
Wrong vendor or model number;
vendor advertised performance
exceeds actual
Contamination of the
Mixed fiber types: 62.5 µm and
50 µm; multimode and single- connector end face
mode
Poor polishing of the
Inspection and cleaning ferrule
procedures not being followed
Substandard factory patch cords, Mistakes in attaching
or poorly built field installed labels to the cable
connectors
Damage to the optical
APC connectors must be used in connector
high power applications
Not fully connected or key Damage on the ferrule
misaligned (FC) end face
Old or temporary splice
Defective splicing
Wrong placement or incorrect
documentation
Excessive bending for
Wrong cord configuration used
the cable
Wrong cord configuration used
0% 100%
Network Operator Installer
Contaminated fiber endfaces are the #1 cause for network downtime
Here’s another analogy we could use to make our point: in recent years
studies have been conducted about the “no-brainer” way to significantly cut
down on preventable disease in hospitals: require that hospital staff—doctors
and nurses—properly wash their hands between seeing patients. The low-
hanging fruit way of cutting down on preventable diseases in hospitals is
so obvious that some people simply overlook it. And this is much the same
when it comes to improperly installed fiber, or fiber that is tampered with
through adds, moves or changes in a closet somewhere. Never rule out
what’s “obvious” and consider going through checklists to ensure you haven’t
overlooked something. We often go looking in the wrong direction when
trying to track down a complex problem in our networks when sometimes, it’s
just a bad connection. So what makes for these bad connections in the first
place?
Mating dirty connectors embeds the debris in the fiber. We may pride
ourselves in keeping clean, pristine network closets or even data centers with
proper ventilation, OCD-level labeling on our cords and panels, but often we
can’t control dirt and dust particles getting into the air. Have you ever been
surprised to see how much debris is in the air of your own home when you
see light and shadow in your living room at sunset? Ever notice how you
can see dust in the air when under normal lighting conditions, you don’t see
it? The same principle applies. Dirt, dust and particles in the air are simply a
reality and we need to be aware so we can keep our fiber end faces clean.
Mating and unmating fiber connectors can create static charge which will
attract particles even if the connector end is blasted with compressed air. In
these sorts of situations, purpose built cleaning tools tend to be the most
effective for proactive cleaning before a connection.
6 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance
Polarity & Continuity Issues
Before we talk of testing links, let’s ask the obvious question of what can go
wrong with them. Consider this real-world example: the busy, stressed and
frantic IT tech. We don’t want to over characterize here, but these folks are
often busy a large portion of their day putting out fires and troubleshooting
obvious user errors. We all have heard jokes about a tech rolling their eyes and
asking you to turn your computer off and turn it back on to fix a problem.
There are equivalents to network technology too.
Sometimes IT techs are rushing in and out of network closets plugging and
unplugging cords in patch panels. They’re getting a steady stream of support
tickets to make constant moves, adds or changes, and the work just keeps
coming. Amidst all the hustle, sometimes there’s an error in plugging into an
incorrect port, and the tech has created a whole new series of problems. These
mistakes all fall into problems with Optical Polarity or Port Continuity. Here is
an explanation of the most common causes:
The labeling is wrong or unclear. When a network is originally built it’s
important to properly label racks, panels and cords. But over time, when
someone is making quick adds or changes, proper, careful labeling can go out
the window. Ensure that your labeling can be clearly read without having to
unplug patch cords. Labels should be permanent, machine printed labels—this
means no hand-written labels on post-it notes!
Removal of connector clips. Imagine you have a duplex LC and for some
reason you had to remove the connector clip. At some point, you don’t realize
you swapped the connectors, they were crossed polarity but you needed
them to be straight polarity, you need an A-to-B cord, but it’s received A to A.
MPO keying issues. Like the polarity problem with duplex LC connectors, Basic Testing Eliminates Network
this is an even bigger issue with MPO connectors. Keeping track of one to one Downtime
fiber between the transmitter and receiver was simpler and the high density Imagine you’ve had a long work-
of MPO connectors helped in space constrained installation, but it’s also week. It’s Friday night and you’re just
created a new host of problems. Technicians must be aware of MPO connector beginning to settle into relaxation
genders and connector/adapter keying configuration types. To learn more mode. You’re really looking forward to
about how to overcome MPO keying issues, read our white paper on Testing a few days off. You slump down on the
Parallel Optics. couch with your significant other with
beverage in hand and then you get
When these challenges arise and complicate a given network, it not only
“the call”. The network is down, your
affects a single channel but multiple channels. This is why it’s important
customer has a big online campaign
to invest in tools that allow you to measure length loss and polarity so
coming up, and they are not happy.
you can troubleshoot effectively. Nobody wants to spend an entire day
Network downtime often equals
troubleshooting and searching for complex solutions when sometimes the
lost revenue and that means angry
most obvious above-mentioned issues are the problem. End users often
customers. So much for your weekend. Now instead of relaxing around the
say things like, “we don’t need certification tools”, but there are often times
house, you’ll be locked in a hot, cramped network closet blotting the sweat
when they come in handy. While the network manager may not be required
off your brow.
to provide “Tier 1 certification”, using a test device with the capabilities to
provide information on the length, loss, polarity and end face condition (i.e., At times network problems require complicated troubleshooting but frankly,
the things required for Tier 1 certification) can turn an entire days work into most network problems are in the physical infrastructure. You can’t afford to
just a few minutes task. not protect your network investment. And you really need that Saturday off,
right? Your company paid big money to have your network built correctly
Why Test Physical Infrastructure In My Network? so make sure to get the most out of your network’s potential. Today’s
performance requirements are stringent and don’t leave room for mistakes in
Up until this point we’ve focused on issues that may come up in a network
the physical infrastructure. Remember what we said before? The days of the
due in large part to technician and contractor error (nobody’s perfect, right?)
dedicated “fiber technician” are over and every Network Manager should have
and common issues that arise in a live network. An unfortunate yet all too
at least a little bit of fiber technology fluency.
common perception among many IT professionals is that it’s not worth their
time to hassle with testing. It may seem too complicated, or take up too
Every Network Technician needs a Fiber Inspection Microscope
much precious time. But just like adopting an attitude of maintenance best
practices as a new car owner, incorporating a few basic tests for the physical First, let’s ask the question where in your network fiber inspection should

infrastructure of your network really pays off in the following ways. be occuring. The answer is, everywhere! These days, network connectivity

7 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance

is complex and that means that technicians can no longer afford to not be
inspecting fiber endfaces regularly. Unfortunately, the reality is that networks
sometimes crash. As we’ve mentioned before, fiber is a robust technology but
there are many factors associated with what can cause a network to under-
perform or crash.
Contamination and Signal Performance
In light of Tier 2 testing, see the image below. This image shows what a clean
and a dirty connector pair can look like on an OTDR and how it impacts the
overall signal performance.
We can tell by this OTDR trace that event #3 in the graphic below would
cause a big problem in signal degradation. The big drop in signal loss just
before the 200 meters mark shows us that the loss of that mated pair at
almost 5dB (3dB is a 50% reduction in power).
Also, the higher reflection we see at the same location tells us that too much
light is being reflected back toward the transmitter at that location. And this
is also caused by the same dirty connector pair.
Clear Connection
1 can instill good habits that are second nature, it can make a big difference
Back Reflection = -67.5 dB
Total Loss = 0.250 dB
Dirty Connection
3 fostering a culture that will ensure desired, real life outcomes—like clean fiber
Back Reflection = -32.5 dB
Total Loss = 4.87 dB
Fiber Contamination and Its Affect on Signal Performance
8 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance
Inspect Before You Connectsm
At VIAVI, we have a simple little saying that I hope catches on in the field,
“inspect before you connect” (aka: IBYC).
In the 2013 best-selling book, The Power of Habit1, writer Charles Duhigg
highlights some interesting findings when it comes to understanding why
people do what they do, and how sometimes, one simple life habit can have
a snowball effect on many other aspect of one’s life. He also highlights many
insightful stories about the collective habits of an organization. One stands
out: in 1987 Alcoa—or Aluminum Company of America—had a new CEO who
was a former government bureaucrat named Paul O’Neill. The company
was experiencing a downturn due to ongoing mismanagement, and Alcoa
investors were not happy.
At O’Neill’s inaugural speech, everyone expected him to address all the usual
stuff—the need for Alcoa to reclaim their place in the market and how they
were going to be on top again. Instead, O’Neill’s strategy was “safety” in the
workplace. No one understood his strategy at the time, but a year later and
Alcoa was hitting record profits. Duhigg—the author of the book—goes into
detail about the cascading power of harnessing good habits. And though
it’s beyond the scope or purpose of this article, it’s a point well taken. If you
systemically.
What this means practically is if contractors and network managers can stick
to some simple key principles, it can have systemic effects. With that in mind,
“inspect before you connect” is not a bad place to start when it comes to
end faces!
1: Charles Duhigg, “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business”, Random
House, February 28, 2012
Likewise, every technician that works with fiber needs to inspect fiber
end faces and network designers ought to include an “Inspect Before You
Connect” type of habit into the job requirements.
At the risk of belaboring the point, think about the car maintenance analogy
again. When you go on a long trip and put hundreds of miles on your car, it’s
a good idea to check your tire pressure and oil levels. And this is a good habit
to get into.
Inspect Before You Connect
Optical Loss Test Sets Give You The Information You Need
When Scaling Up Your Network
An OLTS tool is required for contractors to provide Tier 1 certification. These
tools measure length, loss, polarity, and endface condition. But having this
information is valuable for network managers too.
An Optical Loss Test Set (aka: OLTS) is referred to as a “set” because there are 2
units (one at each end of the link). It consists of both an “Optical Light Source”
9 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance
and an “Optical Power Meter”. This allows the user to send a known amount
of power from the “source” and measure what is “received” at the other end.
While there are LOTS of individual tools (like a power meter) that can do parts
of this test, those approaches are really time consuming. The benefit of a
complete OLTS is that it delivers all of the results quickly and speed is what
the network manager is looking for.
Optical Loss Test Set
Having a device that can quickly measure length, loss, polarity, and inspect the
fiber end faces is really convenient, especially if a network manager is doing
quick “Moves, Adds, or Changes” in their network. Remember the problem
mentioned earlier about knowing the polarity of your connections? This is
where it really comes in handy to have something that can check this for
you, especially when working with cables that use MPO connectors. Many
technicians installed their trunk cables with MPO connectors when they
were running 1G or 10G, but now they are upgrading to 40G & 100G. The
good news is that they can likely still use those trunk cables with the MPO
connections. But the bad news is that it has been so long since the cable
was installed, it may be in bad shape, and they certainly don’t remember the
polarity configurations. Having an OLTS lets them check all of this quickly and
easily so they can make their upgrades and scale up with confidence. And if
you’re looking for even more visibility into what might be going on with your
fiber, you’ll want to use an OTDR.
This Is Not Your Father’s OTDR
Having an OLTS tool is imperative. Where the OLTS can tell if you are within
your loss budget or not, it cannot tell you where the problem is coming from.
Fortunately, an OTDR can.
I just recently I spoke with several IT techs that hadn’t seen an OTDR in years.
They were still under the impression that OTDRs were large, the reports were
confusing to read, and they were too expensive. Things are totally different
now as there are many versatile, easy to use tools out there and the reports
are much simpler to read now. In the past, reading a report on the events in a
run of fiber detected by an OTDR required what seemed like the equivalent
of knowing Egyptian hieroglyphics. Not so anymore. Fortunately, much work
has gone into OTDR interface design and the visual displays are easy to read
where events in the fiber are detected. Also, cloud technology allows reports
to be stored in real time. These capabilities mean that techs can trouble shoot
in real time and get results to their managers and customers in minutes. You
can read more about these new OTDR capabilities in our article about the
Advances in Tier 2 Enterprise & Data Center Testing.
In addition, as the need for network speeds
increases, it also increases the need for more in-
depth testing. In Tier 1 testing, you can test for
length, dB loss and polarity, Tier 2 takes it to the
next level. While some think Tier 2 may be overkill,
it’s becoming more and more common. Tier 2
testing gives visibility into exactly where within a
fiber run a problem is surfacing and helps identify
New OTDR
issues like optical return loss, the amount of dB loss interfaces are easy to
and reflectance. To learn more about why more understand
technicians are using an OTDR, be sure to read our
article on The Rise of Tier 2 Testing.
10 New Car Smell and the Art of Fiber Network Maintenance
The Best Test Tools Drive The Best Practices
At the end of the day, there are two things to keep in mind when it comes to
fiber testing. One is, good habits matter. And two, it pays off in the long run
to invest in the right tools so you can get the job right, and avoid wasting
time and resources with the wrong or inadequate set of tools.
First, recall again the story above that referenced Alcoa’s new CEO and his
insistence on improving companywide safety. It’s an analogy that keeps on
giving. Again, it’s not the purpose of this article, but if folks working within
the field can come up with tightly focused goals for each job, and practices
related to keeping fiber clean at all times, the more reliable a network will
be. This can start with improving overall technician performance. This could
include:
Efficiency: Doing more in less time
Reliability: Ensure techs always follow correct procedures
Repeatability: Create easy, repeatable processes
To ensure that you build good habits in terms of networks health, it’s
imperative that new techs follow best practices from the first day of their
training. Let’s face it: once we become familiar with the basics of a given
subject, it’s easy to cut corners. Remember how scared you were when you
first learned to drive? By the time you put a few hundred miles in, you were
probably only coming to a “California stop” at certain stop signs in parts of
town with slower traffic. The same is true with any new skill we learn. Put
good training systems in place to stress proper procedures and it will pay off
in the end. This will ensure new fiber link installs go smoothly and prevent
unnecessary troubleshooting later. The old maxims are always true. Time
equals money. Protect your network investment by helping your techs work
smarter, and you’ll save money in the long run and achieve better network
performance.

Second, think about a time when you were frustrated about not having
the right tool for the job. Have you ever been in your garage trying to fix
something simple with the wrong tool? It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Here’s an
example from my own life. I have to admit in the past I’ve been a late adopter
when it comes to personal technology. I held off getting a smart phone for
years. People kept telling me how much easier my life would be with a smart
phone, but I was set in my ways. One afternoon I was about ready to throw
my old mobile flip-phone across the room because something wasn’t working.
My boss saw my frustration and told me to drive to the store and just go buy
a smart phone. So, I did it. When I got home, I opened the box and started
to set it up. After 10 minutes, I looked at my wife and said “why did I wait so
long to get this? It can do so many great things that will make life easier.” And
the same is true for fiber testing.

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