Changing Fiber at the network core

If you’re curious why it takes hours of scheduled maintenance time to change a node’s equipment from old to new, take a look at the before and after pictures of the Node one changeover and you’ll get an idea.

Before:

The old backbone equipment at most nodes had about sixty connections into it, which translates into sixty pairs of fragile fiber-optic cable running into one rack-mounted device that must be disconnected and dust-capped. Single-mode fiber is somewhat delicate and must be handled carefully to avoid damaging it; so in order to be replaced, it must be removed one strand at a time. After the all the spaghetti-strands of fiber are removed, the old equipment (in this case, our old NetIron 40Gs) can be removed from the rack and two brand-new, redundant NetIron MLXs is installed in its place.

After:

The finished product is a sleek, austere rack.