Page 48 - Security Today, January/February 2019

Cabling our Government Wide range of solutions available for various applications
BTy Carrie Goetz
he government commands a lot of information in data centers, local municipalities, homeland security, health, and every touch that governments have with private citizens and companies. The data can be classified, pri- vate and public-facing as in forms. All of this data lives
somewhere, and all of it needs transmitting at some point. The pre- ferred method of carrying that data will vary on the type, location, and distance of the data.
For more secure data transmissions, the choice for government in- stallations has historically been either shielded copper or fiber. Each solution has a range of options and supported applications. To fur- ther complicate things, there are also wide ranges of solutions for the various applications. A further consideration is the longevity of the system. While most government buildings are owned and will have a long lifecycle, there are temporary government installations that may require a different set of criteria.
Open Systems
Procurement methods for the government are also different, and ide- ally, the government procurement officials enforce open systems and equal evaluations for bidding, unlike the private sector where incen- tives may apply. Some suppliers provide rebates and incentives for specifying their systems as the first or only supplier listed on bid doc- uments. Holding a sole specification on a government bid is harder to
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 | SECURITY TODAY
do barring the absence of an “or equal,” but where private contrac- tors write the bid documents or provide the materials procurement for installations, or equal enforcement does not always occur. Even the “made in America” preferences may fall by the wayside.
As to the type of cabling, selection depends on whether or not the cabling will reside in a classified environment, the type of signal to be carried and the environment of the installation. For fiber in clas- sified/secret environments, the connections are generally keyed and color-coded assuring that only specific equipment gains physical ac- cess to the cabling media. While this seems rather rudimentary, if you can’t connect to a network you can’t harm it, either. No “accidental” snooping or connections are allowed. In fact, for highly classified sys- tems and installations, it is unlikely that one could get access to the building even to try to connect to the fiber.
Fiber for work areas is generally OM3, but OM4 is a laser-opti- mized fiber and can go longer distances than OM3. At present, OM4 carries a premium over OM3, and it is backward compatible to OM3. But when planning, it is best to determine not only the end interface (keyed or unkeyed) but the length supported. Singlemode fiber is also an option. It is less expensive than the multimode OM3, and OM4 options, but provides a significantly longer supported signal path. It is generally used in backbone applications, but there are many others that either supported or will be supported by single mode in the near future. For either, the connector type needs specifying and verifying
CONNECTIVITY
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