ProLabs, one of the global market leaders for network and connectivity products since 2004, is working in partnership with distributor, Networks Unlimited, to drive its core mission to provide customers with a choice: freedom from proprietary connectivity and the highest level of quality, reliability and responsiveness.

For many years, data centre operators could only turn to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) as the obvious source for their cables and optical modules. But, OEMs are learning that there is little value in self-compatibility products, and they are now providing more options for the customers.

During a recent visit to South Africa, Steve Burke, vice president sales EMEA and Asia at ProLabs, commented: "The growing demand for locally-hosted content and IT services has prompted the interest of overseas co-location providers in building facilities in Africa. With the increase in data centre requirements, customers are looking to their suppliers to reduce costs and to make an educated decision on various supplies of compatible products."

Compatible products include optical transceivers and cables that have transceivers built onto each end, such as direct-attach cables and active optical cables. The transceivers can vary in speed, configuration and form factor, depending on the application, they are designed and built to ensure interoperability and according to MSA guidelines.

A frequent obstacle to providing customers with choices for compatible transceivers has been the two-year time lag that compatible vendors experience in releasing products that the OEM's have introduced the market. ProLabs engineering team has focused on building strong relationships with leading technology companies that enable them to bring compatible products to the market well before the usual two-year time lag. This year ProLabs introduced 10G-Base-T copper transceivers within three months after the OEM's released it, a significant and welcome improvement that customers are benefiting from.

Burke continued: "Our coding capability enables us to provide multi-vendor direct-attach cables or active optical cables and each end of the cable can be coded independently for the target switch. We also offer multi-code transceivers, so if a customer is using three different equipment manufacturers, they can use one transceiver that will work in all of them."

ProLabs is knowledgeable on all the different vendor equipment codes and the way they operate. The ability to test these multi-vendor and multi-code devices affirms ProLabs' capabilities, being the research it conducts, the engineering skills it provides, as well as the time it invests in developing the standard of quality products it offers.