TE Connectivity Embeds Monitoring Chips into Data Center Cabling

Quareo brings IT managers the capability to electronically trace, monitor and authenticate every connection from the data center to the desktop.

Network hardware maker TE Connectivity, which used call itself Tyco Electronics until a few months ago, has found its own entryway into the data center monitoring and control business.

The Minneapolis-based corporation on April 18 launched Quareo, a new connection-point product that uses embedded chips inside cables to keep track of whatever is going through those wires.

With this new type of data center visibility, Quareo brings IT managers the capability to electronically trace, monitor and authenticate every connection from the data center to the desktop, a company spokesman told eWEEK.

Quareo connectors provide what the company calls "connection-point identification" that records the real-time status of each fiber and copper connection point-and its entire cabling pathway-into a global database. This information then can be used by network management systems, such as those supplied by systems makers like Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell-in addition to specialists and integrators such as Symantec, nlyte (yes, that spelling is correct) and Avocent.

Quareo's end-to-end ecosystem of monitor chips helps a network admin manage the layers of configuration, information security, change management, physical security, asset management, performance, IT service continuity, risk management and disaster recovery, TE said.

"The ability to query, view and manage Layer 1 [physical security of a network] in a manner that is integrated with current network management policies has not been possible with existing network management solutions that can only monitor, control and secure Layers 2 through 7," said Stephen Mitchell, senior vice president and general manager of TE's Enterprise Networks business.

Quareo is based on a Latin term meaning "to see or to know," Mitchell said.

"For the first time, users can have total visibility, security and control throughout the entire managed network, including the physical layer of the network, Layer 1," Mitchell said. "Network managers no longer will depend on frequently outdated documentation or guesswork when it comes to the physical layer-now they will know."

TE Connectivity will demonstrate Quareo products at the Interop Conference and Expo in Las Vegas May 10-12.

TE Connectivity, a $12.1 billion company with nearly 100,000 employees, designs and manufactures products that connect the flow of power and data inside the data center.