3M to resell FibreZone’s automated fiber management system

3M says it has entered into a strategic business alliance with FiberZone Networks to bring FiberZone’s Automated Fiber Management (AFM) system to the data center market. The products will help data center operators and tenants in these facilities to minimize downtime and increase service offerings, the companies claim.

Managing data infrastructure has become a critical discipline for today's enterprises. A single outage can affect thousands of customers and significantly impact the revenue of network and cloud providers. The AFM system from FiberZone Networks enables remote provisioning of a data center's fiber network, avoiding the operational costs and downtime associated with manual operation of traditional patch panels, the companies say.

Automation also enables data center operators to manage fiber connectivity more effectively based on load requirements and customer needs, enabling on-demand services and new service offerings such as managed cage and expedited cross-connect services, according to FiberZone. Furthermore, the company claims that automated systems provide reliability, flexibility, fault tolerance, and management for the fiber infrastructure that manual patching cannot equal.

3M will offer the FibreZone’s AFM system to the data center market as an authorized sales representative. "The FiberZone Networks AFM system uniquely addresses an emerging issue in data center infrastructure management and is a perfect complement to our own growing portfolio of solutions for data centers," said Gordon Wiegand, 3M Communication Markets Division business development manager.

Founded in 2003, FiberZone Networks is a privately-held corporation with offices in the United States and Israel. The company is backed by international, communications-industry focused venture capital firms Novak Biddle Venture Partners and the S-Group (see "Automated fiber management firm FiberZone closes $12 million in funding").