Network Cabling Design
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Cabling Services, Inc. offers in-site on
critical issues to avoid, it is essential to
address critical structured cabling system
issues during the planning phase. Among the
most important points to address are these:
• Service
providers. Key steps include identifying
the service providers available for the job
site; establishing diverse and redundant
routes for bringing the service into the
facility; coordinating the point of entrance
for each respective service provider;
accounting for the respective equipment
requirements; and allocating space for each
service provider. This process will prove
essential for improving the fault tolerance
of the overall structured cabling system
design, as will employing a self-healing
optical carrier service such as Synchronous
Optical Network (SONET).
• Telecommunications rooms. Entrance
facilities (EF), main distribution frames (MDF)
and intermediate distribution frames (IDFs)
should allow for 20 percent expansion of
equipment.
• Centralized IDFs. Placing
telecommunications IDFs in central locations
in the data center enables easy cable
management, as well as the efficient
addition of future equipment.
• Adjacencies. Planning for future
equipment population and adjacencies
facilitates pathway design for expansion
space, which in turn provides near-new
construction efficiency for future cable
installation.
• High-performance design. A
high-performance cabling infrastructure —
one that is capable of supporting converged
telecommunications needs, including voice,
data, video, electronic security and
building control — provides optimum return
on investment because it can meet current
and future infrastructure requirements.
• Switches. Placing switches in the center of server
rows enables easy and cost-effective cable
management. It also shortens cable runs,
resulting in immediate cost savings.
• Zone
cabling concept. This approach utilizes
a “scattered IDFs” design strategy — in
other words, specific platforms remain in
their designated spaces, rather than being
connected to one central IDF. This avoids
disrupting the entire data center space when
upgrades or changes have to be made to a
certain platform.
• Heat
maps. The heat generated by systems such
as densely-packed routers and switches,
server farms with compact and blade servers,
mainframes, storage area networks and
automatic tape libraries poses challenges
like airflow management. That’s why it’s
advisable to develop data center heat maps
using equipment power consumption and
ventilation requirements. The layout can
also be used by electrical and mechanical
designers. This coordination leads to an
optimal layout to efficiently use space,
airflow and electrical distribution.
The planning
stage is the time to maximize the
flexibility to respond to ongoing changes in
equipment planning today and adapt to future
technologies. That’s why facility executives
should get an IT design engineer (preferably an RCDD — Registered
Communications Distribution Designer) involved from the planning stages of a data
center project.
An effective
design can significantly reduce downtime;
minimize moves, adds and changes; and reduce
life-cycle costs of the cabling system. In
the planning stages of new construction, it
is crucial to spend time to address system
performance, redundancy, diversity and
modularity for the structured cabling
system, as well as to anticipate future
requirements. A comprehensive cabling design
approach will ensure that prudent planning
and intelligent design are combined with
industry standards. The result will be a
cabling infrastructure that has a good
chance of staying useful for several years,
saving money while providing access to
cutting-edge telecommunications solutions. |
