Server Room Wiring Scheme?

[srevart2]

I am assisting by Brother in law with building a network for his new company(He doesn't have enough money to hire a real consultant). Needless to say, I'm no expert.

The contractor is asking for a wiring scheme for the 14x8 server room. I am not sure exactly what he is looking for. He already knows that we need Cat 5 and we have already decided on the wall plates and number of data jacks throughout the office. His question is specific to the actual server room.

We want to research this to avoid asking the contractor stupid questions, but I am not sure what areas to research. Can anyone give me a few ideas on some wiring scheme decisions that would need to be made within the server room?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[AvayaNovice]

Let's get some more information.

How many data drops do you have?

How many voice drops do you have?

How many servers do they have, and are they rackmount?

What type of phone system will they be using?

Chances are you'll want them to bring your data cabling to a backboard with patch panels, or a rack with patch panels (depending on the number of drops).

Same thing with the voice drops, although more likely you'll want them on a backboard with 110 blocks.

But this is all speaking hypothetically, if you have a 14x8 server room... I'm wondering what quantity we're talking about.

 

[daronwilson]

Yup we need the info to help you out a bit. Please tell me you aren't using Cat5 and that it is at least Cat5e, it would be a shame to be out of compliance right from the start.

Once you give us the info, I could probably find a digital picture of a similar size installation to email you if you want, might make it easier to understand what we are suggesting.

So...give us the details and we'll help you get some answers.



It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[srevart2]

Yes, sorry, we are using Cat5e for sure.

Throughout the space, there are about 15 wall plates each with 2 data & 2 voice. I'm not sure what that translates to in terms of data & voice drops. I'm not sure about the phone system - I have a call into my bro-in-law.

There is 1 dell tower server & 2 printers at this point. The printers will not be in the server in order to lessen traffic.

We will likely get another dell tower server soon.

There are 5 employees currently and it will likely grow to 10 within the year.

Does that help in any way? You can probably see that we are flying by the seat of our pants.

 

[Servamatic]

Just curious, what kind of contractor do you have? Is he pulling the cable? Terminating?

Richard S. Anderson, RCDD

http://www.smartbuilthomes.com

 

[skip555]

I hope richard "servamatic"dosnt mind but check out this link to his site from another thread here the section on spaces and plywood might be appropriate in planning the room

http://www.servamatic.net/cd/5682001.pdf

I would try for one dedicated two gang ac outlet per wall

when it comes to cabling the offices I would recommcnd pulling extra .its cheap enough in the building stage and nice to have when he grows

to save a little $$$ you can pull the spare cable and not terminate it untill you need it

 

[Servamatic]

Thanks Skip
Post it anywhere but the bathroom...lol

Richard S. Anderson, RCDD

http://www.smartbuilthomes.com

 

[daronwilson]

Someday I'll organize my pictures...here are a couple smaller installations. Sorry for the sizing, didn't notice they were so big until I previewed, don't have time to go resize and upload right now.

I take credit for all the data on this one, phone on the backboard was Sprint.

This was one where we wired the facility and terminated the phone and data. Someone else did the key system, and the owner installed the switch and UPS and hooked it up.

Here is one of my favorite State of Oregon sites (or sights in this case). It started out pretty clean, painted plywood walls, racks, nice and clean. Here it is after 5 vendors and 4 state agencies....I only go in there to fix stuff when called, never got the chance to install or clean it up.

Hopefully that will give you an idea of what you could end up with, though these aren't perfect either damnit

Good Luck!


It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com

 

[FredWagner]

Nice pictures, nice layouts. Some comments - I particularly like the layout with the rack with one side up against a wall, so wiring can be secured to the wall, and come right up to the rack. Recommend the wall be covered with heavy plywood, so proper brackets and such can be secured to it.
I also like the top bracing (cable trays) on the racks, so they are supported by a wall behind or ahead of them. In one of my rooms, I had three pairs of racks coming our from the side wall like teeth in a comb, with room to walk between them to work on equipment front and rear, change patch cables, etc. I have one room I inherited where a predecessor put in two racks, side by side, with about a foot of clearance to the side wall on one side, maybe 20 inches on the other, and about 2 feet behind. no top bracing. wiring coming in from the ceiling, around the walls, a complete mess. Racks against a side wall (two out from the wall is OK too, but the inside one secured to the wall, with lots of working room. For servers and such not designed for rackmount, consider 25" wide racks with shelving from CPI.

Fred Wagner
frwagne@longbeach.gov

 

[ZoominCo]

Your brother really should reconsider & hire someone who does structured cabling for a living. Building contractors & their in house electricians never seem to get it right. At the very least install a seperate cable for each "wallplate outlet",thats 4 cables to a faceplate with 2 data & 2 phone, you'll have available cable for future unexpected growth. Do NOT staple cables to studs. Bring all cables to the server room at one point with plenty of length to reach past termination point. Do NOT staple cables to studs. Have contractor install minimum 5/8"x4'x8' plywood sheet to hold termination hardware, tel system, shelves, etc. at the point where the cables enter the room. Avoid running cables near lighting fixtures. Do NOT staple cables to studs. Have plenty of dedicated power outlets built in server room attached to surge protected breakers.
Good luck !!

 

[FredWagner]

To add to Zoominco's recommendations (besides NOT stapling cables to studs!), if you're going to have several racks, consider having a permanently wired UPS with 220V service, with a changeover switch to have the room on the UPS, or wired around the UPS (On-Off-On) switch, and have the output of the UPS wired to paralleled outlet strips running vertically on the plywood wall next to each rack, so you'll never need power strips floating around, equipment in the racks will go directly to the strip on the wall for that rack or pair of racks. And have each rack outlet strip wired to its own circuit breaker (yes, a circuit breaker panel between the main UPS and all of its loads). This came in very handy at a downtown LA location, where we had servers and multiple T-1's coming in, and once a year the building powered down for 24-30 hours for maintenance. T-1's don't like having their terminations powered off (takes some coordination to get them working again), and the UPS wouldn't run the WHOLE room over the weekend, but when we powered off the servers and hubs/switches, there was enough UPS battery to carry the CSU/DSU's and routers for the T-1 through the planned outage. So nice to come back in, bring up the servers, and have the whole WAN back again!

Fred Wagner
frwagne@longbeach.gov

 

[talon121a]

Hey Fred,

Would it be possible to get a pic of something like what your referring to? Its usually pretty good to see something like that as an image. I understand however what that 'might' look like..

But definitely a nice idea.. Just interested for real-world examples if anyone else has any. I like all the input I've seen; My own experience has been plant and server room/telephone closet wiring. Always looking for better samples to adhere/go by.

Jason

 

[FredWagner]

Jason -
The server room I described was back almost ten years ago - wish I had taken pictures - the UPS was a 5Kw Ferrups from Best Power, and they also supplied the Changeover switch. The circuit breakers and outlet strips on the wall were standard electrical supply items - the strip were the kind about 6 feet long with 3-prong outlets every 6 inches -, and I ran two of them, side by side on the plywood wall, for each pair of racks. Made it nice and easy to use power cubes or regualr power cables. That was back before the current rage for 1U and 2U really deep servers - all of ours were heavy duty towers (Proliant 2000's), or smaller towers by compaq and IBM and Toshiba.
Even with today's deep rack equipment, it would be better to have the big rack cabinets only two deep, with the side of the inside one right against the wall, with all wiring going to the wall and along it, with D-rings and other equipment to support it. We have a mainframe-original server room here, and they put the rack cabinets in long rows, so when you go behind them, you have a difficult time telling which is the back of the one whose front you were interested in, and the power and network wiring comes out of the floor so you have to be careful not to trip and either injure yourself or cause an outage. The comb layout has a lot going for it, but you have to adapt to the architectural conditions you have. In my case back then, I had a room about 8 feet wide, and 20-some feet long, with two doors in the same long side, and a cable trough in the floor that I couldn't build on - I put the racks on the side with the doors, left an aisle over the area with the cable trough. The real fun part was than when we built the room, we were still using coax arcnet, through the floor troughs. A couple of years later, we re-did the network with Cat-5, but came through the ceilings. All terminations were with patch panels in the racks in both cases. On the Cat-5, I used as many colors of patch cables as I could get, to make it easier to see the connection of each from one end to the other. Did some color coding too - Red was for the outside internet, T-1's to routers to Firewall/NAT and mail servers, Green for isolated Accounting network, other colors for everything else.

Fred Wagner
frwagne@longbeach.gov