New Building Considerations ...
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Our leadership is discussing possibly building a new facility over the next few years. What would be some things you would take into consideration for a new building design if you could start fresh with a blank slate.
The one's I initially think of are planning networking for WAN, LAN, wireless and phones. Also server, workstation and processing equipment planning. Access control and cameras.
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@BraswellJay said in New Building Considerations ...:
Our leadership is discussing possibly building a new facility over the next few years. What would be some things you would take into consideration for a new building design if you could start fresh with a blank slate.
The one's I initially think of are planning networking for WAN, LAN, wireless and phones. Also server, workstation and processing equipment planning. Access control and cameras.
An avoidance of stairs and or safety harnesses to get to the networking/server room.
You never want to have to lug equipment up flights of stairs or use a scissor lift to get to the equipment installation/service location.
Legit issue I had to deal with years ago...
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@BraswellJay said in New Building Considerations ...:
Our leadership is discussing possibly building a new facility over the next few years. What would be some things you would take into consideration for a new building design if you could start fresh with a blank slate.
The one's I initially think of are planning networking for WAN, LAN, wireless and phones. Also server, workstation and processing equipment planning. Access control and cameras.
<Soapbox>
Make sure that there are NO,... ZERO WATER fire systems in your (IT-Server / Switch) spaces... O-M-G,.. been in to many places that don't bother to think about the thousands of dollars/euros of equipment that is in a single room - WATER AND ELECTRONICS DON"T MIX!!!
</Soapbox>Access, camera, door intercom, alarm- We are using a system from Verkada at nearly all of our sites now. And we are GLOBAL. I can control doors, cameras and access from one SPoG (Single Pane of Glass). You can set schedules for doors, visitor and restricted access,.. multi building access and more. It'll integrate with AD and allow for SSO. Verkada has two mobile device apps. Door access (like a badge) and Admin, so I can pull up doors and open one if needed from my phone from any where I have service.
Printers.. Oh for the love of GOD limit the number of printers when and where possible. I swear (and my case is soooo different) some days all I do is deal with printers in just one building.,... my 'home building'.. Add another one, move one, toner out,.. paper jam and all the while wondering if the printer will fail because it's likely not rated for 5,000 pages a week...
LABEL your MDF and IDFs!! Color code your patch cables,.. split your Patch panel and Switches for shorter patch cables.
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Regarding the stairs comment above, I once had a client suffer a "once in a lifetime" flood, I didn't have to look after their location but one staff member had the fun task of emptying a 42u server cabinet on the ground floor to the upstairs offices as the water rose up. Needless to say in some facilities in the UK, the server room is never on the ground floor.
I'm not sure where you are based, but one thing I consider in the UK is power.
I often see circuits in old offices and everything from server cab/room, office PCs, aircon units, electric heaters, kettles and all sorts of random electricals end up on the same ones and when X device trips a rcd or circuit breaker it causes a lot of IT issues it didn't need to.I try to get sockets that will serve user computers on their own dedicated rings separate from all other plugs also separating rings for the server room and putting in RCBOs for each which act as circuit breaker and rcd in one unit (relatively new in UK) rather than a single RCD for many circuits.
Following on from above, what if in the future, management say they want continued operation of critical business equipment in a power outage (Happened to me just before Christmas when storm damage cut off some offices and they were looking at a couple of days without being able to function).
That is going to mean a large UPS and generator setup (or a lot of batteries!). Where will the generator end up physically located (thinking of noise, exhaust, etc) but still be in an ideal location to reach the server room and electrical boards. I have that quandary at this site.Connectivity services - can you get ducting installed to 2 sides of the facility and have connections enter the site from 2 directions just to mitigate someone down the road accidentally excavating a cable/ taking out a pole you rely on.
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Build a super dedicated, fully cooled, fully wired, LARGE space with room to move about data closet on a raised floor.
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@scottalanmiller said in New Building Considerations ...:
Build a super dedicated, fully cooled, fully wired, LARGE space with room to move about data closet on a raised floor.
I'm in the camp of a consistent temperature, regardless if it's 72 or 80 degrees, doesn't matter to me.
Everywhere I've worked aside from datacenters, has had power outages and then concerns about condensation forming on/in equipment.
More resilient power to the AC unit with a properly setup UPS to shutdown in the event of a outage seems way more important than the rest.
I don't disagree with having space to work.
