MACHINE ROOM DESIGN

1
MACHINE ROOM DESIGN

• A presentation to
• The System Administrators Guild of Ireland
• by
• Dónal Cunningham
• www.sage-ie.org
• September 2002

2
Topics

• Rationale
• Building
• Access
• Power
• Environment
• Connectivity
• Conclusion

3
Rationale

• Why are you (thinking of) building a machine
  room?
• Co-location/co-hosting
• Costs
• Recovery of costs

4
Building I

• Building ownership, leases
• Flood plains
• Construction plans
• Never build a machine room in the basement...
• Will it hold people as well as systems?

5
Building II

• Existing electrical system
• Existing aircon capacity
• Security
• Chill-out zones
• Existing walls supporting?
• Doors quantity and size

6
Building III

• Layout of room
• Watercourses
• Dont fill all available space with cabinets.
• Where do you open boxes?
• Where do you keep spares/unpacked boxes?

7
Access I

• No lifts, no machine room
• Make sure lifts stop at floors with machine
  rooms
• Trolleys/lifters
• Ramps/stairwalkers
• If all else failsIgors

8
Access II

• Raised floors vs. suspended cable trays
• Make sure floors can support weight of equipment
• Make sure trays can support weight of cables
• If using structured wiring, cables regroup near
  MDF

9
Access III

• Ducting for electrical/environmental/data
• Beware the Gardener
• Links to other locations/buildings

10
Access IV

• Sufficient space between cabinets
• Large devices (tape libraries, E6500s)
• Room for loading/unloading

11
Power I

• Building capacity
• Single phase, three phase
• AC comes in two flavours
• DC for telco gear
• Distribution blocks plug types

12
Power II

• UPS - do you need it?
• UPS can fail too
• UPS on different phases
• Distribution blocks from disparate UPS
• Scram switches

13
Environment I

• Is this a comfortable environmentfor systems?
• What about people?
• Labs/build areas
• Monitor environment

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Environment II

• Heat - get BTUs from vendors!
• Spread BTU load
• Humidity
• Fire suppression
• ESD

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Environment III

• Noise levels
• If you can see water, its too late
• Who monitors the alarms?
• Worthless unless tested
• Procedures

16
Connectivity I

• Structured wiring
• Copper and Optical
• Switches in rows vs. in MDF
• Wiring standards - Cat5, Cat5E, Cat6
• Ooh, the pretty colours...

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Connectivity II

• ISP access
• PSTN, ISDN (BRI and PRI), DSL
• Interfaces on routers (and spares!)
• Spares on site

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Connectivity IV

• LABEL EVERYTHING!
• (especially the external connections)
• Procedures

19
Conclusion

• Questions
• References
• Horror stories
• Next meeting - 8th of October