Ask Slashdot: What Would You Include In a New Building? 422
First time accepted submitter weiserfireman writes "For the first time in our company's 60 year history, we are going to be building a new facility from scratch. We are a CNC Machine shop with 40 employees and 20 CNC machines, crammed into a 12,000 sq foot building. We are going to build a new 30,000 sq foot building. I am the only IT person. I support all the computer systems, as well as all the fire/security/phone systems. My Boss has asked for my input on what infrastructure to include in the new building to support current and future technology. 1st on my list is a telecommunications equipment room. Our current building doesn't have one. I have been researching this topic on the Internet, and I have a list of a lot of different things, all of them are nice, but I know I am going to have a limited budget. If you were in my shoes, what priorities what features would you design into the building?"
Re:Optical fiber link to every desk (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you are in a wildly electrically hostile environment
He's in a machine shop. Only thing worse is a arc welding plant. Do yourself a favor and run fiber to every machine, not every desktop. In ye olden days at the plant I had to run that new-fangled cat-5 thru roof trusses spaced many feet between power conduits just to keep interference down. We didn't even bother trying to set up a networked PC in the welding area. All that plant cat-5 was replaced with fiber as budget permitted. Assuming you terminate your own SC/ST (or whatever) connectors, the main cost is a couple hundred bucks for the ethernet to fiber converters.
Re:Suggestions (Score:4, Interesting)
A heat recovery ventilation system would be a really good idea—improves air quality, saves energy. I put Cat6A shielded in the walls of my house; not sure you'd need that in this environment, but it might be helpful.
A real IT room. (Score:4, Interesting)
AS in dedicated AC, dedicated power and dedicated power backup systems. None of this "use storage closet 1A" crap with no AC and no real power.
Get them to run 4 dedicated 20 amp circuits into that closet. a dedicated AC unit and have them insulate all the walls to keep noise down and cooling efficient. a nice sealing steel door as well to keep the sound from intruding into the office space as well.
Oh and if you need 3 racks in there, ask for 6 racks of space. I hate the "we made the room wide enough for 3 racks"... how am I supposed to get to the back of them?
Lastly, assume the contractor and architect are morons. you must spell out your needs exactly. as in "IT closet is 42.5 inches wide by 77.341 inches long with a 92 inch ceiling clearance. Fiberglass batting in all walls and ceiling with 6 inch conduits leaving the room (specify 2X the size of any wiring conduit to ANY location.)
Re:Optical fiber link to every desk (Score:4, Interesting)
You do realize that wireless can be made secure much easier than ethernet right?
You do realise that hundreds of unshielded electrical motors inside what is for all practical purposes a giant Faraday cage might cause some small amount of interference, don't you? It is not security. It is signal to NOISE!
Re:Optical fiber link to every desk (Score:4, Interesting)
Really if you are on a budget, the important part is that you run a few multistrand bundles anywhere that it will be a pain to rip into the walls to run it again later, and run it along with the copper so that you don't have to pay for the manpower all over again. Make sure there is plenty of service loop. The jacks and end runs can come later on an as-needed basis. Most of the cost is always in the manpower, not the cabling, so think who will have to do what to realize fiber to a given point, and how much that might disrupt operations, and preinstall anywhere where it would be tricky to do after the fact. Try to avoid situations where you'll need splicing, but for in-building use you don't usually have to worry about having too many intermediary patch panels.
Re:Not IT related, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Optical fiber link to every desk (Score:4, Interesting)
He's in a machine shop. Only thing worse is a arc welding plant.
Really?
Most machine shops do not induce a lot of electrical noise that would not be totally managed by basic metal conduit.
Most automated milling machines are using basic industrial CPUs on 70s technology circuit board, and are totally unbothered
by the electrical interference.
Unless there is a lot of arc welding, you really only have electrical motor noise, which is not that big of a problem.
Re:Suggestions (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, because the building design is going to have an impact on what you want. In an office w/ drop ceilings (common), you really don't want to waste time with conduit, in most cases getting a server room near the outside for direct venting means giving up window offices, so thats would be a tough call. In some cases raised floors make great sense, in others they are a waste. What about security? Is it a shared space? multi-floor? Whats the likely tech growth (is a need for > 1 Gbps realistic for business needs or could you save 20% with plain Cat 5 cables?) What about phones? A good VOIP system might save half the cable drops. What is the REAL business cost of downtime? Do you need backup generators, or could you put the critical into the cloud? what kind of internet access do you need?
There are so many questions that you need real answers to, cost benefit analysis, and a real understanding of impacts (Don't ask for things that are cool or will make your life easier, know how it will save money now (seriously, spending $100 now to maybe save $500 later is rarely a good investment), by allowing faster recovery, more reliable operations, lower headcount, better security, etc