Simplifying Data Center Cabling Design Best Practice
The data center is a critical part of your IT infrastructure and can be challenging to manage. Cabling is a crucial component to ensuring that the proper equipment is connected, but it also provides essential functionality in terms of management and security. In this guide, we'll cover the best practices for designing cabling in your data center so that you get it right the first time!
Cabling Management Best Practice
Define the required topology, standards, and bandwidths.
Consider the data center cloud convergence model and technologies.
Define the equipment types that will be supported in the cabling infrastructure.
Consider the application types that will be included in the Infrastructure.
Clearly define the required topology, standards, and bandwidths.
The first thing you should do is clearly define the required topology, standards, and bandwidths. The most common topologies used in Data Centers are point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and ring. When choosing a topology, you should consider things like:
How many servers will be connected?
What type of workload (i.e., compute or storage) will each server be designed for?
How much space do I have available to me?
To ensure that your data center cabling meets the standards set by your organization, it is crucial to understand what those are before you start designing the network cabling system for your facility. The IEEE defines two categories of standards: Local Area Network Standards and Wide Area Network Standards. These two types of standards help ensure that any devices connected within a data center can communicate effectively with each other while also providing adequate protection against interference from external sources such as microwaves, radio waves, or even people who may be working around them while they operate at high speeds.
Consider the data center cloud convergence model and technologies.
Cloud computing is a new way of doing business. It is a growing trend, and cloud computing can be considered IT outsourcing. Cloud computing provides shared computer processing resources and Software over the Internet or other networks.
Cloud computing is a form of internet-based computing that provides shared computer processing resources and Software over the Internet, often on a pay-for-service basis. Clouds can provide different types of services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure Stack from Microsoft, OpenStack from Rackspace Hosting/Mirantis/Red Hat/HP Enterprise/IBM Bluemix for IBM Cloud Private for VMware vSphere on AWS vSphere on Azure Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Server 2016 VMware Photon ESXi 6 Free ESXi 5 Free Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1 HyperCloud from HPE ProLiant Gen8 MicroServer Gen9 vSAN ReadyNode Nodebeast.
Define the equipment types that will be supported in the cabling infrastructure.
Before you can design your cabling infrastructure, you must first understand the types of equipment that will be supported. The following list outlines some common types of data center devices:
Server/host systems
Storage systems
Networking devices
Power distribution units (PDUs)
Consider the application types that will be included in the Infrastructure.
When designing a data center, it's essential to consider the applications that the Infrastructure will support. In addition to bandwidth requirements, you should also consider the number of applications that will be supported by your network and how many users will be accessing those applications.
The type of cabling used in a particular application can vary depending on factors such as distance between devices and whether or not there are any electromagnetic interference sources in close proximity. For instance, if you have an application where users need high-bandwidth access to servers or storage arrays via fiber cable (e.g., SAN or NAS), then it makes sense to place these devices near each other so they can interact over short distances using low-cost copper cabling instead of expensive fiber links with lengths greater than 300 meters.
Read also: Smart Data Center Infrastructure
Document all decisions and create a cabling plan for future reference.
Once you've designed the network and cabling infrastructure, it will be essential to document all of your decisions. A cabling plan is a living document that should be updated as changes are made. This document serves as an operational guide for those who will be installing cables and allows future staff members to reference how things were done in the past. A cabling plan should be kept on hand for future reference when new staff members join your team or when there are significant changes in network topology.
Having a clear plan for your data center cabling is essential to reliable operations.
It's essential to have a clear plan for your data center cabling. Cabling is the backbone of your data center, so it must be planned and documented. Once you've created a plan, you should review it regularly to ensure it remains up-to-date with changes in technology and business needs.
If you follow these best practices when designing your cabling infrastructure, then you will ensure that your organization has reliable operations now and in the future.
Conclusion
Data center cabling is a complex subject, but by following these best practices, you can create a plan that is clear and easy to follow. This will help avoid confusion in the future and make it easier for new employees to understand what to do when new equipment needs to be installed, or existing hardware is upgraded.