Over 340,000 ft. of Category 6 cable (more than 65 miles!) and almost 10,000 terminations was what it took to install the cabinet-to-cabinet connectivity in two data centers for a well known national retailer. After a rigorous selection process Connectivity Point was chosen to design and install the structured cabling infrastructure within these two data centers. The first was a brand new 18,000 s.f. state of the art data center designed by the idGroup of Boston, Massachusetts.
The building featured completely redundant MEP facilities on the ground floor, a second floor consisting of network operations center (NOC), and secure server room with raised floor. Connectivity Point utilized a two-tier overhead tray system to route cabling from network cabinets to the rest of the cabinets throughout the room. Since the room was built to accommodate future growth, so too was the cabling infrastructure. Karl Sandmann, Connectivity Point’s senior RCDD, worked closely with the customer to design a cabling infrastructure that would enable them to expand modularly as needed.
The second data center involved re-cabling within the legacy data center to accomplish the new network design and integration with the new data center. Limited space and the need for more than 6,000 connections were a challenge. This was accomplished by utilizing high-density Category 6 patch panels (48 ports in 1 RMU) by Belden; high-density Plug-and-Play fiber by Corning; Patch Racks (by Chatsworth Products) mounted to the overhead cable tray; and 6-inch patch cords in the switch stacks.
Both projects were completed in the aggressive timeline set by the customer in order to ready their network for the upcoming holiday season. The new data center received L.E.E.D. Silver Certification.
