Technology moves apace however elements of a computer room, especially small ones, can often be overlooked or given a low priority in favour of processing, network, communications and storing units. These elements can often include elements within the physical room itself such as dealing with cables, raised flooring, static-free floor tiles, dust, cooling, and environmental monitoring. In this article I plan to talk about some of these aspects and how they impact our Computer Room Regeneration project.

Trailing cables are still a necessity and dealing with them is a decision that needs careful consideration. Once placed, cables are often best labelled at either end then left alone as constant moving around will inevitably lead to a tangled confusion of wires leading to difficulties when sudden changes in the computer room infrastructure are required (for example during a power outage).

As technology systems increase in number and infrastructure creeps the need for sufficient cooling, grounding and accessibility rise in importance. When our first cabinet went in it was placed on the existing floor tiles as the business needed to move quickly and there was much equipment to install. Cooled air is currently provided by two independent air conditioning units (in case one fails). With the impending arrival of a second data cabinet considerations such as “hot and cold aisles” need addressing. Computers like cool air and warm air can lead to overheating which itself can lead to serious hardware issues and safety risks.

With one cabinet, a simple air conditioning unit can often be employed whereby rising warm air expelled from the cabinet is processed by a cooling unit and pushed back down to the floor space. Additionally cool air can be brought in from outside and warm air expelled through appropriate vents. Adding a secondary unit in this scenario however can lead to problems with warm air circulation.

With more than one cabinet in close proximity the warm air from one cabinet could affect the cool air going into another cabinet.

The way of dealing with this is to employ a hot and cold aisle arrangement ensuring that cool air is pushed appropriately into cabinets and warm air coming out of the cabinets is directed so as to minimise its impact on other cabinets. By utilising a sealed raised floor cooled air can be directed through vents in the floor space up into the cabinets and into the cold aisle. It is important this raised floor space is sealed to ensure no cool air loss (and maximise the use of the power available) and that it is dust free to prevent particles being carried up into the path of equipment fans.

The raised floor should be strong enough to take loaded cabinets (always consider future expansion) and the floor the floor tiles covering the raised floor should be anti-static. The raised floor structure can be connected up to provide copper grounding platform for equipment. A fire protection system will be required should a fire break out beneath the sealed floor space.

In our scenario as we are attempting to retro-fit a controlled computer room into a functioning production environment we have other difficulties to contend with – one of these being the doorway which is already at ground level. We either need to get the door moved or keep an opening space for the door whilst ensuring that we can gain access via some kind of incline to wheel heavy equipment in and out.

Related

• Computer Room Regeneration
• Re-Racking out the computer room
• Short of Space
• IT equipment on the shop floor
• Laying out the floor plan to make best use of space