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Computer Room Design?
Onion asks: "My company is considering giving us a new Computer Room, and Command Center, as our existing building is nowhere near meeting current needs, let alone future needs. I have seen a few plans for command center furniture, but no real designs or ideas for the layout of these two rooms. We have five racks for the actual computer room, and need around 25 screens for the command console. Add to this bench space for repairs, and things like: a cupboard, bookshelf, plus more storage space, and the design becomes more complicated. We need enough space for three or four admins. Has anyone seen plans for this type of setup ?"
I think there is a rather nice classic example in Dante's Inferno, although that may have very well been a Microsoft Shop. Servers should be (ignoring hardware issues) administered via ssh from nice, comfortable office chairs down the hall. I would be more worried about cooling/venting/security issues than whether or not pc repair and servers can coexist in a small area... our setup is like that and its quite silly.
I'm a little confused here. If you only have 5 racks of servers, why on earth do you need 25 consoles? 5 racsk can easily be controlled with one decent KVM, I prefer Blackbox myself. You also didn't say how much room you have. 25 consoles, even stacked 3 high take up a hell of a lotta room. Get a really good KVM, leave the people that need to be there in the noisy hel of a computer room, and then go back out to your desk and run everything from ssh or a Win2k terminal session. That's the way I do it.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
We're extremely co-located here at my current job. In fact the closest server is two hours from me. (This is for security reasons) Anyway, we do it all with just a few terminals and a whole lot of VNC. I think the best answer for you is to set up a few simple boxen that exist to only run VNC sessions for guests and the like, and then hook up a tunnel encryption to the servers if you are worried about it. I can honestly say that Zebedee has been the easiest thing to set up. It runs over port 11965 if you want to push it out the firewalls as well.
KVM switches rock, but tie you to one location, and then you fight over the terminal with the other admins. When you can do it all from your desk with just a click, why not?
I second that emotion.
Not only do you need an architect to lay it out, you need an engineering firm to design the HVAC and electrical systems - and no, a spot cooler and a power strip won't cut it.
Then hire a contractor (that's me) to build it.
Then hire a cardiologist, 'cause you're gonna have a heart attack when it comes to paying for it.
Just bite the bullet and do it right. Every owner I've ever dealt with who tried to design or engineer their own facilities has been dissatisfied with the result.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
consists of my laptop running Slackware 8.1, Fluxbox, OpenSSH, and Galeon.
If you use automation properly, and technologies like ssh and VPN, etc., you don't -need- a 'command center', no matter the size of your organization.
Server rooms, network rooms/closets/PoPs, are absolutely necessary, and should be designed properly, w/racks/raised floor/UPS/etc. 'Command centers' aren't necessary at all, except for stroking one's ego.
That's not to say they aren't -cool-, but they're really passe.