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Ideas For a Great Control Room?
lewko writes "Our company is about to build a central monitoring facility and I'm looking for ideas/suggestions about the best hardware and the best way to make it comfortable for those manning a screen. It will be manned 24x7 and operators will be monitoring a variety of systems including security, network, fire, video and more. These will be observed via local multi-monitor workstations and a common videowall. This is going to be a massively expensive exercise and we only get one chance to get it right. The facility is in a secure windowless bunker and staff will generally be in there for many hours at a time. So we have to implement design elements which make it a 'happy' place. At the same time, it has to be ergonomically sound. Lastly, we will be showing it to our clients, so without undoing the above objectives, it would be nice if it was 'cool' (yet functional). Whilst Television doesn't transfer to real life always, think 'CTU' from 24."
Well, it sort of goes against 'being in a bunker', but if I was going to work somewhere for many hours, I'd like some natural light.
Of course it's still possible to achieve that using reflective tubing or such like, though it might still undo whatever it is you seek to achieve by being underground.
If it's not possible, I'd suggest paying lots of attention to lighting. And add some real plants too - they'll generate oxygen as well as making the environment seem less bunker like.
My company invested millions of dollars into a central monitoring facility, with a large video wall driven by Crestron equipment. The idea was the video wall could display news/weather alongside alarms/outages in real time, with geographic mapping capabilities. Workstations were quad displays on adjustable motorized desks which sat atop a raised platform for simple network runs. A large executive "war room" style conference room was built with a glass wall overlooking the platform and video wall believed to be useful in the event of some catastrophic failure. All other staff sat in cubicles surrounding the platform with glass cube walls anywhere that would otherwise obstruct the view of the platform/video wall. A secure mantrap was put in place to restrict access to the facility. Dedicated bathrooms were installed with showers in the monitoring area in case critical staff were quarantined for extended periods of time.
It was impressive when it was built, but within a couple years, the video wall has been dismantled and parts sold off due to its impracticality. The right software was never found to perform the type of "geographic" monitoring conceived, partly due to bureaucracy. Network redundancy was overlooked, which made the monitoring facility itself non-functional during an outage. The facility lacked appropriate backup generators and UPS to keep the facility running during a thunderstorm. The platform desks required too much real estate and allowed no room for growth, so they have been replaced by cubicles. The secure mantrap was an inconvenience for upper management, so the inner door was disabled, defeating the mantrap. The quad displays ironically obstructed the view of the video wall when it was still in place, and did not fit in the cubicles when they were installed, so these were reduced to 2. All critical staff were sent home to telecommute because they took up too much real-estate required for day-to-day operations, and it made more sense to not have critical staff in a single central location anyway.
The point is, don't get too caught up in building 'CTU' from 24. The right monitoring software platform makes all the difference, as does intelligent network redundancy, telephony and backup power.
I'm not an expert, but I play one on slashdot.
I used to know someone who had worked for an alarm monitoring company. She said the chairs and other furniture were used 24 hours a day, yet the accountants were depreciating them like ordinary office furniture. As a result, the furniture was not replaced often enough and was falling apart and uncomfortable. Make sure to plan on fast depreciation for your furniture.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Oh a few more thoughts:
1. Buy high end task furniture (Haworth, Herman-Miller, etc.) but buy it "used". It's 1/2 or less the price, and often you can get the used high-end stuff for less than commodity new.
2. Get a telephone system that doesn't suck. This is harder than you might think. Today, I'd build something with Asterix/VOIP integrated with a customer database to do some real-time CTI. In the past, I've used Aspect successfully as well. Cisco's VOIP gear is nice, but overpriced.
3. Everyone gets their own . Whether it be a headset, keyboard, etc. Trust me, it makes sense.
4. Lockers outside the NOC for staff. Make them nice, tall and big, and nobody shares.
5. Plan for actual breaks from operations. Nobody can stare at a computer screen that many hours and stay alert.
There's a million more details.
I used to work for a large insurance company in Chicago. The director charged with building our NOC in 2000 basically traveled throughout the country visiting other large IT organization's NOC's and took the best ideas and made them work for us - and it did resemble 24.
Take a large crescent shaped room with a 30' or more ceiling. The video wall was three different sections (this is important for separation of displays and multiple tools at the same time). The display units were high end rear projection systems that were each hooked up to computers that drove the display and were roughly 3'x5' each. Of course there's no seam or separation between the screens. Any group of screens can be used to display anything you want (1 screen, 2, 4, 6, all, etc). Pretty basic stuff nowadays, but it was great ten years ago. The left and right banks had three screens stacked on top of eachother, by either 4 or 5 wide. The center bank was 3 high by either 8 or 10 wide.
Three rows of crescent tables with low walls in front separating them, and minimal separation between workspaces - you want people in a NOC to work very closely with eachother, especially in case of an outage. Each station had two or three LCD screens mounted on articulating arms, but not to be stacked on top of eachother like those trading desks you see with 6 or 8 LCD screens at them. That would be too tall, and you couldn't look over the top to see the main video wall without standing. The room sat close to 50 people. Around the edges of the room are various cabinets, printers, personal storage for the three shifts of employees that work in the NOC, etc. Of course high end chairs are important as others have noted. Lighting is also equally important. You have to be very careful with making sure it is as close to natural lighting as possible. The lighting we used was recessed and inset so that no lightbulb shone directly out or down on the people - it made it less harsh, but still very bright in the room based on a good design. Wireless headsets are important, and also minimizing speakerphones and any other distracting noise.
Behind the rows of tables at the back of the crescent in the donut hole section if you will is an enclosed room large enough to sit 30 people comfortably with power, phones, and network connections to cover it. The walls facing the NOC are floor to ceiling glass, and it has connectivity to the videowall of the NOC so that displays from their can be sent to the meeting room as well. It has every high end normal conference room tool you could need - multiple video conferences, smartboard, integrated microphones and speakers, etc. Everything was hidden inside builtin cabinets made of high end wood. This main room is the situation room. During a large outage, 2nd and 3rd level staff will work out of the room in conjunction with the NOC teams. Directly upstairs from the situation room is another identical room, also with floor to ceiling glass walls looking out to the video wall of the NOC. This upper room was reserved for senior and executive management use during a large outage. Engineers and Executive management have different needs during an outage and require separate spaces and separate functions, although constant information does need to feed between the two. The upper room was more of the showpiece room. It had a motorized curtain that you could press a button on the wireless control panel to open and close. The entrance from the building going up to the second floor board room does not give anything away for what the NOC itself looked like, so once everybody was assembled in the room and the button was hit, it never failed to impress first time visitors. They would always leave their chairs at the conf table and walk right up to the glass wall to look down at the people working in the NOC and see what was displayed on the board.
It was an extremely impressive setup. I am now in sales and visit customer sites on a daily basis and I have yet to see something that even approaches what this
To add to your kitchen comments make sure that all the outlets are at least waist high. Also (because the electrician won't care) I would put at the maximum two outlets per circuit and make sure your microwaves are on separate circuits. If possible have your kitchen circuit box separate from anything else. You won't believe the things people will want to buy for the kitchen:
Ice Tea Maker
Popcorn Popper
Crock pots
Their "special" espresso maker
Food processor
Juicer
Deep fryer
Hot plates
Toaster ovens
Ice cream makers
I've found that the kitchen is the biggest failure point electricity wise. The kitchen in a business (and the bathroom) are the places that feel most "normal" to people. They tend to treat them like the one at home.
Also, make sure your workstations have the electrical capability to handle:
Personal heaters
Electric blankets
Coffee warmers
All manner of fans, clocks, phone chargers, iPod chargers, and the weirdest thing you can think of sold on QVC or infommercials.
Yes, it seems silly and unprofessional but in the real world these things do happen and its the little creature comforts that keep people happy.