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Ask Slashdot: What Would You Include In a New Building?
First time accepted submitter weiserfireman writes "For the first time in our company's 60 year history, we are going to be building a new facility from scratch. We are a CNC Machine shop with 40 employees and 20 CNC machines, crammed into a 12,000 sq foot building. We are going to build a new 30,000 sq foot building. I am the only IT person. I support all the computer systems, as well as all the fire/security/phone systems. My Boss has asked for my input on what infrastructure to include in the new building to support current and future technology. 1st on my list is a telecommunications equipment room. Our current building doesn't have one. I have been researching this topic on the Internet, and I have a list of a lot of different things, all of them are nice, but I know I am going to have a limited budget. If you were in my shoes, what priorities what features would you design into the building?"
Secret passageways
Would that be possible? Should it wait? As long as you have the conduit, it should be fairly cheap, right?
Perhaps this is obvious, but its the very first thing that popped into my head. You might not need to install a lot of cabling to run what you have, relatively speaking, but you WILL need to install more later and you WILL wish you had installed bigger conduit. So, plan your current needs as being 1/3 to 1/2 capacity and leave plenty of room for more. It doesn't cost much more to install bigger/more conduit now, but it will cost TONS more to install it later. Your successors will praise you.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Most important thing to get right in the building stage is the cabling. You want cat5, if not cat 6, home run for all your phones and computers. I'd recommend an asterisk phone system. Either way, you want all the cabling terminated in your phone/network closet in a sane way. This means wall mounted or rack mounted patch panels for the Ethernet, and 66 blocks for phone lines. You can rearrange everything else, but cabling really needs to be done right the first time.
You're the only IT person? Start there. Get someone else. Point out to your boss that if you get hit by a bus, they're likely screwed unless you have *extremely* good documentation.
Foosball table
Running out of ethernet jacks after the fact is a damned pain, and the cost of putting in wires(unshockingly) rises once you have to punch through the wall and do a bunch of fishing to get them there.
Even if you are Embracing The Wireless Future, you'll want enough copper to support about twice as many APs as the vendor claims you'll need. If not, you'll want even more.
Seriously, you're asking for a heart attack. I don't care how good you are, that's way too much for one guy to deal with by himself.
Unless you're building in an ice cap, you'll need a reliable and likely fairly powerful cooling system for your telecom/server room. You should have it spec'd into the building's system capacity with the proper ductwork installed up front. Retrofitting that sort of thing can be a pain down the road.
Other than that, have at it.
'nuff said...
To go along with your telecom room, add a server room with good cooling. Additionally, have them put spare wiring conduits throughout the building, in which to run telecom and network cables. Make sure you have space for running more or different cables in the future.
Raised floor, oversized conduit to support expansion and/or upgrade, overestimate your power needs, etc. Build a wish list, and let /them/ tell you what they won't buy; you'll never know what they are willing to invest in until you ask.
There's nothing worse than being in a building where money was no object - for the machinary, but to hell with the staff. So at lunchtime you have to wander down to some dodgy joint to get some garbage for lunch because there's nothing else around and coffee comes curtesy of Mr Vend. Thanks, but I don't care how 733t the equipment is, I don't want to work somewhere like that again.
Most important items are a wiring and equipment closet and several dedicated wiring channels (at no more than 30% capacity) do you can more easily upgrade the wiring and infrastructure in the future. The easier and less costly it is to upgrade your wiring/fiber, the easier it will be to make upgrades. Make sure the equipment closet is climate controlled and has a good air filtration system, dust from your CNC operations is not nice to equipment, especially metallic dust.
As for what to put there now, I recommend Cat 6 cabling plus any specialized cabling that you currently require.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
You're on the right track, I think.
For a CNC place, you *need* a well-sealed, clean server room with a good independent air-conditioning system. Dust is the enemy.
The room should have LOTS of power outlets. 220 would be nice.
Everything else can be done later. But a decent server room is fundamental.
Dual Cat6 sockets on each desk
wireless routers in each room [not for use for work stuff - just don't have wireless for anything work sensitive]
power more power sockets than you think you need
in the telecoms room
UPS / UPS and more ups - everything upsed - main routers, servers, switches and telephone systems [ though if you are using IP telephony up the number of sockets at each desk]
who where what when now?
1). Properly Secured Server Room
2). AC Unit dedicated to server room
3). Cat 6 Ethernet (2 jacks) for each desk/location
4). Fiber between floors, multiple cables
5). Secure locations to install Wireless Access Points
6). Video camera's with DVR storage for a week (cabling)
7). FOB key card access to everything (keys suck)
8). IT Storage space for boxes, spare equipment, etc.
9). Proper kitchen for coffee
You didn't list what business growth plans are, but I would anticipate the current employee-to-square-foot ratio staying the same even though there will be reprieve for a while. Plan your telecom/IT density accordingly, unless the business just doesn't plan to grow and is making bigger space as a luxury (highly unlikely).
Instead of a telecom room, think more like data center. If you're doing CNC then data is a business critical function. This means proper rack space, structured cabling, fire suppression and monitoring, physical security, environmental conditioning, etc. You probably have limited IT gear now with only 40 people, but what if that number tops 100? What about when technology dictates your data storage requirements double or triple (along with backup requirements)? Can you support, power, and cool that much gear if you had to? That doesn't mean you need to install everything for it now, but make sure you have the space and power required to do it later.
I would also consider how you get data to your people. Run at least a couple CAT6 pulls to each desk for data, as well as a phone run. I would also put in enterprise-grade WiFi (Aruba or similar), but the amount of gear you buy for that will depend heavily on building layout and construction. If everything in there is metal, you will need to bump up the access point density.
Really the features you need depend on the things the business deems critical, but data integrity/availability and worker productivity are usually top on that list, especially for a business that requires data to even make the machines go. If you have budget to do it right, then do it with that in mind.
Prior to working on the new building, I'd put some resources into having an assistant in your IT department.
Pick up Thomas Limoncell's _The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition_. Phenominal book that goes over this in a very logical way. I can't speak more highly of it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Lots and lots of cable channels. It will save you oodles of time and effort if you have prebuilt passageways to run cabling than it is to try and snake through ceilings. Not to mention it looks neater and is easier to trace.
Take a systematic approach to labeling and documenting where every cable goes and what it connects to. You might be the only person now, but at some point you won't be there OR, as unbelievable as it sounds, someone else may be hired to work with you.
As for a closet, in some of our buildings that is literally what we have; closets where the racks are. If you have to go that route, make sure you leave yourself enough room to do things without running into the walls or having to slide your hand through a slit not much bigger than an orange. Lighting is also helpful as is airflow.
Storage. All those cables, extra switches, parts and whatnot take up more space than people realize. Something that can be secured. Standard metal shelves with labeling for everything will do the job nicely.
Finally, if you can manage it, some dark, twisting tunnels which look all alike.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
With the rise of CAD and CNC your business is more dependent on reliable computing resources than ever before.
You may not need a huge room, but you do need for it to always be available. UPSs, good server backups (to the cloud maybe), good networking, good environmental conditioning (on the UPS!) etc.
The last thing you need is to be the problem blocking 40 machinists from doing their work.
Map your machines and make sure you have at least 2 high quality, shielded UTP cables and some power for each. They come in very handy when you want to remote monitor a machine by IP camera, for instance when doing a 24h production run.
Figure out how many BTUs your equipment puts out (plus extra for future - ex, if you plan on implementing blade/SAN chassis in the future, they can put out a ton more heat than you currently have) and make sure an appropriate HVAC/air conditioner is installed, pref. separate from the rest of the building. This includes cooling options for any remote closet that has equipment in it. It would be unfortunate to have a nice new building but some switches overheat due to poor ventilation/cooling.
On my required list would be a separate dedicated A/C system for your equipment room. Too often computer/telephone rooms are connected to whatever A/C system is convenient which leads to problems -- One of my horror stories was management turning off the A/C in the lunch room which had been running 24x7 to save energy, little did they know that the lunch room A/C was shared by the computer room on the other side of the wall.... :-(
Do not scrimp on design. Get someone who knows data room cooling and can help you design an efficient system that won't drain your energy bill. Don't simply throw a ton (or tons) of cooling at the room, vent the heat outside (or into the buidling for actual heating if there's cold weather.)
Rule number one: Don't skimp on network drops. It's easier and cheaper to install them when you're building/finishing a facility than to try to go back later and re-run extra data lines. Ideally, plan twice as many as you think you need. Barring that, drop at least one more than you think you need in each location. The spare can be used for when you buy new equipment, add a printer, phone, etc..
Fire related equipment should be on its own separate network. Not a VLAN, it's own actual network. I've seen facilities grow, that were small in the beginning and ran fire on the same physical network as regular data. Regular data needs grew, and despite QoS settings, the fire system started getting starved for network traffic and the fire controllers were reading that they list contact with remote sensors, which triggers an alarm. Once the link is re-established a few seconds later, the alarm resets. Then a little later, you get another false alarm because it missed a check-in from a sensor.
Be generous with power drops. CNC equipment will likely need their own power, but be thoughtful about where you'll have power for various printers or workstations, anything that might need a dedicated circuit, in case a CNC were to cause a circuit breaker to trip. When you have a Server/Telecomm room, make sure it's big enough to suppor both the network rack, a telecom rack and a server rack or two. Check and double-check that you have dedicated circuits to the room for each rack you're planning to run.
Be generous with air flow in the Server/Telecomm room. It will generate more heat than you expect. Plan on it having its own, dedicated AC system.
Backup Power, plan to have it. If your phones are IP-based, you want to be able to have power for them during an outage, as well as your fire system. An onsite backup generator would be very nice. If you can't swing that, be sure to have, check, test and keep working, a good set of UPS devices to provide power during an outage.
I know you have a limited budget, but shoot for the moon, don't cut corners where you don't have to. Doing it right will serve the organization for years to come, even after you retire or move on...or have to hire more IT folks!
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
It's already been mentioned, but should be emphasized.
Build sealed conduits and access panels, assuming that Cat5 might become obsolete tomorrow.
You should be able to install all non-power wiring after full construction of the building, using minimal tools, and keeping it all tidy and hidden.
Security for the infrastructure room.. (I don't care if it's a closet or a multimillion dollar server room..) Solid core, fire rated doors with appropriate locks. (Amazing how many businesses don't have the minimum there!)
As someone else said, conduit and wiring ability to expand over time. If someone wants to run 1" conduit, double it to 2" or 3". In the future there will be some new technology and it's almost impossible to ever remove old wiring, but adding new will be much easier.
Climate control -- note I didn't say air conditioning. For the best results, the room should have the ability to have it's own climate control. This may mean air cleaners (if fresh air is used for heating/cooling), air conditioning unit, etc. Don't rely on the building system, because as technology changes the heating/cooling requirements of the technology will change.
A space twice the size you need.. Equipment is always changing in size.. both bigger and smaller, as are the company needs.. room to grow is a good thing!
Finally power.. the room should have it's own dedicated power feed, that can easily be managed by a generator, power backup unit, etc.. even if you don't need those things today, planning ahead for them makes it a whole lot cheaper if you do ever need them. Again relying on building wide power is fine for a while.. but it's much better to have the ability for dedicated stuff in the IT room.
We are looking at moving to a facility double the size of ours. My hit list is:
- 10x10 server room. All wiring for phones and network will land there
- CAT 5E or Cat 6 cabling throughout for phone and data
- Dropping the old nortel phones for VOIP (internal only) phones. Easier to configure and has tones more features
- 4 drops in every office (You never know when they'll need it and they'll try to cramp 2 people in there
- Roaming wireless AP through the plant (we will be going to 60000 sqft so I have 6 of them)
I'm not going to talk about electrical and other facilities since electricians have a good handle on what companies need today (usually 2 double outlets per room and 20amp circuit for microwaves in lunch room)...
A ZPM for independant power supply
Pneumatic ones.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
A thermonuclear device planted below the building - in case things go bad.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Technology moves all the time. Make it easy to pull new cables/fiber/whatzits as you need it.
A few years ago, I saw a new Electrical Engineering building at a uinversity. Every office and lab backed up to a 6 foot wide access hallway that was essentially a giant, walk-in cable tray. New connectivity was a simple matter of going through the wall.
Now, I'm sure you don't have that kind of budget or space. But consider how close you can come to that. A machine shop always needs to get AC power and air around, also. Mabye there is some building layout that serves both purposes.
Your needs will depend on, among other things, your layout. Is it a shop/front office setup, a series of small rooms, or just one big open area? Depending on what the physical setup of the building (and computers/phones), a single distribution frame may not be appropriate. Considering the size of the building, I would assume that, in addition to your main distribution frame, at least one IDF (independent distribution frame, i.e. "small telecom closet") would be necessary to overcome the attenuation limitations of Ethernet cabling (assuming this isn't a end-to-end fiber shop, a situtation which would provide many different questions and answers).
Assuming that the cable is run in anything other than under-floor conduit, talk to your architect about how and where the cable raceway will be placed. It's been my experience that most architects don't take cable installation concerns into account when designing floorplans, and thus you often end up with situations where it is next-to-if-not-impossible to get a new cable down a certain length of run, because the designer placed the raceway too damn close to HVAC equipment, or it runs blind 30' up a column with no access port, or any of at least a dozen other stupid situation's I've been in because nobody thought discussing layout was worth the time.
What else, what else... Well, you'll probably want to have some 220 and/or 440 circuits brought into your distribution frames, just in case you need that sort of power at a later date (if you don't already now) - I know the Cisco Catalyst series of routers require at least 1 220v Twist-Loc connection for power, 2 with redundant power supplies.
That's about all the advice I can think of to give, considering the limited information you've provided. Still, useful stuff.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
big money saver.
So that employees can cycle or run/walk to work, or at lunch and not stink up the place. Fit employees are cheaper on the health-care front and happier.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
For the phones I would make sure your telephony switch supports VoIP handsets and wire anywhere you expect to have a telephone with PoE. All the VoIP phones I've used have a built in switch so you can plug the user's workstation into the phone. Newer phones will have a gigabit switch. I've done testing with Avaya and Cisco phones and I couldn't find any bandwidth limits when plugged into the phone vs. straight into the wall jack. It's a great setup because you don't need power dongles or redundant wiring for the phones. Each desk has one jack for voice and data.
Check the power draw from the phones and make sure your switch can provide enough. I've seen PoE switches that can't light up every port because some devices were pulling too much power. Current-generation phones seem to take far less power than they did a couple of years ago unless they have big fancy LCD screens.
This may require an upgrade to your PBX though, which can be expensive. For the size organization you're talking about (or for just about any size, depending on specific features you need) going with Asterisk might be a great idea. You get free conference bridge support, voice mail, menuing, etc. and can perhaps ditch the service contract you're paying right now. You can find IP phone service as well or if you want to stick with T1s (or copper if it's cheaper), Digium sells hardware to support that which is generally pretty affordable.
And, unrelated to the phones, you might want to put LAN drops in the ceiling throughout the office for wireless access points.
and Power (3 phase if possible) and enough to triple what you have now to plan for future growth.
Somebody's going to mod me down, but I'm dead serious. This is the second time a company I worked for has moved to a new location with no storage space for anything at all -- HR documents, financial documents, machinery (both active and surplus), office supplies, even employee's coats. Let me assure you how professional it looks to have random file cabinets placed all over what are supposed to be ADA-compliant-width hallways. </sarc>
Two essential things you'll want to consider, or at least ask about:
1) Power in the event your main electrical supply goes out. Do you have a UPS in the data center? Do you need a generator on-site to keep things running? How much is it powering - just IT, or the CNC machines, too?
2) Make sure every damn thing in the building is easy to access once the building is complete. Light bulbs, faucets, AV equipment, etc. We moved into a beautiful building in 2006, with all sorts of high-tech displays all over the site, embedded into the walls. The majority of them are next to impossible to access if you want to re-seat a cable, replace a power supply, change a bulb, etc. It's at the point now where most of them are off and dormant, because it will require a general contractor to access them and do minor maintenance.
Oh, and a big red button for the BOFH to initiate discharge. Preferably with PFY and his (perhaps imaginary) girlfriend snuggling behind a warm rack ;)
But seriously, just deal with two CAT6 cables going to every desk -- that's all. You don't need any phone wiring, because in this day and age, you can buy cheap IP phones -- say used Zultys ZIP4x4s that cost at most $50 each and work well (but look like crap, sorry) with Asterisk. They have managed ethernet switches built-in. You'll want a decent Linux server, capable of running Asterisk. For the phones, probably you should get a PRI line coming in, or get a decent Internet connection and use VOIP, but PRI is less of an unknown if you need to deal with faxes. The PCI or PCI-X PRI card from Digium will cost between $500 and $1000 IIRC, but is well worth the investment. Get some nice HP ProCurve PoE switches, you can get them used. For your secretary and the CEO you'll want Aastra 6755i as that looks better and has fully documented bells and whistles, and isn't doesn't cost much more used either. You can get Suzy's Twitter feed on them if you so wish :)
Just look on eBay, be careful, and you'll figure out there's a couple of sellers there who are good and have first hand knowledge of HP gear and they do actually refurbish it, apply updates so you won't waste time, etc. I suggest HP gear over Cisco, as with HP you don't need any support contracts and updates are free as long as product remains in support. Cisco won't speak to you unless you fork over some money or already have a "blanket" support contract with them.
Avoid any sort of vendor lock-in. Don't go for closed systems.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Windows!
Make sure you have diversified off-grid power to gracefully power-down the server room, maintain server A/C and building access security: UPS, Generator, Solar, Wind. Great for green promotion and those pesky power glitches. Be very disciplined on those monthly tests, the one system you didn't test is the one that fails.
A bathroom. With showers.
0x or or snor perron?!
Private office with full bath and sleeping arrangements (preferably with the receptionist)
I'd suggest the most important things will be power for the server room (incl UPS & backup generator, scaled to your runtime needs for orderly shutdown of servers in case of an extended outage) and run conduits/wiring shelves to enable the easy stringing of fiber/copper in the future.
I'd also suggest making sure the building is wifi/wireless friendly - if all interior walls are metal, for example, you may need an ungodly number of APs to enable wireless networking.
As for the server room, I'd think real hard about the size room you think you'll need, then double it. This is your chance to ensure you have enough room for everything now, and while virtualization is all the rage, I wouldn't use that to justify skimping on space. You'll want romm for the equipment, systems you are working on, spare parts, and perhaps space for your desk (preferably with a door between you and the server to cut down on noise).
Run wiring trays in the server room - run the wires overhead, not under raised floor.
Finally, don't forget cooling - as servers become denser and denser, their heat output doesn't shrink in my experience. Also, not familiar with CNC shops, but air filtration for the server room might also be in order.
Ken
(ok still with conduit), Overbuild the wiring layout. If you expand or change machines, you will need to run new wire to the machines (I am assuming CNC machines). You just can't plug a USB stick into a drill press anymore (although that will work). Its better to have programs downloaded to machines over wires. Make sure your conduit is large enough to support maybe double the amount of wire you initially intend to run. A wiring closet (or set of closets) is also a good idea. Remember that when they install new milling machines or CMMs (Computer Measuring Machines), they will likely need to cut the concrete floor and possibly add a sand barrier + lots of rebar and concrete to isolate that machine from vibration of all the other machines, and also to keep that machine very well secured. The conduit run might be better 4 feet off the floor along the outside wall. Also overhead runs and conduit lines coming down from the ceiling might be your best bet. I worked for a place that was 160,000 square feet. They mostly made oilfield parts. 45 CNC lathes, 20 CNC mills (small precision 5 axis Mori Sekis to big Hitachis), 5 manual lathes, 1 manual mill, and about a dozen Charmilles CNC EDMs (Electronic Discharge Machines). All CNC machines were 'wired'. They did not want operators bringing their own USB sticks into the shop.
Does the IT systems have to be up 24/7 for the CNC rigs? If so, what about UPS/generators/power backup?
You mention security systems, too -- that's another ball of wax. Going with badges, biometrics, security guards, or what?
Fire systems? Are you both the IT guy and the guy in charge of a fire suppression system? In a CNC manufacturing environment? Do you work with hazardous materials on the CNC floor? If so, get an expert.
Hot climate, cold climate? Wet, dry? Flood zone? Likely to get buried in snow zone? Is the new facility out in the middle of nowhere? Middle of a big city? High crime zone? War zone? It sounds like you've got the obvious stuff down, but are asking for the non-obvious, but without a more information, the non-obvious stuff is harder to suggest. (i.e the sort of thing like 'Oh, it's in *that* country/state -- don't do X, because regulation/union/group Y will bite you.') It's hard to 'be in your shoes' without a bit more info.
Beside all the obvious cabling and whatever, I would install a good kitchen.
Preferably with room for doing a whole rotisserie pig.
And you need a big walk in fridge for curing meat.
Hey, I don't work in a CNC shop.
DO NOT FUCKING stand and talk on walkways and doorways.
you can never have too many cable trays and ducts. makes pulling and replacing so much better. you will never get more space, so spec double sized equipment room with a separate air handler. oil vapor and water vapor from the cutting tools does not go well with servers and stuff.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I've been down this road a few times - install separate ductwork leading in and out of the server/telco room (with the intakes on the opposite side of the building from your other ductwork) if you can possibly afford it.
Dirt and machine oil and metal filings can move surprising distances. Separate HVAC to the server room works far better than extra filters which just get clogged.
Also, like others have said - conduit for data lines to every workstation. Potentially cheaper than fiber (if you do it right the first time) and more durable and future-proof.
Plan for the future.You can never have too much cabling in the walls.
Every cable run double what you think you need and then add 1
For example a location that will get one computer, run 3 cat6 cables. A location that gets 2 computers run 5 cat6 cables.
First, make sure you know all the current needs. Are you just doing to electrical infrastructure, or ALL of it. Who else is providing input to your boss? There are certain groups that will have higher priority in the building design, such as Safety & Occupational Health, Human Factors, etc. Make sure these are covered BEFORE you start planning. You don't want safety to throw up a flag if you need a power box near an eyewash station.
Next, ask what is in the business pipeline for the near and far future. You may know some of these, but not all of them...
Check industry vendors to get an idea of where the future of CNC equipment you may be using is going. What infrastructure will be needed to support these capabilities? How will the workfloor change to accommodate these machines?
Bearing these in mind, scope up your desired infrastructure. Keep in mind:
a) Boss may not be able to afford everything. Make sure it is possible to scope back your design. Be sure to also know and communicate what risks become more likely if the scale-down is needed. There will also be compromise if multiple designers present conflicting designs.
b) Remember your *ilities. Make sure changes can be implemented, because maintenance, breakdowns, and logistics happen and the world has revolutionary changes that nobody expects.
- Sig
Conduit all of your network/Telephony runs from the Telco/IT closet to the jacks. Makes adding runs and upgrading so much easier
AS in dedicated AC, dedicated power and dedicated power backup systems. None of this "use storage closet 1A" crap with no AC and no real power.
Get them to run 4 dedicated 20 amp circuits into that closet. a dedicated AC unit and have them insulate all the walls to keep noise down and cooling efficient. a nice sealing steel door as well to keep the sound from intruding into the office space as well.
Oh and if you need 3 racks in there, ask for 6 racks of space. I hate the "we made the room wide enough for 3 racks"... how am I supposed to get to the back of them?
Lastly, assume the contractor and architect are morons. you must spell out your needs exactly. as in "IT closet is 42.5 inches wide by 77.341 inches long with a 92 inch ceiling clearance. Fiberglass batting in all walls and ceiling with 6 inch conduits leaving the room (specify 2X the size of any wiring conduit to ANY location.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I am the only IT person.
If NOTHING else, a backup for you.
I design IT for buildings.
Be sure to put in enough access points for wireless. If you can't afford a lot, at least pull the cat6.
If you want to use any kind of access control (card keys for doors) make that IP-based, not the ancient 6-wire proprietary cable.
If you want security cameras, those should all be Ethernet, too. Again, at least pull the cable and terminate it in a J-box.
Put in a small server room (size of an office) with extra air-conditioning, no window, and a heavy-gauge door.
As far a servers go, everything is going VMware now.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
You should install empty, large, conduit raceways with pull strings connecting every room in the building. That pretty-much future proofs it.
A dedicated server/telco room is a must. Room size determination is simple as taking our current rack number and multiple by two. Add 3' ft in the back and 6' in the front. I would also install a dedicated electrical panel. It makes adds/moves/changes much easier later. Also I would hammer on the electrical contractor to insure there is a good ground to the panel. This will mitigate a ton of "transient" problems later. I would also install four 2" conduits to a outside pull box for telco access. That way the local telcos don't tear up your new building trying to bring service in. It also forces the demarc to be inside your server room which makes issues easier to deal with later. Make sure one side of your wall has 3/4" ply/OSB to act as a peg board. A full 4x8 sheet is good enough. Also I would speak with the fire contractor about installing a dry system inside your server room. That way the sprinklers don't ruin your expensive equipment. I would also go for a dedicated AC unit. To size take your current BTU needs and multiple by two. I would also install a solid door with a punch key keypad. You can get inexpensive ones at local hardware store. Lastly since you guys are most likely a warehouse style building so I would not run conduit unless I had too. I would use wire troughs or hangers with shielded CAT6 cable. That way you don't trap yourself later with conduit. If you want to hide the cables then paint them. There are a bunch more suggestions but those are the big ones.
~^\-/^|-|^\-/^~ May the force be with me!
Two, at least.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
You may want to check out Garrett Wollman's Usenix LISA '05 talk on this experience with what CSAIL did in "Building MIT's Stata Center: An IT Perspective":
http://static.usenix.org/event/lisa05/tech/
You probably don't need to deal with "modern architecture" (read: no storage space), but it's a good list of things not to do.
BICSI RCDD (Registered Communication Distribution Designer) here.
Wonderful that you actually call for an equipment room, very commonly overlooked or multipurposed equipment room MDF.
Everything mentioned regarding a separate well-sealed server room with independent HVAC (include the MDF/IDF wiring closets in environmental considerations in an industrial environment), and overcabling for current needs (run CAT6, extra conduits, spare capacity or build-out space everywhere) is spot on.
One item I do not see (yet) is a good UPS System.
One other concern is where you are located (100 year flood plain?) and where the equipment room should be located. Usually in a basement for ease of getting the cable in, you may want to consider the cable coming in the basement, but the actual equipment room up one floor to avoid flooding concerns.
Don't know how critical you consider your outside world connectivity (internet, VOIP) but you may want a second redundant (geographically diverse) net connection. Nothing like finding out your second provider leases capacity on the same fiber run by the primary coming in your building when a cut happens.
I think you should ask for a basement server room and office. You can use some of the natural underground cooling to cut some costs but also include plenty of vent/clean/ac. Make it twice as big as you think you need..it will probably end up being too small in 10 years even if you do that. Next.. have underground corridors and wiring races to strategic places in the building. Make the corridors comfortable to walk through an the races at least twice what you need as well. Sell it for security, sell it for saving topside space , and sell it for the geo-thermal savings as well as ease of upgradeability of infrastructure. But make *sure* you have plenty of elbow room. You dont want crawl spaces, you want corridors.
Technology will continue to advace, so I suggest having some type of magical conduit installed that protects wires from EMI, while at the same time hiding the wires, while still making it very easy to upgrade the wiring.
Have the unicorn help you.
Just remember that everything you really need... they'll value-engineer out.
It seems sort of silly, but you would be amazed how much a well laid-out set of conduits for network cable will make your life simpler now, and in the future.
Service loop in the cables near their destination is also a must.
Other than that, invest in some good cable management for your racks, and if you can, try to ensure that your server/telco room has an A/C system on a different circuit from the rest of the A/C. If you have the budget, a dedicated climate control system would be great too.
Also, don't forget power. Try to make sure you've got a UPS with some room for growth on its own circuit (a dedicated 480 3-phase if you can get it). If you don't have the budget there, then at least a TVSS (transient voltage surge suppressor) or power conditioner.
I most certainly agree that a dedicated server room and (separate if possible) dedicated telco room is a must. Why separate? So you don't have to let the telco technicians near your servers any more than you have to. Less hands in the pot, and less temptation for strangers.
Second, put in a series of switch rooms near each office area, and run fibre between them and the server room. As noted, allow for extra space so more fiber can be run later; then put CAT-6/7 patch panels in to the switch rooms, and run CAT-6/7 to each desk from there. Again, think about having extra space and set it up so you can easily replace the ethernet cable with fiber at some point in the future.
Third, get a good network-centric PBX, think Asterisk or something from Cisco (if you can afford it), and then put in VOIP phones at each desk instead of putting in separate RJ-11 cabling for analog phones.
Fourth, any where that needs a network connection on the floor by equipment should get its own fiber optic link, with a local switch, and short ethernet lines (CAT6/7). Why? You minimize any interference issues with the equipment on the floor. It might not be much, but it'll be worth it.
Also, if you are running between buildings or between sections of a building that are on (for whatever reason) different power grids, save yourself the time and put in fiber comms to isolate them. We have two buildings where I work now that are on separate power grids, and for a long time they were running ethernet directly between them, and kept burning out ports when a t-storm came through - a simple fiber optic isolator solved the problem.
Now, you might think doing the fiber thing - or at the very least planning for it - is over kill. However, think of it as an investment. If not for the companies use, then as a value-add should the company need to sell the building - the next tenant could be a Facebook/Amazon/Walmart requiring massive data-througput so don't cut yourself short by not making it easy to put in while you have the opportunity to do so.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
I moved a company of about 150 from a 10,000 sqft or so office to a newly built 13,000 sqft office. Not quite as large of a size increase but the main change was that in the old office, everything was rigged to work, the "server room" was just a re purposed office. The cat5 was run as needed, a lot by me.
Anyway, first focus should be your server/comm room. Shoot for an independent, dedicated A/C, a waterless fire suppression system (make sure they don't put a sprinkler head in during construction and that you have everything approved with local fire code), dedicated electrical circuit (ideally 220v), also make sure they don't blindly put carpet or things like that in the room. Run Cat5e everywhere. Plan out what you think you need now for each room and, if budget allows, double it. Rooms that are more likely to change, do your best to run extra Cat5e. If you can afford it, go up to Cat 6 instead of Cat5e, again, budget matters. Get professionals to do your wiring for you. Get several quotes and make sure you see some past work before you hire them. Well done cabling can make a huge difference in an office. You don't want people throwing cable over florescent lights, or parallel to unshielded power lines or things like that. A good cable runner will leave a service loop of 10-15 feet (maybe more depending on the room) above each drop in case you need to move wall locations later. Everything should be neatly labeled, organized, etc, so that when you have an issue, it should take 5 seconds to figure out which port is messed up, not 5 hours.
Many devices sold today won't be able to connect to wired routers. So, in addition to the full ethernet cabeling and the fiber-backbone there should also be a good strategy to avoid wireless networks. Even legacy networks like 811g. Some walls should even be painted with wifiblockers. Or, you could simply use tinfoil on the backside of the plates. Also, cellphone chargers. If you want to reduce energy-usage on cellphone charging, you could have a 1-hour stop on those chargers.
Given that they only have 40 employees, 1 would technically be 'overkill', so yeah, I'd backstop with some contracted rate support. Having one dedicated can be worth the expense due to experience with them, even if he's not fully utilized. Plus, if he does support/programming for the CNC machines, he may have some serious specialty knowledge.
I don't read AC A human right
I had to do a computer install in a new office once, where they have a metric crap ton of servers, workstations, and printers. Servers were stored in the work area. They had probably 15 circuits installed (as it was a concrete structure) suface mounted about a week before we moved in the equipment. I think they had 5 sets of breakers, each were 15 amps. I think there were 20 or so employee's and probably about 15 servers running. Let's just say that even standby power on the printers would trip them...
I could say a nice telecommunications closet would be great, but don't make the mistake that too many others have. Make sure you can get some good ventilation going otherwise that closet will be your nightmare.
On a positive note, at least you're thinking about the problem before hand.
1 expect your network need to grow: run your cables in a conduit that is 2-3 times what you think you need also don't curve your conudiuts more than say 45 degrees in the same meter (so you do a 90 in 2 45s spaced a meter apart)
2 ditto for your power conduit: special note have these conduits a different color from data (slapping a High Voltage glyph on it every couple meters would also be a good idea)
3 have Red and Blue outlets installed in every "large" room: a Red Outlet is on a dedicated circuit so you can safely install a HighPower item into it Blue outlets are on the same circuit also MAP THE CIRCUITS (circuit J24 goes to which room??)
4 Showers and a decent Food place: This will help your staff not turn into Crazy Stinking Apes if you have to go into a Lockdown time (for whatever reason)
5 Climate control: have anything that is "messy" on a seperate system (or at least "down wind") this will also help you in your hazmat control.
6 Proper Hallways: plan things so that you have decent "escape routes" for when TSHTF (if you can setup SG1 style RingRooms that would also work)
7 Decent Windows for the People Rooms: of course you should also have a way for these to be blocked off if needed (or frost them) but seeing the sun does wonders for folks health.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
If you can, a centralized location with a patch-panel is often helpful, in which case leave some extra cable for expansion (with a bit of slack) if possible.
One thing I've been impressed with in some workplaces is the effort given to labelling cables. Having a (usable) label on the wall-plate is important, preferable with something that can easily be mapped to where it goes. A-1, A-2, B-3 etc can all be referenced to a diagram, but sometimes LNCH-1 or MGR-2 are easier to track down so long as they're grouped properly on the panel.
Beyond that though, get the little label clips that go on the cables themselves, and leave a little extra in the run somewhere accessible. When the cable gets wrecked at the wall-plate and needs to be docked back then re-patched, it helps a lot!.
Power - Run all that you can on 208V to help reduce power overhead (no need for step down) with a good UPS with graceful shutdown on non-critical systems. Look in to isolating your equipment from the machine shop if you expect a lot of power fluctuations (I'm not familiar the power draw on CNC machines, inductive loads can wreak havoc on IT equipment).
Interference - Consider running fiber between closets if you expect the cable run to cross an area with high levels of interference.
Cabling - Wiring panels and conduit with room to grow, already mentioned a number of times in other posts.
Wireless and Security - POE is your friend, you can control power from your data center and no need to spend money installing power in the ceiling just for an access point or security camera.
Wireless Site Survey - If wireless plays a role in your organization get a complete wireless survey done before and after the machine shop is up and running. The environment can change after systems are up and running.
Virtual Environment - VDI from VMWare is great, keep the desktop virtualized in a controlled environment with cheap replaceable terminals on the machine shop floor (some new terminals and phones are no powered by POE as well, complete control from your server room!).
Sounds like fun, enjoy!
No sig here...
After building a small business up and moving into a new facility, as you are, one of our greatest concerns was power and uptime. To that end, we afforded a nice natural gas generator with auto cutover for our Server and comunications closet. This saved our bacon when the north eastern blackout occured. Not only did we have internet and servers up, but the two additional powerlines we ran to our break room meant we had Fridges, Water coolers, and air conditioning. Many of our staff worked late those days due to the luxeries we had.
Beyond that, I agree with most of the other commenters. Good clean conduit for whatever you decide to run (cat 5/6, fiber, twizzlers), Solid, flush mount junction boxes with multiple inputs (specifically for conference rooms), and bathrooms that make sense (touchless, not backed up to confrence spaces, and easily hosed down incase of accidents).
Another thing we did was run conduit out to our lighting poles for additional survillance in the future. Initally it was only used on one pole, but eventually we put up several devices out there for weather conditions and general tracking. It made it easy for us to see if the lot had been plowed or if we had an issue on the weekends with "neighbors".
Seriously, make sure that the architects are aware of the fact that there is technologically sensitive stuff in the building, so that they don't make stupid decisions that are aesthetically pleasing (?) but incompatible with what you NEED. We have a laboratory building with huge lab bays faced by walls of windows. We had to beg for some closed labs for laser and flow visualization work. They couldn't understand why we didn't want Space and Air and (most importantly) Pastels.
My opinion, space drops every 6 feet and higher than the equipment. We have 800lbs containers that are about five feet high each. We spaced all of the electrical and IT above that so we can place them anywhere in the room and it won't impact us. It makes sense for our workstation type furniture for it to be above. It has made reaching the drop much easier. When we end up connecting in the middle of dead space on a wall, we just use some basic panduit to make it look pretty.
"Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead."
How about the number one priority: hire somebody to run the IT department who has experience of this.
Unless building regs in your country are a bit lax I would suggest first discussing your plans with the architect or civ engineer. You don't want them to change your masterplan after you bragged about it to your friends and co-workers.
There are a lot of regulations covering proximity to fire escapes, maximum walking distance, materials used, etc. All this things might limit your design in some way. Make sure your architect/engineer is aware of your needs. Most civil engineers and many architects are qualified to suggest ventilation/ fire protection/ network solutions on their own and might have already designed a similar building.
Of course my experience is based on UK building regs and your country might have different ones.
Charge the architect with incorporating as much natural lighting as possible, and be sure the necessary lighting controls are incorporated to go with that -- both blinds/shades/diffusers/ on the windows/skylights, and the ability to modulate the artificial lighting to supply only what daylight can't provide.
For the last 20 years or so, I've worked at places that needed card key access, but the card just unlocked the door.
Make the door open itself after authenticating and authorizing. You should be able to put the card key in your hip pocket, and get through the door w/o touching it.
Not only will you be able to go though the door with both hands full, but you will be cut the transmission of diseases.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
you should have your boss contract out someone who does. I'm not kidding. Any poor decision you make now in regards to future growth and expansion is going to cost you a ridiculous amount of time and money to fix in the future. If you're still set on doing it yourself, here's a few tips:
-If the machines used in the shop are going to wreak havoc on CAT6, then it's likely the RFI might cause problems with WiFi as well. I would recommend doing all shielded CAT6 or fiber. I would recommend NOT using transceivers. They fail on a regular basis and in any event are generally not cost or rack space effective anyway.
-Put in much large conduit than you need and run much more fiber or copper than you need.
-Put in much more power and cooling than you need.
-In every rack, run redundant, separately breakered power
-Have a separate room or dedicated rack for telco into the building. You don't want some idiot from a provider fucking up the rest of your IT when they come to install or service their equipment.
-Put in two building penetrations with separate conduit runs that do not physically cross through the building into your dedicated telco rack/room. These should both be on street facing sides of the building, if possible
You'll want the entire facility accessible through Jefferies tubes if you want to properly future proof it.
Sexeteria...duh...
Dont forget you also need AC in the dead of winter. So if you DONT have a dedicated AC unit in the room, you will find it VERY hostile in the room when your shared cooling source goes from cool to heat, and instead of it removing heat from the room, it dumps more in. o_O
Also, dont skimp on a clean agent fire supression system. the last thing you want is a water based sprinkler system in the room flooding the equipment with water when a fire starts. If you have a fire and you have a water based system, the equipment is a total write-off. If its protected by a clean agent system, anything not touched by the fire/heat will be fine. so if you have a trashcan in the room and somebody accidentally puts a cigarette into it, the sprinkler system would destroy the equipment across the room even though it was nowhere near the flames. If a clean agent system fires, you can be in the room again within hours and the equipment is fine.
here is a cool example. Dated, but cool. This shows a real world demo of a fire in a data room and what happens when both types of suppression systems go off.
The fun starts at about the 30 second mark.
http://youtu.be/0WelmCXtsyI
Definitely a well air conditioned server room with backup generator/UPS. You'll also want to have easy to access conduits to run network lines. Also, the building should not be designed in such a way where it is bad for wireless/cellular reception.
While a food service contract might be overkill, and I'm sure there are lawyer firms(as opposed to industrial) that have catering every day, as long as we're getting away from IT recommendations, I'd say that a good breakroom with a 'full' kitchen isn't 'that' expensive and can be really nice. Add a grill outside and you can have company events.
Oh yeah, and you'll probably have it because it's an industrial company, but non-emergency showers/lockerroom.
Back on IT - given the size I'd want the 'comm closet' to be big enough for both wires and a server rack. At 40 employees, 1 rack for wiring and 1 rack for servers and other equipment should be fine. Go with seperate ducting, along with provisions for extra filtering/positive pressure(to keep the machining stuff OUT). Ductless is an option, but I'm not sure how good the filtering on those can be, plus it can be tough to do positive pressure.
In the rest of the building - CONDUIT!!! Oversized is best. I'd go with metallic for the shielding. Not knowing the dimensions I don't know if you can reach all the machines with 1 comm closet without going to fiber, but that's an option, though it's my understanding that desktop fiber NICS are getting pricy and hard to find.
I don't read AC A human right
It sounds silly but if you can,keep at least one line open.Small expense but can really save your ass.I'm not talking zombie crap but a working hardline is worth alot when IT takes a shit.
...you might as well run 2. Or better yet, 4. The cost of running 2 or 3 or 4 data lines is not that much more than running 1, and running more after the fact is always more expensive. Even if you only terminate 1 or 2 of them to begin with, having the extra cables run will make adding lines or replacing failed cables MUCH faster and easier.
Keep the ventilation for the telco room separate from the rest of the building - metal shards, oil and dirt are NOT good for servers or other telco equipment. Also, make sure the telco room has positive air pressure so stuff doesn't get sucked in when you open the door.
Make sure that the entire telco room is on a separate grounding point than the machines, otherwise you can get power surges from that. Also, make sure there's good separation between your power and data lines to avoid noise, especially near the machines themselves.
I'm sure there's tons more, but those are the bug ones I've picked up over the years.
Stripper pole, keggerator, speakeasy w/ hidden door. Jeffries tubes to access everything would be a hilarious idea too. In all seriousness, I always wish my office had a shower.
Be careful to have separate service transformers for your offices/IT rooms and large machines.
We had constant issues with some new high-current welders causing voltage droop in the server room, which made the UPSes all go crazy.
So, we had our utility install separate pad transformers for the machinery and the offices.
Also, do a very good job with creating a good MRG (Master Reference Ground). That much machinery taking large amounts of current will make this a necessity. We have ground stakes through the slab 12 feet into the ground at each of our large metalforming and welding machines.
Make sure you think of future expansion, too.
Seriosuly, nothing is ever built to plans, and if you put somethign in the contract about validating the as-builts, then you'll get as-builts, not plans stamped "as built". It really helps to know where the walls and conduits and sprinklers are.
Things you NEED to have for the room:
-UPS enough to handle power spikes/drops
-If you need 24/7 install the generator backed up circuits
-High heat sensor, in case the A/C breaks down you'll want to know if your servers are cooking themselves
-Distilled water fire extinguisher (just in case!)
-Entry control system/motion activated camera
You've got lots of answers about cabling, some for cooling and a few for power. One tiny thing you don't want to overlook is the door. You should ensure there is a plus sized pathway (check for tight turns) all the way from outside the building to the computer room where you'll have an extra tall, extra wide outward opening door. If you are building a smaller room this is really important since it may become impractical to disassemble a rack and reassemble it in such a small space (remember that there will be other running equipment you don't want to accidently knock about). Also make sure you have a properly sized ramp (and that the ramp is factored into any path and turn calculations) if you have steps or a raised floor. Unless there are security considerations a good setup would be for the server room door to be close to a large side door which in turn is close to the server rooms air conditioning units (when there is eventually a problem it would be terrible for the repair guy to have to walk back and forth through a machineshop to fix it).
I the only guy as well for a manufacturing company about that size, and probably like you, I wear a lot of hats besides being IT.
I dream of the day we build from scratch, but we will probably always keep adding on and on. I just re-ran all of our wire last year, went to VOIP, bought out first racks (we were using tables before) etc.
If I could do it from scratch, I would
1) Get your own room
2)Get that room it's own AC, and seal it off as much as possible.
3) Do what you can to get a non-water fire-suppression system, though it could add a lot of cost
4) Do what you can to have a nice room with a raised floor (so you can put wire under it) and it's own ceiling. It depends on where you are, but the danger of winds/tornadoes for us is more probable than fire. We had a CNC shop down the road from us get their roof peeled off like a tin-can from straight line winds not too long ago. Water soaked everything in the upstairs office areas.
5) Obviously use conduit when possible, and Cat6 x2 to as many places as you can. Wire and keystone jacks are cheap. Go crazy with them - you don't have to plug them all in right now.
6) If you don't have them now, one of these days your boss/owner/VP is going to come in and tell you that you need to put in security cameras, TV announcement screens, one of those stupid "Watchfire" signs outside, or something else random and hard to wire for. It'll happen. Run cable (or make accessible) places you might want to be in the future, and remember that you will want some nice conduit access outside. That cable TV/PRI/Fiber connection might come from any direction. Give yourself options and put conduit in places that can be tunneled to from the outside, preferable in all sides of the building. If everything is from scratch, put conduit under the parking lot!
7) Reserve your spot for future racks, even if you don't need them now. Eventually you might want some switches in a closet, or a rack in the far corner of the building. It doesn't have to be much, but see if you can get some nice conduit run to some places where you could put a small rack to hold some switches and patch panels. It'll probably be 60 years or more before you move again, and you or the next guy will eventually be tasked with adding something new.
Oh yeah, document everything and make it super easy to understand. Label your cables using something easy, like self-laminating tabs and a sharpie marker, on top of just numbering them. A number and cross-reference is good, but there's no reason it can't also say "To SW Corner." We also used different color cables for different systems. Between floors are purple, data is blue, telephone-only are green, fiber to outside buildings are orange, inside fiber is blue, etc.
It won't be too bad to do yourself as long as you have help running cables and conduit. See if you can visit some other factories/businesses in town and get an idea of what their spaces look like.
What I'd want is a comfortable, quiet work area separate from the milling area and server room. Have spare devices in case any networking gear fails. If you can afford it, a staging environment to test configuration rollouts (perhaps tied to a 'staging' CNC mill). Badge security for the server room doors will keep people from popping in to the server room. I might even consider 2-way radios to work through issues with people on the shop floor, which would double as a non-email alternative for announcements (server going down for a reboot in 2 minutes).
If you can't get into the meetings, you must get a data plan into the architectural drawings.
I've done this 3 times at work with new buildings or renovations and additions to new buildings. Each time I was only asked as an afterthought, and things got screwed up or left out without my knowledge. In no case did our architects give a moment's thought to data drop locations or cable paths, and if it's not printed on some layer of the drawings, it is not in the plans. It sucks to have to do 3x walk-throughs with the cable installers, scribbling on a copy of the plans, only to have to redo it every time the plans are revised. In the end the electricians will just put the wall boxes wherever they please because your scribbles never make it back to the printed plans, so your network installers will have to cut in their own boxes, raising your installation costs.
In one building that was constructed about 10 years ago, the server room was moved and the dedicated air conditioning disappeared in the process. That caused the email server crash and corrupted its storage one June weekend when the Buildings and Grounds Manager decided to turn off the AC to save power. Also in the change, the width of the server room shrank by 18 inches, making it impossible to fit a standard server cabinet. The first floor in this building is pretty easy to network, except for the fact that the in-floor conduit grid for the library was hacked out of the plans without my knowledge, but the second floor is a real trial. Wiring passing down the corridor has to pass through about 20' of an indoor soffit with no conduit and no access except from small hatches at each end. It just has J-hooks and a pull-string, and the pull-string broke.
In one building added onto about 10 years ago there is no network closet. The IDF is a cabinet perched above a slop sink. No disaster's yet, but I'm waiting for the day when someone splashes water into the power outlet.
In another building offices on sides are separated by masonry walls floor to cieling (no drop ceiling) and a gymnasium and workout room. The only conduits connecting the 2 sides are 3, 1" underground runs from the data/sports equipment closet to a locker room in the far corner of the building, or a long, serpentine nest of conduits around the gym ceiling. The building was renovated about 4 years ago when the workout room and additional office was added. They could have added a simple 4" or so conduit through the workout room. Instead, I'm using the underground conduits, making the data runs about 100 feet longer than they need to be and a lot more trouble than they need to be. The underground cat 5e cables have not shorted out yet, but it's just
When we moved into a new building, The It and I had drops run to every wall, 4 per desk, 4 per office, 8 if it was going to have 2 people in it.
This worked out really well and even then we only had about 6 months before we had to run more cable. One thing we learned was you can never have to large of a cable tray running above the ceiling, If i ever do a kinda move like that again its going to be able to support a cars size bundle of cable.
Look at the JACE line of global controllers, they can integrate lighting, access control, HVAC functions and automation control. Having all those systems talking to one another and working together will get you huge efficiency gains.
http://www.tridium.com/
You need windows that open.
And/or ventilation systems that actually work (as opposed to ones that are *supposed* to work, as in all other buildings constructed after WWII).
Some bike parking would be nice.
Think about where the trash is supposed to go.
A roof that doesn't leak is a good idea, too: that means you keep it simple, and probably don't try to do stuff like install skylights. Flat roofs are an extremely bad idea, but you're going to use them anyway, so pointing that out was a waste of time.
First of all, you have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there's the kickbacks to the carpenters. And if you plan on using any cement in this building I'm sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with you, and that'll cost you. Don't forget a little something for the building inspectors. There's the long-term costs, such as waste disposal. I don't know if you're familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it's not the boy scouts.
mod me funny
Trust me: You will thank yourself every day.
It baffles me why we in the western world are still walking around with dirty backsides.
How about a decent sized overhead crane for relocating machines and carry around of items.
Don't let someone design a terrible bathroom layout. In one of our bathrooms I have to put my arm over the toilet paper dispenser to fit, and I'm not a big guy. The toilet is also mounted too high, so I have to sit on the balls... of my feet.
A dedicated cooling system for server rooms. Last place I worked it got 90 - 100 in the server room because it had no zone of it's own.
As a few others have touched on, from experience in a large industrial facility where the original designers planned for extensive future needs, you can never have enough pre-existing infrastructure. Your enemy will be the value engineering process where someone determines that you can save money by going with the minimum requirements that the applicable codes require. Few may know this, but extensions are illegal for permanent use (> 90 days and OSHA likes to cite for this one). RPTs (relocatable power taps, a.k.a. power strips) can not be daisy chained or plugged in to extension cords. The longest cord I've found on a UL listed RPT is 25'.
Things we did do right that you might consider.
1. Separate circuits for courtesy, UPS, isolated ground, dimmed and switched power.
2. Over-sized switch/breaker panels for future needs. This is nice, but now to run new conduit it requires engineering & permitting, which costs $ so the need must be great enough to get all the necessary approvals. As another poster mentioned, run extra conduit.
3. We have an excellent network of cable trays for running data/comm throughout the facility.
4. Our systems are separated on different transformers (Machinery, lighting, a/v etc)
5. We have multiple control racks strategical placed around the facility that are part of our dual ring network.
If I could go back in time the fist thing I would change is to halve the spacing between between outlets, wall jacks etc. (or turn duplex's into quads etc, but try to keep them separate circuits for flexibility).
The one thing I didn't see mentioned that is cheap up front but expensive to retrofit is low voltage conduit under the parking surface to run CAT6 for IP cameras on the parking lot light poles. You hang them on the poles and you see everything, you try to cover the building from the side of the building... imperfect solution.
Also sushi in the commissary while you watch the news on a TV hanging on the wall. And fiber runs across the ceiling cutting the space into zones.
Have fun!
The recommendations above to include separate climate control and extra conduit space are all excellent and should obviously be followed.
Based on OP's statement that they do some DoD work, I'd recommend contacting compliance specialists and ensuring that your setup will allow for and far exceed whatever physical and procedural safeguards they may require for your facility. The regulatory atmosphere in this area is only getting it harsher, and building it right now - with room to expand - will be a big bonus in the long run.
Now, more importantly: include a nice gym. It doesn't need to be fancy - a few elliptical machines, some treadmills, and some basic weight machines (or free weights and benches) will do. Throw in some nice, private shower space as well. It will VASTLY improve the standard of living for your employees.
Case in point: me. I didn't have any space in my home for exercise equipment nor any inclination to join a gym. Then my office moved to a location with an on-site gym. "Eh, I'll try it over lunch" I said to myself. I'm glad I did; 10 weeks later, I'd lost 27 pounds and was in much better shape than I had been in years. I was far more alert and productive in the afternoons, never had to go off-site (which is a pain in the winter snow) and felt far, far better about life. All it took was about 45 minutes of exercise/day.
Don't view it as a luxury. It's an investment. A good gym will quickly pay for itself. Just do it.
I don't know what your company is planning to build currently but they should look at Green buildings like the amazing Heifer International - Green Building. I have visited it and know someone who was show the various costs month by month running the building and he was amazed at how much they saved on energy, water and all the rest.
The EPA has various funding options I believe for Green Buildings and some places may well offer Tax break incentives to go green. In the long run a well designed Green building pays for itself. It is also a good idea to have good Natural lighting if you can manage it, the Heifer International building is beautifully designed with this in mind.
Another thing to consider is indoor air quality, I remember there was a TED Talk by Kamal Meattle: How to grow fresh air depending where your building is built and the air quality this can be amazingly good for everyone in the office.
I hope you find this useful even if it wasn't exactly what you were seeking.
i) a nice rack with room for a couple of Clue-by-4's, a LART and a standby Cluebat. Quick release straps are good.
ii) lots of diskspace to store a copy of the Internet just in case one of the bean-counters loses it.
The first thing I build when I am on a limited budget is a money printing press. After you get that set up your options open up significantly.
Might be a good opportunity to show off your IT skills if you use the opportunity to shorten the distances between the different stations while at the same time leaving enough room between them to expand them - A flow chart with the different processes and optimising it would probably be enough. Might become a travelling salesman problem if you are lucky.
Also, make sure very important systems either don't need power (phone) or have their own backup. Make sure it won't affect your budget when someone else profits. You might want to keep equipment which is unlikely to cause much trouble but which also needs backup power or something else you need close-by, so that you can share it. That will also improve your choices.
Keep the different parts of your infrastructure separate, but close, like phone and network. You don't want to search for the right cables all the time, but you also want to be able to switch to voip on your side (your telco is only splitting it for marketing reasons, anyway).
You might want to suggest keeping the dusty areas separate from the non-dusty areas, for the sake of the employees, while (without affecting your budget too much) getting your server room and routers close enough to the factory as necessary, without affecting them too much with pollution.
Think about a way to cool the servers (to some part) without expensive cooling. Simply making sure the hot air can move up freely or with just a simple fan, while the cold air is clean and plenty, can reduce cooling needs by a large percentage.
Make sure to position your server/coms room close to all useful infrastructure - water pipes in case water cooling is added, power, cooling, and so on. If you do it through good location instead of demanding a higher budget, it will help you.
Ask your boss to let you add future savings of your budget to the budget of today - make sure you only do that where you know you will actually save that money in a short time.
Make sure you get what will make your work easier out of this - more reliable stuff, easier to use stuff, and so on.
When you spec conduit and network/power points, work on the assumption that whoever audits the plan is going to cut out a fair few to save money - unless you are absolutely 100% certain that this won't happen. Make sure it is abundantly clear that the extras are needed. I've seen too many installations where IT have specified with future proofing built in and whoever audited the design trimmed out what looked like redundant ports/sockets to save a few pence - then complains about your planning a few months later when they can't have an additional desk/printer/screen in their office because there are no spare ports/sockets to plug it into - then complains about the sky-high cost of adding them because there's no conduit (they trimmed that too).
Plan for sockets/ports on every wall of an office so that you don't end up with cables trailing across the floor when they move everything around or try and cram in another couple of desks next year.
Plan wireless in up front if you are going to use it, or you'll end up with dozens of little 4-port wireless routers dotted all over the place and a nightmare keeping track of them all (seen this as well).
Make sure door sizes are adequate. Need a palletized load to get in a room with a hand jack? Put in the right door!
Knew a company who builtt an addition on that expected a counterbalanced forklift to fit thru a man door...
Overhead - Starline Busway Power Distribution system
Steel storm shutters, 50 caliber machine gun turrets and stores of MREs in case of Zombie Invasion!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Give the walls 1 foot thick, and the ceiling 2 feet thick of fiberglass insulation. Have the walls and roof be light colors to reduce heating from sunlight. A metal roof and walls are good at cooling down. Windows and uninsulated doors will lose heat quite readily.
Rooms: I like having three rooms or closets depending on the size: 1) Room 1: For outside plant telco termination, vendor/provider CPE devices, etc. This should have a separate locking system and that you can use to let them have access to THEIR equipment without necessarily giving themselves access to YOUR equipment. 2) Room 2/Telco: For your telco equipment and cable termination. Here you bring back in all of your cabling from around the plant and I would fastidiously follow every bit of advice given on using larger conduit and labeling every conduit and preferably every cable. One thing to think about is location of the room though: if it is central copper may be OK. If it is on a building corner you may want to plan for 12-strand OM4 MMF and a 12-strand SMF fiber pull to each conduit. Why? 40Gb and 100Gb isn't spec'd on Cat6/6A/7 yet - and requires anywhere from 4-10 pairs of MMF/SMF for the SR10/SR4 specs. Plus, while Copper gets aged and obsoleted every 5-10 years SMF has been a perennial long-lifecycle choice and the actual fiber and termination costs are around the same. 3) Room 3/Server Room: Here I like a contained hot-aisle with exhaust out the building and dedicated HVAC, dual power circuits, separate PDUs, UPS systems, etc. I would plan on 30kW per cabinet of servers as a power requirement and then make sure you can dissipate that heat, ingest that power, move enough airflow, etc. dg
I work in this industry and the one thing that people have noticed they always don't pay uch attention to is to build out a cellular DAS (Distributed Antenna System). With everyone being so connected and expecting service, WAPs solve half the problem but your employees/workers going outside or away from their desk to make a call because of poor coverage is unacceptable and also counter-productive. Make sure you research and go with the right vendor (I don't want to be my company spokesperson here:)) and that they are FCC and carrier approved.
And a shark tank. And a big sign that says "Out of Order Do NOT Use"
Read Stewart Brand's How buildings learn, especially the section about purpose built buildings vs 'general purpose' buildings and how to deal with 'planning for future technology'. Executive summary is buildings which are overspecialized for today's needs and technologies rarely work well in the first place (your requirements have usually changed even before the building is finished), and are usually being bashed down within 50 years as unusable spaces. He argues the best bet for 'future proofing' is to aim for a building that's easy to modify - if you can rip out an inconvenient wall or add a raised floor or remove the raised floor and add another wall without to much drama or cost, you'll still be happy in 20 years,
LED lights
Architects and contractors are terrible with putting technology in buildings, especially anything when they are not familer with it. Be prepared to do a lot of baby sitting. My IT department met with the Architect, we had a heck of a time just putting in what we needed then we had to check it and fix their mistakes. Then the contractors won't even follow the plans unless your constantly on them and correcting them. Even still a conduit in concrete didn't get put it, it will be 4 figures to put it in now.
Water. MREs. 20' high, 10' thick concrete perimeter walls, parapets with windows designed for overlapping fields of fire and other defensible positions. Also, make sure you're zoned for surface to air missiles. Never can tell.
A few cool astronomical alignments say the rays of the solstice sun strike the coffee machine etc
You really, really want to have easily accessible and replaceable filters on air returns leaving the machine shop. The oil gets EVERYWHERE. You wouldn't believe the oily gunk I pull out of the computers, even on the other side of the building. Make sure the returns from the shop are sufficient so that your not sucking air out of the shop via open doorways. Keep shop doors closed at all times via door closers. If possible, have shop on it's own, completely separate heating / cooling units.
QC should be on the office ventilation system, not shop, and have very well controlled temperature regulation for precision measurements.....
Run Multiple cirruct for basic Power Manufacturing - Conditioned power for high power electronics - basic power for lights, blowers, vacuum cleaner and utility used. Offices - Central hard wired UPS to all desk for PC only. Conditioned line for printers and other electronics. Utility power (can be conditioned or not) for lights, cleaning and such. Network CAT 6 wire within Building: Can be run beside or together with Telephone wire (if not going for IP phones) use SAME Cat 6 wire - different colors (we used BLUE for Data/network and GREY for Telephone - Network A and Network B) . Make sure you run copper and fiber to to building (even if fiber is not yet available). Use Wiring Trays for any wire over 10 to all area in building (easy to ADD more cables at a later time that way). EMT Conduit or other wiring channels for any runs with 10 or less. Single drops (telephone and data wire - within walls) don't need conduit - but suggested. All Surface mount in Manufacturing area should be conduited or use SHELDED wire. All should be terminated on all ends with a female jack attached to a hard surface. Router/Switch should be POE Plus - Power Over Ethernet Plus standard - so you can install Wireless points of access without running power. Or for IP video security Cameras etc.... Install about 25% more runs that you think you need. Switch/Router/termination points - should be over-sized by 50% to 100% Just my 2 cents.....
SparkNet Interactive built a new building that was just finished a couple years back. It's a return to the dotcom boom days. Slides from floor to floor, game rooms, a cafeteria with catered food, a full gym. I think there are even volleyball courts.
Sun (that computer company that Oracle bought ... you know, the Java folks) used to have a series of books on various technical topics.
If you're going to build out your own computer room, I highly suggest reading "Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology". It might be written for a different scale, but bits like planning how much power to put in, networking, etc, might have application to the other sections as well. (although, I don't know how often gear gets changed out in the machine shop ... most that I've been in are still running mills and lathes from the 1970s or so, as they were built to last)
In your specific situation, I'd be concerned with where the door to access the room is ... I'd try to avoid having it from the shop floor, as you want to make sure that whatever metal shavings that someone might've picked up on their clothes and shoes have a chance to come off before they go in the room.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Seriously, a huge chunk of your operating costs are just going to be on lighting and the removal of heat generated by said lighting. Go LED now. There are also LED fixtures that work as Wi-Fi access points/mesh networking, so you can nail several birds with one stone.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
One thing that a lot of people forget about is the door size. Make absolute sure that you have at least 1-2 sets of doors into the building and in the direct pathway to all your telecom/computer rooms that the doors are tall and wide enough to fit a full sized computer rack! This is a small detail that many, MANY, companies overlook. There is nothing more painful then trying to fit a full sized computer rack into a building when none of the doors are wide or tall enough, requiring that the rack be disassembled (if it even can be) and brought into the building in pieces, then re-assembled, wasting lots of extra labor hours that could have been saved if someone had made the doors 2 inches taller and/or 4-6 inches wider.
Also, you might want to make them tall/wide enough for the new Open Computing OpenRack sized equipment racks, which I believe are 600mm wide and 2100mm tall (with a depth that varies from 350mm to 1220mm). Again, not many places are using this yet, however Facebook, Ebay, and Google are all using it (and fabricating their own racks since no one is yet selling them). But it only seems to reason that if those big 3 internet companies are using them, they will probably become standard in a few more years time.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I knew that would get a troll rating. But the fact of the matter is, there are probably certain buildings of military significance across the country that are most probably wired for the installation of explosives to take the building down in the event of overthrow or invasion, etc.. So to keep sensitive data from being obtained by.... WIKILEAKS....shrug...
Thanks for the added info. I think most of the people talking about dedicated HVAC are used to bigger installations, from challenging climates, or both. I occasionally have cold air run into a server closet, but ambient works for a few switches and a couple servers.
Dedicated power is easy and you should always have it. Just get as many 15 or 20 amp circuits as you need. I don't know the AC side of the business, but I have never had a problem getting an electrician to rearrange circuits. You just don't want your gear on a breaker that can be tripped by someones personal heater.
I haven't seen anyone else mention wiring trays. I've used them a few times and like them a lot. It makes it easy to add and subtract and, depending on your decor, can be a fashion statement. But i have never worked in a high noise environment.
Do install lots of conduit that is bigger than you want. Consider having your electrician drop conduit to your network locations and then stub it out over the ceiling. That can make MACs a lot easier.
You know your building better than we do. I think you have this covered.
First, make sure it's /not/ leeds certified. We recently had a building put up that is and:
* No sever room (couldn't make it happen)
* Computers powered off at night (oops, there's goes our non-invasive backup strategy)
* Due to some HVAC issue where the building is potentially unsafe during the non-business-hours cycle, people can't be in the building after 6 PM. There goes our ability to visit every computer after working hours (which every so often you have to do for one reason or another).
Put in wider than normal doors for machine rooms. Normal-sized doors are awkward to move things like computers in and out of rooms.
At MIT, there is a lecture hall with wire mesh built into the walls, and several large windows. When special shades with wire mesh built into them are lowered into place, the entire room becomes a Faraday Cage, blocking signals into or out of the room. When the shades are up, the cage is incomplete, and it is like any other room.
When an important dignitary is invited to speak, the special shades are in place, which makes it impossible to receive cell phone calls in the room---no embarrassment of having the dignitary interrupted by the phone ringing. Otherwise, the shades are up and people can have wireless communications as normal.
I could also see this being useful for corporate information security; for example, when sharing proprietary information during a meeting, this could prevent others from sending the information out of the room. The windows allow both options.
... and secure bike parking for people biking to work.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Decent restrooms. Decent kitchens. Decent windowage.
I want to second many of the above. I worked doing Industrial Control Systems for years, and I cannot emphasize enough the need for workrooms, conduit and isolating equipment.
Isolating Equipment
Since your space is fairly small, try to wire everything hub and spoke and hub and spoke.
For office equipment, run it all hub and spoke (run each outlet back to the central switching room).
For industrial equipment, especially if they have low data volume (i.e. CNC, CMM), I strongly recommend putting them in local clusters (hence hub / spoke / hub/ spoke) with a dedicated fiber to a local switch for each cluster, and shielded cable from the local switch. All of the heavy, high-wattage equipment is necessarily very EM noisy. Giving them an extra switch isolated with fiber and short shielded cable runs, reduces the noise that you broadcast into the rest of your network.
Also, (and perhaps obviously) all your networking equipment should be on an isolated power circuit from your industrial equipment. The voltage drop at startup is enough to brown out switches, and the reactive power is enough to fry them. I also recommend having backups on the shelf for all of the field devices, so that when a big breaker throws, or somebody accidently arc welds your equipment cabinet you can get them up and going in short order.
Conduit
Conduit is key for maintenance and organization. So, go with 3x more conduit than necessary today; you will always need to pull new media. In the machine shop, use metal conduit to reduce noise from your machining environment. Put extra junction boxes in the conduit than needed. It makes pulling cable more difficult, but it make reconfiguration much simpler. Always leave behind a pull line for each length of conduit.
Along the same lines, is raised (access) flooring in your server rooms. This is a lifesaver for running cable (and looks a lot tidier than the rats nest in the rack), and makes re-configuring the room a piece of cake. Also, with perforated tiles you can configure the HVAC for laminar air-flow (in from the top of the room and out the under the floor) which encourages the swarf in the air and on your clothes to stay out of your equipment and under the floor and in the filters like it belongs. Also, raised floors could save you from a pipe break or small flood.
On a final conduit and cabling note, invest in a thermal labeling system, heat shrink cable labels and a barcode label and conduit database. Be sure to label the conduit end points, and the pull line ends. The heat shrink labels attach tight enough, that that can be pulled through conduit on the cable without snagging or coming off. So, you can label one end before you pull it, and label the other end after you cut it (so you only need one label printer and person labeling). The barcode lets you scan directly to your termination database which reduces transcription errors. You can purchase pre-printed barcode label pairs, but don't. Inevitably, one end of the cable won't install correctly, or you'll have to cut the cable, and the pre-printed cables require you to relabel both ends.
Workspace
IT needs separate server rooms from power and telecom. The security requirements, access controls, typical tasks, and skillsets are different for the three disciplines. If you are in a warehouse type environment, the server room should have its own roofing and weather proof enclosure. This will save your equipment from a leaky warehouse roof, and fire sprinklers from the shop floor.
Workrooms on the shop floor, provide a clean (isolation from swarf), quiet area for tackling shop floor related issues. Preferably, it would have windows onto or over the floor.
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Are you planning any type of backup/generator power? If so, figure out what services MUST be running in case of main power loss (basic networking, phone, security systems, etc.) and plan circuitry accordingly. If you have a panel dedicated to those services/outlets, it's much simpler to add in generator power to keep the doors open and the phones working, even if your main business (the CNC machines) are down for a period of time.
Depending on where you're located, the payback for a roof full of solar panels will likely be somewhere between 5-8 years, if energy prices don't go up. Panels are typically coming in with 20 or 25 year warranties, and the switchgear is like any other power switching equipment (keep the filters clean and the mice out). Plus then you can advertise that you're green, if you want. Isolating yourself from rising energy costs, even in part, may be attractive.
The future is not all about telecommunications.
Make the building energy efficient, where it can be. The price of energy is going to go up in the next 50 years. It is much cheaper to design a building to be energy efficient than to retrofit it later.
Of course, dedicated server room(s) needing cooling is a special matter.
I think that a machine shop could be much helped by having a central vac system.
Network wiring is not as important as having conduits for whatever wires that you are going to need in the future. Keep good documentation of where these conduits are. There needs to be wires in the conduits that can be used for pulling other wires through them.
Conduits wells submerged in the floor are much more convenient than having them in the ceiling.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
80cm?
You're right, 80cm might be a bit small for Jefferies tubes.
you can't find triple the space for half the cost already existing?
I can't BELIEVE building new is worth it.
Its a small detail, but with the growing number of usb charging devices, having places to plug them in direct is a huge benefit.
http://pini.anonimocolectivo.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=950
Machine tools are big, but they do get moved around. You need some sort of grid to hold your wiring up in the air along with appropriate drop hardware to get it down to the tool. (e.g. Kellem grips) Cable trays that look like ladders work well, because it's easy to lay new cable in. Separate trays for power and networking, of course (code generally requires this, but people do try to cheap out with "divided trays" which meets code, but raises heck with EMI)
OTOH, it's gonna get grimy and dirty up there.. Maybe BIG conduit and big JIC/NEMA boxes at the junctions or something.
Seriously think about optical fiber with converters to conventional Ethernet at point of use. These days, it's not hugely expensive, and optical fiber is essentially EMI immune.
Are you running any sort of SCADA or plant network?
Think about connectors and jacks. They make outdoor/rain tight suitable hardware for the 8 pin modular jacks, for instance. That way, your connectors don't get all grungy and covered with grit and oil and coolant. You haven't lived til someone hoses down the installation, and capillary action wicks the water from the water filled box into your server closet.
Think about emergency power. What's needed, what's not. Where are the disconnects (and the emergency power off).
While you are getting some good and some not-so-good ideas, my suggestion is NOT to try to do this early design in house. Some of the advice given is inappropriate and will not be allowed by current building codes.
If your company is building a 30,0000 sqft facility they are about to spend $6M to $20M dollars. They should spend the few thousand dollars (probably $5k to $10k) to hire an architecture firm familiar with the basic building type (mixed small industrial/office) and have them work with you on this. The money your boss spends now in working with professionals to find our your current and future needs, will be returned by having a proper set of design requirements when he/she looks to hire an architect or design/build firm for the actual design.
There are also firms that specialize in IT design who, again, will cost a few thousand $$ but will save you money in the long run. As many have said - you and your boss do not want to screw this up. Hire a professional. They have a very big incentive to give you good advice because it is their reputation that keeps them in business.
Make sure the new building has all the 10GigE fiber , and Gigabit copper cable ready.
Make sure you have all the gigabit copper ready in the ceiling to mount those WIFI access point and
power over Ethernet cable
Dessicant wheels can be a low cost method of controlling humidity. Certain specialized dessicant wheels for clean room applications can be expensive but you don't need to use those types. Dessicant wheels can actually be very cheap if you plan around them when you design the new facilities. Reducing humidity makes the environment more comfortable but is also way better for electronic and mechanical equipment. It also prevents the growth of mold and other microorganisms.
Part of making dessicant wheels cheap is having a cheap source of heat energy to recharge the dessicant wheels when they turn to the outside environment. Luckily, you can use the latest generation of extremely low cost solar thermal vacuum tubes coupled to copper heat pipes to capture and store solar thermal energy at low costs. An 1800mm x 58mm vacuum tube heat pipe combo can capture approximately 80 watts of solar thermal energy per tube under optimum conditions and yet they cost only around ten dollars a tube when purchased in lots of 100 from Chinese manufacturers that crank them out by the hundreds of thousands. Even compared to today's low-cost solar photovoltaic that's an order of magnitude lower costs on a per watt basis.
You can then apply the heat from those pipes that you store in say a 10,000 gallon tank of water to fire a Lithium Bromide chiller to chill the entire facility. Remember, the ongoing fuel costs for this system will be zero and it had integrated storage independent of external utilities.
The general idea is to think in terms of direct applications of thermal storage rather than conversion to electricity.
In the office area, hanging ceilings everywhere, with at least 1.5 inches free space above the tiles so that any given tile can all be lifted when necessary.
As possible, put HVAC over offices and power/data over hallways. Any filters should be changeable from hallways so that you don't need to stand on somebody's desk a few times a year.
Above hallways, cable trays for data (with tops if required by code), with clear space above and adjacent to the tray. Trays are much easier to deal with than conduit.
In offices, double-gang boxes for data with 0.75 inch conduit running above ceiling tiles and turning to point towards the trays. If code requires, they can be run into the sides of the trays. Adjacent to each data, put a duplex outlet. Generally, two boxes per office on opposite walls that allow a base cable to reach anywhere in the office without crossing a door or window.
Use structured wiring (RJ45) for telco, even if you have a PBX that would prefer 110 blocks. It is much more future-proof.
Unless union rules preclude your use of a man-lift, put IT assets in the shop area 8+ feet above ground to protect against fork-lift damage. Even better, if distance limitations permit (generally, 80 Meters) keep electronics in office area -- especially those devices with fans.
If cables and fibers do not arrive pre-terminated, insist on a good testing tool to validate reliability. Come to think of it, a good testing tool is needed period.
Try some solar power on the roof. If it saves money, incrementally deploy more over time.
i have no idea what the specific needs may be. Hire somebody who equips industrial buildings for a living!
what comes to my mind wrt to IT/building intelligence:
a) separate electronics power circuit (in case some devices make a bad powerline noise)
b) at least twice as many etherenet ports as you count you will need (its cheap to fit these while you are at it)
c) well protected/easily replacable ethernet sockets (not sure what metal dust maydo to these
d) The building automation/control bus of your choice/your main vendors choice
e) smart metering (in case you want to know what you spend the power for)
f) room temperature,CO2,humidity,VOC sensors - in cas you ever are interested if the air conditioning is running too much
g) plan for vibration dampers (not sure what kind of CNC your workshop does.....) for servers?
1. Secure server room with security alarm and fire suppression...could be same as your telecom equipment room... but make it so not everybody can get in there to screw with things and make it so failed power supply does not light a fire some night that burns down all company's business records and intellectual property... and after you have that room, make an offsite-backup policy as well. One place I worked had IT guys each take partial backup tapes home with them every friday night (which they swapped with the previous week's taps that were returned on monday)... nobody had a complete set and therefore the ability to mis-use, and it was reasonably secure (no vital data on the internet) and offsite therefore protected from any site-related disasters
2. multiple hard-wired networks... one just for the office types, one just for the manufacturing systems, etc... you can bring them together in the server room with the appropriate firewalls etc. but this will save you later when some office weenie gets a virus surfing stupid humor websites or looking at pics of famous female celebs... and it has no impact on production. It will save you from office-types messing with the production systems. It will keep you from having annoyed office-types when you have to mess with the part of the network that is used in manufacturing. and so on.
3. Fight the tendency some have to push for doing everything wirelessly... first it will become a security problem at some point and you'll end up dealing with it... second it will be trouble if somebody else starts doing something next-door that interferes with the signals (and you'll be blamed even more if this happens while you are on vacation) or if all your office-types start watching youtubes of cats at the same time...
Cables are your friends... lots of bandwidth, physical isolation of sections of your facility, security provided by limited on/off ramps...
A building that spacious needs three separate it-equipment rooms:
1. The main server closet with own AC and active cooling and own fresh air input. Metal dust bad, very bad! To be placed near the other end of the building, far away from factory floor. With metal fire doors, no skeleton keys to this. Spacious enough for two racks, as this is where most of the lan switch connections go. Plus blades and whatnot. Leave floor space to work in it comfortably (good old fashioned bird boxes might be on the floor here too). This closet is where the fuse boxes and surveillance systems often also go. One cable of multimode fibre to points 2 and 3.
Go broke and ask for a max 3kW cooling capacity here. You don't need that much probably, but 3 kW doesn't mean that it is an on-off thingy.
2. Server/rack closet 2 to the opposite end of the building. Normal hvac, but filters against dust input from the cncs. Room for one rack. This is where the cat6 connections come from this side of the building. Is a place to keep reserve server equipment, amount of needed switches and all kinds of reserve paraphernalia. Lockable, of course. The switch in this closet is probably fanless that doesn't produce much of a heat load, and reserve server isn't supposed to be always on and as efficient as the main one.
3. Telco closet to the middle of the building, with cat6 to 1 (plus fibre) and 2. Here comes your inet provider connection and fone equipment. (maybe other junction boxes too).
This way the cabling cost is minimized. You shouldn't expect cat6 to operate over 100 feet segments, especially in this kind of an environment. Remember, the cables don't go directly to sockets, but snake with many turns in the conduits! If you cannot afford fibre tranceivers between 1 and 2, use cat6 and a little switch between them in 3. Cat6 segment *might* reach directly from 1 to 2 with 1Gbps. In an industrial environmet falling back to 100Mbps isn't usually a problem.
Never underestimate the need of storage space for equipment, they tend to procreate in their dark closets over the time.
You need to keep in touch with the hvac and elco engineers (and the architect, of course) to put these things into action. Usually they can figure out these things themselves with minimal elaboration from you. Oh, and as you are making suggestions to the architect, remember to have your own workspace put where you reach 1,2 and 3 with direct cat6 segment. Room enough for two desks and lockable cabinets, cos you'll need to storage backups(, right??) and repair borked computers but still be able to do the paperwork. Your workspace should obviously be a real lockable room (against dust and theft, not to be able to lurk on Slashdot all day, I mean really, boss!). A good career move is to have a room still only half the size of the bosses.
You also need to be vigilant during the actual construction phase. Reserve time for supervising that your demands are met. Con is the first syllable of construction.
For example, the cablings are cut 'just the right length'. Cable costs, you see. Demand some slack left to them.
Observe that construction code is met.
Oh, and never,ever plug in your most important server while the construction is underway. There's always somebody who has an obsession to drill power cabling just to see what happens.
Good luck, hope you won't need it!
Make the building with the CNC machine. Make the building the CNC machine itself. In which case your resources list becomes...
(a) ability to feed and sustain itself
(b) ability to grow.
Be very careful with (c) ability to resist parasites, or you may be in trouble.
There are open source machines for making earth bricks. You could compromise by allowing the building to request humans to extend it, so it does not do everything. Maybe it could be done...
Lots of good advice... but remember you're dealing with BIG motors and LOTS of noise on the power circuits...
An independent power system for computers and comm gear wouldn't be a bad idea at all... as long as you can insure that none of those big CNC machines gets plugged into the wrong side... (and keep folks from plugging their space heaters into the orange outlets either)
Two BIG UPS systems... one for the servers and another for JUST CPUs and Monitors... might be a bit more cost effective than dozens of UPS boxes under desks with batteries going bad every three or four years...
Don't forget that 30% rule of thumb either... more than you ever need still runs out faster than you'll believe!!!
please don't oversell what you don't really need to your boss.
Oh, and rooms too.
But which would be incredibly hard to install later:
A faraday cage around the board room
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
you gotta take into account future technology? ask for a raise.
ask for an assistant
tell them wirth 3d printing cnc machines are gonna undergo a radical change
Put the server room on a separate electrical grid so you can easily install a backup generator. Since most smaller gas-fired generators are piston, they send out dirty power. To fix this only use 'Double Conversion Online UPS' which takes the dirty power and creates a perfect sine wave albeit using the battery for this so not as efficient as cheaper direct UPS.. If you use a regular APC UPS and the generator kicks, the UPS will freak and and die and it switched back and froth from battery too quickly. Buy a AV Tech environmental monitor http://avtech.com/ and monitor for heat, fire, water, and humidity. Also, you might want to log card scans to get into the server room since it holds expensive equipment that could be stolen, then you can prove whose card was used to enter. Put the server room on its own subnet and firewall it from general network and Internet. If an attack happens, then you can simply unplug the external networks cables. Honey Pot and IPS monitor are nice additions.
If you have a tool and die shop as part of your CNC facility, and presses running on the same foundation there is a solution. You can get this "air cushion" for your worktables (use a granite slab), and it will keep the vibrations from messing things up.
Bear with me here:
Human eyes have a special photoreceptor that detects UV light, transmitting a signal deep into the brain (not the visual cortex) that is involved in the mediation of sleep/wake cycles and many other things that relate to worker productivity and satisfaction.
Something I've been proposing to people designing office buildings, whenever I get a chance, is to put in cycling, weak UV lightbulbs in order to help office workers avoid the "Office Blues". The general idea is to have the cycle have an intensity peak synced with the current time of day (depending on season, etc) in order to help keep office workers energized, promote healthy sleep patterns, etc.
This could also be used in hospitals for night shift workers, to help trick their brains into being more "awake" at night, helping to prevent medication errors and monitoring oversights. Just saying.
I would like to see bldrs stop going low budget and cutting corners, as seemingly a general practice, abd insteadd treat their jobs with Pride in their project. Build the Very BEST structure they can.
Especially with regard to prevention of water damage, and mold built right into the structure (Construction Mold) by not protecting bldg materials from the elements
rain especially. And using TRUE Green material in these hermetically sealed homes and buildings. Truly non toxic, non VOC. Further,
The old materials have proven regulating indoor humidity qualities, plaster rather than low perm sheet rock, insulation, and ocd board, which trap moisture inside the structural walls to vaporize when sun warms them, then condensate when cool down, a recipie for mold and other pathogen growth. DRAINAGE! How many "Drainage Experts do I have to deal with that do NOT understand Gravity and GET that water. flows DOWN, Not WHERE they WANT IT TO GO WITH their Jerry Rigged" fixes". Build these slab buildings with CLEAR FALL.Get the water AWAY from the building! And guttering. SLOPING towards downspouts with corrugated pipe that HAVE a fall to carry it away from building. Raise the slab out of the water table. Make fall clearly enough to not be RESEVERSED TOWARDS YOUR BLDG by the landscapers putting in the shrubs. VENTILATION: HVAC INDUSTRY. Can you not design a multi-family structure, apts, condos, hotels, with a unit where water doesn't SIT in the condensate pan INSIDE THE LIVING SPACE, growing stuff? Why cant the cindensate line be flush with the pan and thr pan slope to it so that it Flows Out as its created by the coils? And backup line be slightly higher. Why MUST the pan be full of water at all times? To be sucked up by the blower wheel and spread thru the ductwork and whole indoor living space, carrying toxins, mold, algae - all of which that are indoors, are mutating to neurotoxin producers. AND raises the indoor humidity level with the wet air being sucked thru. I KNOW YOU ALL ARE BETTER THAN THIS! I KNOW YOU CAN MAKE BLDGS THAT ARE HEALTHLY FOR PEOPLE TO LIVE AND WORK ANS SHOP IN. RAISE THE BAR! I CHALLENGE YOU!
The building I am working at right now wasn't built custom but they did to a serious overhaul before they moved in. One of the things I have liked is that all of the power sockets are marked with what breaker they are on. This allows me to spread out my power requirements (I often have to plug in 20-30 computers in mini add-hoc labs). On that same note make sure that each room gets power from 2 or 3 different breakers.
Tops on the list has to be the hot chicks room.
And that's actually a pretty good answer for the preceding question, "Best Incentives For IT Workers?"