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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?"
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.... :-(
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)...
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.
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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>
Dual Cat6 sockets on each desk
You forgot to mention why, the answer is one is the production network and one is the "IT" cubie network. Its OK to put a firewall between them, but it would be a career ending incident if a receptionist clicked on an exciting "comet cursor" pop up ad or installed a toolbar or whatever and suddenly all 40 machines grind to a halt, or even worse, crash (literally). At a billable rate of $100/hr per machine this could get expensive, and that's before the mfgr rep has to come on site individually decontaminate each CNC machine controller.
I've never worked at a employer who didn't have separate air gapped IT and production networks, but being a small place maybe you grew up different.
Pretty much everywhere I've worked, as you upgrade the "main IT computer" the old one gets wiped, sanitized, and reinstalled as the "new" production network box, with a nice air gap between the networks. So it doesn't really cost anything to dual machine dual network every applicable station.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Since you're the only (IT) person, it might be a very good idea allocate budget $ and hire a firm that has the experience designing facilities. Aside from the fact you might miss a very important feature, you really should have the input from professionals that have experience along with the electrical/fire/security since it does not seem to be your expertise. The money spent at the design phase just might save you that much more down the line, especially since a small error could have major consequences. Just my $.02
Oh, and one thing I'd add to an otherwise great post.
Draw a map/diagram and give copies to everyone who might ever need it. Keep it updated with any adds/moves/changes. There's no point to a great labeling scheme if nobody knows what it means when you, the *only* IT guy, leaves.
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