[OPLINTECH] Ideas for server room & technology work area (esp. server room size)?

[Dan Will]

Hey Phil,
   About 5 years ago, we went through a renovation and I have a few thoughts
to share. My office is 9 X 16 & one of the things I have lamented is it's
the size. If I had it to do over, I would have made it closer to square. I
have my desk against a wall and there is no room to put anything behind me.
Also, our ac was not up to the task of cooling the office with 4 or 5
servers running 24/7. While on the topic of the servers, another
consideration is the noise that their fans produce. I'm not sure if the
noise is causing me hearing loss or not but, I am experiencing some loss (I
use hearing protection in my woodshop but it could be a factor as well). As
far as a window goes, I didn't want one. I might re-think that one now as
there is no easily accessible escape in case of fire. I felt that if people
could see from outside what was in my office, it might be a target (it's on
the backside and can't be seen from the street). So a window is a
double-edge sword in my opinion.
Bob is correct on the electric service. The number of outlets is important
but, if they are all on the same circuit, your just asking for trouble with
tripped breakers and over-stressed power supplies. Each of our servers are
on a dedicated 20 amp circuit with nothing else on it (not even a monitor
which might be over-kill but we have the circuits so why not). We don't use
a server rack as such. I have a cabinet that was built to fit in (as far as
appearance goes) with the other cabinets in the office. Upon reflection,
this wasn't a great idea. I built a dolly for under it with wheels so it
could be moved but, they really weren't heavy enough so it's real hard to
move. Without the wheels it would be impossible. I once built a rack/desk
out of angle iron and MDF. While it didn't look real pretty, it did provide
excellent access to all sides of the servers and wheeled around very easily.
So my thoughts are not to mount the rack to the floor if possible.
I'm sure that there are lots of things that you need to consider but, size,
AC, & electrical are in my opinion, the most important.

Dan Will
Technology Supervisor
Meigs County District Public Library
willda at oplin.org
740.992.5813
740.992.6140 (fax)


The difference between fiction and reality?
Fiction has to make sense.
Tom Clancy




-----Original Message-----
From: oplintech-bounces at oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at oplin.org] On
Behalf Of Phil Shirley
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:18 AM
To: oplintech at oplin.org
Subject: [OPLINTECH] Ideas for server room & technology work area (esp.
server room size)?

As part of the renovation of the main floor of our library, the 
technology department will be moved to the lower level (ok, "basement"). 
  This will include office space for two full-time people, storage, and 
the server room.  I've looked at lots of other libraries' server rooms 
in touring their buildings, but it's a different thing to have to come 
up with one myself.  Below are some of my thoughts; I would appreciate 
anyone's input on this.

The most important thing we need to decide now is the major requirements 
- size and basic layout of the rooms (but comments about anything else 
would also be appreciated).  Do you think 10 x 14 feet would be good for 
our server room?  Details below.

Server room: Right now we don't have a real server room and don't have 
racks for our equipment or anything like that.  To give you an idea of 
our size, we have:
Rack-mount:
- About 80 data drops
- 3 rack-mount servers
- 7 pieces of rack-mountable network equipment (switches, etc.)
- 1 rack-mount UPS & 1 rack-mount tape drive
- possibly the terminations of about 30 phone lines

Other:
- 3 mini-tower PC workstations
- 1 tower Dell PowerEdge (2' deep)
- 2 free-standing UPSs
- 2 modems and a small tape drive
- possibly a wall-mounted phone system
- 1 KVM switch for everything, with 1 monitor, keyboard, & mouse

We will also have an air conditioner.

I'm thinking that all of this would fit in at most 2 tall racks plus a 
4-foot "LAN Station" like this one: 
http://www.server-rack-online.com/lan-racks.html

That would be just over 7 feet long if you put it all side-by-side.  I 
think we would want plenty of space on all sides.  I think if we put 
this more-or-less in the middle of a 10 x 14-foot room it would be fine. 
(I have 10 x 14 in mind for the 2 offices and 1 storage room, so I 
thought it might work for the server room.)

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Phil
-- 

Phil Shirley
Technology Services Coordinator
Cuyahoga Falls Library
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
330-928-2117, ext. 109
pshirley at CuyahogaFallsLibrary dot org

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