Network and Server Group

While most of the finishing touches have been completed on the Power Project in the Data Center, another issue has surfaced. Power circuits in the data center are being overloaded and causing circuit breakers to trip as new gear is added. This may complicate and hinder the expedient deployment of new servers.

To date there have been 2 occasions where circuit breakers have been tripped by adding new gear. Each time this has resulted in entire racks of network and server equipment shutting down in the middle of peak network usage. Thankfully, all affected equipment came back on-line with no serious hardware or software related issues.

Currently NSG is working on a data center floor and electrical wiring plan to make the best use of the space alloted in the data center. This plan will include the placement of all current rack equipment, future rack equipment, electrical circuits and cable runs throughout the data center. The Plan will outline the following:

* Placement of the racks

* 110V 20Amp Circuit and receptical placement (Two circuits per rack)

* 220 3 phase Circuit and receptical placement

* Cable ladder and wire management systems

* Rack to circuit correlation

* Location of doors, tables, AC unit and other non-movable objects.

The purpose of this plan is to start an interaction with physical plant to provide secure and adequate power for the IWU data center well into the future and to eliminate the power concerns that face us today.

We will update as the power plan evolves…..

In a effort to keep the network gear performing at its fullest, January 18th Chris Rutledge and I will be getting here at 2am to redo the fiber optic patch cables. This process will include disconnecting the rest of campus from the network core. This means that, while the building will be accessible to itself, it will not be able to connect to anything else. The cables will be re-run in a way that makes it easy to identify which cable connects to which building, and it will also dramatically improve the air flow around our core switch. This should help keep it cool and increase its lifespan. If successful, this will conclude the data center cable re-organization.

There will not be a performance benefit for anyone else, except in the event of a patch cable failure, but it will protect the cables better in hopes of reducing the failure rate.

This  unfortunately has been put on hold while we obtain more labels  so that we can ensure all cables are clearly labeled as well as logically grouped.