Project: Long-term flexible network cabling infrastructure

The Federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) has national responsibilities ranging from resource economics to quarantine and inspection services. Its efficient operation is vital, so disruption of services by technology issues is unacceptable.

So, for its new 36,000 m² Canberra headquarters, DAFF specified a high-performance network infrastructure emphasising efficient management of the physical layer. To ensure it can meet any likely present and future bandwidth demands, DAFF chose 10 Gbps cabling to connect the 7800 outlets throughout the 16 floors of the headquarters’ two buildings.

Another 2000 connections are located in the site’s data centre, which also serves as the national DAFF data centre. Connections to data centre outlets are managed by the Systimax VisiPatch 360 integrated cable management solution. This uses a ‘360-degree’ approach to look at performance and customer requirements from every angle. The VisiPatch design philosophy provides a cross-connect solution optimised for simple, fast and error-free management of the physical layer. This minimises disruption during moves, adds and changes and makes troubleshooting easier.

VisiPatch connects Systimax GigaSpeed X10D copper cabling installed throughout the new facilities. With 10 Gbps performance, the two adjacent buildings have the connectivity needed to support bandwidth-intensive applications.

As well as reliability and performance, flexibility was a key near- and long-term requirement for the office and data centre cabling. The department didn’t want new or existing services to be limited by any lack of network throughput or a high cost for moves, adds and changes.

The VisiPatch ‘reverse-connector’ delivered the required flexibility and cost cutting through simpler patching management. By avoiding patch cord clutter and making it easy to see connector labels, it helps DAFF save on the resources required to manage their network and keep their system accurate.

The panels provide cross-connect facilities in the data centre and in telecommunications rooms on each of the 16 floors. They are also used in the work area consolidation points that make it quick and easy to redeploy people and IT resources. DAFF included cabling consolidation points in work areas because of issues it had on a previous site, where changes to network infrastructure were very labour intensive. This approach paid off as DAFF found it needed to add outlets when still moving into the new site. The ability to cable from a nearby consolidation point allowed this work to be completed quickly without going into the main computer room.

Cables are routed via cable trays in the ceiling to consolidation points with drop-downs to the workstations. For resilience, there are separate networks for voice and data, diverse riser paths leading into the main computer room, and all key equipment has redundant links.

Applications now running on the cabling system include both voice and data. Longer distance AV and security links between the two buildings run over 10 Gbps Systimax LazrSpeed multimode fibre. In the near future, DAFF also plans to run videoconferencing in the buildings and its system is fully capable of running any other IP applications as required.

Within its data centre, DAFF runs applications/services including ISDN, ADSL, Frame relay and IPVPN. Currently, the data centre has 1 Gbps links to all servers; however, as the cabling infrastructure is ‘10G-ready’, it is well prepared for an upgrade to 10 Gbps when this is needed.

Steve Monahan, Manager, IT Contract Management Unit, DAFF, said: “DAFF required a cabling infrastructure solution that would deliver to our performance requirements and one that was cost effective and flexible over the longer term. CommScope offered a solution where we could be confident that these requirements would be met.”

To deliver the project, CommScope worked with its Prestige BusinessPartner, Intravision, and distributor, Anixter Australia. The team worked with DAFF’s outsource IT service provider, Volante, on the infrastructure design, based on the DAFF technical requirement.

Canberra-based Intravision fielded an installation team consisting of a project manager, site leader and 20 installers. In total, 750 km of cabling and 700 VisiPatch panels were installed.

During the installation, every cable run was tested and performance-certified. The department was then given a full report of all tests, giving it the confidence that its IT systems would work properly over the network in their new buildings.