Build the Best Data Center Facility for Your Business

Cabling Hierarchy

There are essentially two ways to lay out your Data Center's physical network. Both approaches begin by creating a row to house the server environment's major networking devices. There are many terms used for this row:

• Room distributor

• Special distribution framework

• Home row

• Main street

• Network hub

It is simply referred to in this book as the network row. From the network row, structured cabling needs to be run to server rows.

One approach is structured cable runs routed directly to each server cabinet location. This works moderately well in a smaller server environment, say a room with fewer than 25 server cabinet locations. The cabling travels a relatively short distance and can be managed to stay fairly neat and organized. This ...