Server Room Design

The first thing to do is to examine the layout of the room. Consider lighting, entryways, a/C ducting, Network drops and phone drops (if you use RAS), and above all electrical outlets. Are you going to use a cabinet? Is your room secure? If you only have 2 outlets and they are on the same 15 Amp circuit, you'll have problems! Provide us with some more information and I can help you out!

I inherited a server room from a turnover about a year ago. Brand new building. On paper it evidently looked good enough for my predecessor. In reality it's not... Way too small. The room is about 10 by 13. The "powers that were" figured that a few server racks and a wiring rack wouldn't take up very much space. With a 9 or so square foot footprint in a 130 square foot room there should be plenty of room right? Nope. You have to have room to move stuff around (and you around it).

I know this is vague but size really does matter. :) Just a few things to remember.

1) Power outlets (Big UPS's take 220v 35a, factor that in) and lots of them. You can't have too many.

2) Space in front of, behind and beside any movable racks. Just because they have wheels doesn't mean you will want to wheel them around.

3) Controlled temperature/humidity. I don't know what the budget you have is but you have to keep that room closed and cool.

4) Secure area. Every company in the world has wannabe Systems people. You don't want every idiot that can spell PC anywhere near your equipment. At least lock the door.

5) Raised floor. 'Nuff said about that one.

6) Door location. Every good layout I have ever seen had the door at one far end of the room. This keeps the doorway, steps, static matting, etc from breaking up the rest of the room.

Hope this helps you some.

As dumb as this sounds, architects forget to specify adequate AC for server rooms and mechanical systems installers never have any idea how much heat it puts out. I've been in three or four facilities (including a multi-million dollar unversity building) with bad ventilation.

Start bugging people EARLY about that because it is expen$ive to fix later.

Also, even for small offices, go rack mounts and patch panels - it's worth it.

you can using the Hubs Of Six RJ-45 Hubs
And Using Six RJ-45 Line ($30 each) To Connect The Server And The best Operating System Is Windows 2000 Advance Server

Hi!;

I would think that the placement of your equipment should be based on weight, what type of equipment, size, number of connections, shelf mounted or rack mounted.

So I will take it that you are installing standard 19" racks and everything is rack mounted.

I place all fiber patch panels in the very top of the racks. This keeps them out of harms way.

I place all copper wire patch panels in the top portion of the racks under the fiber panels.

I place all concentrators, switches,and servers in the middle of the racks.

I place all UPS units in the bottom of the racks.

This keeps the racks from getting top heavy.

Another factor to keep in mind is cable routing.
If you have over 4 (96 port) copper wire patch panels in your rack, you will need another rack for your servers, concentrators, switches, etc.
Place these units in the general location on the new rack, to have the shortest patch cable run that you can have, and route the cables in clusters.
i.e. I route the cable in groups of 4 or 8.
And tie wrap everything. I also color code the cables and when the odd ball connection pops up, I label it. Inventory of your ports and user areas is another topic.

As far as a unit (PC or dumb terminal) I mounteda swivel arm for dumb terminals, and placed a very small modified printer stand on wheels for PC's in the closets. I modified the cart by placing a shelf on the bottom to hold the PC box.
(But it is better to manage your units from your desk!)

And do your self the favor of bolting all racks into the floor. If you are on a computer floor with standard 2' square tiles, split the rack so that 2 holes bolt into one tile and the other two bolt into another tile. If you are on a concrete floor drill the holes and get some heavy anchor bolts.

Provide lots of air flow and maintain the temp to the specs.

Hope this helps.

Sam Hodo

Some points below that are baically industry standards - Hope they help
Air Conditioning:
Two air conditioning units should be installed with fail over capabilities
Radiators:
If given a specific area to build the computer room in, make sure that all radiators are removed and the water pipes capped off
Walls, Door, Windows:
The walls, doors and windows should be fire resistant up to two hours. The door should be a split door with 80cm and 40cm sections to provide a total opening of 1.2m -Will save a lot of hassle trying to get equipment in and out of the Server room. The doors to be self-closing. There should be viewing windows (with suitable glass) either in the door or walls.
Fire Safety:
The computer room should have its own fire detection system, which when activated will release an environmentally friendly gas (eg. FM200) that will suppress fire.

Good stuff above -

1) plan for 5 year growth - 20% per year growth, this includes wiring (electric, phone and net), port, ac and fire containment.

2) Will this be a dark room or a manned room?

3) What are you going to do for fire supression - CO2 - Halon - Sprinkler (wet or dry) - over head, under floor or both?

4) UPS - main or per unit?

5) Of course raised floor.

6) Controlled access? are you running classified app's or data? Vido cam's?

7) Wiring to other floors, external connections. (how is the cable coming into the room and exiting the room, does it have growth potential?)

Enjoy - drafting and planning are the stuff...

A couple of factors to keep in mind. You want to make sure that you have plenty of room to get behind the servers in case you need to do work.

You absolutely must have an adequate A/C solution as well as have ventilation so the heat has somewhere to go. Another thought is to have a backup. I've worked in server rooms where the A/C has failed and it's gotten extremely hot. Most server rooms are kept around 70-72 degrees with 50% humidity. This of course may be argued by some but should be used as a starting point.

Also keep in mind that you may grow. Have extra room for incidentals like bookshelves, storage cabinets etc.

A couple of things I would do differently, if I could do them over again:
1) Never, ever build office space in your computer room! As I'm sure you know, offices/cubicles get messy and collect "stuff". Keep your computer room neat and keep the staffoutside except when necessary. It's bad enough trying to keep equipment cool and dry WITHOUT adding the heat load of techies.
2) Avoid running cables under your raised floor. Even one or two cables, left alone in the dark, eventually multiply into a massive snake pit of unlabeled horrors. Use overhead wire trays and ladder racks.
3) Like someone else already said, "Add more power!" I don't care how well you've planned for power usage, you're going to need more. And adding it later will impactstuff like rack locations, UPS loads, and existing equipment uptime.
4) The same is true of lights. Be careful that you don't end up with rows of fluorescent lights on top of your server cabinets -- instead of in-between them.

The first consideration has to be VENTILATION. HVAC systems almost always run overhead and in straight lines, they must be capable of REMOVING the heat generated by your equipment. I prefer a rectangular room with door/s on the long wall/s and fresh air vents placed low on BOTH short walls, and only one "more than capable" central overhead exhaust. This plan allows the center of the room to breathe. My favorite layout is the central hub where two C shaped racks are placed in the center of the room creating an octagon. One runway in the middle facing the lower wall or floor fresh air vents. the runway give access to the backs of the racks and cables, it also pushes the heat to the center of the octagon. The corners of the room make great locations for work stations. If you have one or two particularly hot racks use "Carlon" PCV pipe with a vent hole drilled for each level up the back of the rack. Dont forget air filtration and humidity either. Your equipment hates dust and static too.
The next consideration has to be power and cabling, insuring easy access to all wires and cables. Rack UPS should be placed high and separate and have some kind of containment pan under them. Batteries can leak. I've never had it happen but I'm prepared.
Allow yourself some space. Just because a rack can hold six or seven units doesn't mean you have to fill them. It is much more economical to leave empty spots and ventilate the racks than to overload any one rack.
Think of youself as any of the pieces of equipment your installing and ask yourself this question,"Would I like to live here?"

Considerations are always based on business criticality and budget. Note the order...If it's critical, you'd better find the budget.
Servers:
Use clustering for failover.
Communication:
Redundant lines. Different providers using different physical routes, entering your site from different physical locations.
Power:
Redundant wiring from physically separated panels.
Dual power supplies in servers, each PS fed from a different panel.
Same power considerations for other eqiupment, like UPS and HVAC.
Rackmount UPS's provide time for system shutdowns and ;imited power conditioning, not much else. Room-size units can be more effective.
UPS's generate HEAT. Especially if you use a room-size UPS, put it near, but outside, the computerroom. No sense adding to your HVAC load.
Generators if you want even more capacity.
HVAC:
Multiple units or multi-compressor units providing enough redundancy to work with 1 unit down. Place outside the server room because they generate heat too.
Labelling:
Label EVERYTHING! Network cables, phone lines, power lines, panels & breakers, etc.
Control covers:
Cover emergency shutoff switches so they can't be triggered accidentally. Use locking covers for computer-related stuff where it's safe and legal.
Fire:
Halon, if possible. NO water sprinklers.
Other:
A server room is for servers. Don't put people or printers in there. It's bad for climate control and people (noise affects hearing). Make it lights out and manage it remotely.

Some buildings go into an afterhours power
saving mode, make sure your server room has
its own dedicated, load balanced circuit.

We install our A/C units outside the server
room to help cut down noise and to avoid
water leaks(We had 2 A/C leaks, the first was
in the server room. Sheesh!)

When using rack mounted power bars position
them so the power toggle switch can't
accidently be turned off by falling
objects,or the toe of someones shoe. (Honest
it wasn't me boss!)

Depending on the size of the room, you can
never have too many patch panels.

If using electronic access to your server
room make sure you can get in if power goes
out. (I thought you had the key.)

Make sure even your most portly I.T.
employees canget behind the counters and
racks for maintenance. (We only hire skinny
supermodels for I.T. [I wish])

If you think you have enough room for
counters and servers, think again. Its like
the junk drawer at home. It starts out nice
and neat but before long you have a hard time
getting it closed. (could you step outside,
I need some room to open the CD caddy)

A friend of mine designed and built a network for a start up financial company back in 1999. There is some good information on his personal site. Check out www.junglevine.addr.com/resume/index.htm and look at the professional experience link. Once again, just some good ideas and he also has vendor information.

Good Luck,

Jim Gleason

Sounds like some good advice being posted. But I'm sure you do not have an unlimited budget.

Expansion - Servers have a means of multiplying.
Placement - make sure you can expand in future, it's less expensive to move an office or dept than to move the computer room.
Power - plan with your facilities and vendors
A/C - servers gen lots of heat, suggest A/C units for the room only, not part of general building
UPS - store outside of room, leaky batteries do happen. Can they handle the A/C?
Wiring - raised floor for power, overhead for network cables
Server footprints - rack mount cpu & disk
Lighting - careful not to block, need light on sides.
Access - restrict it, do not put a desk in there, no squatters allowed.
Access - a ramp (outside) room.
Location - centralize in building, reduce cable length requirements for all.
Location - next to or close to Tel comm room or make it the same.
Fire - Halon, water pipes overhead can be disasterous.
Safety - check with OSHAHave fun, you live with what you build. The only thing that is constant, is that it will change.

I would suggest that all of your racks be multi-vendor. This will allow you to rack just about anything now and in the future.
I would also suggest to install patch
panel(s) in the floor near the servers. This will prevent a network cable messunder the floor and speed up new server installs.

I have a NT workstation which has a midi file and quicktime. when I installed quicktime
I lost the sound for the midi files.
can anyone help me.
Thanks,
Renee

You've got some good replies there, but let me tell you what haven't been said.
Besides heat your greatest source of problems is going to come from:
-Harmonics.
-Surges and spikes.
-Static electricity.
-Ground .(not the floor, but the electrical ground.)

If you think a UPS will resolve those, think again. I would suggest you really look into your UPS specs, go only for an online UPS.
I can't tell you about those precautions, please get an experienced electrical engineer to work on those issues, they are very critical and tricky.
Also please put your UPS outside the room and don't forget that a UPS will give you around 10 minutes of backup not a whole night.
I am sorry I raised questions and I did not answer them, I don't want you to be held responsible for work that is not within your job description.
Good Luck.

As IT people we always think that the company should but the best things but is not always true...and also is always true that not everybody pay attention planning its own budget. Somethings are basic, as cables, patchs panels, a rack, A/C, some kind of furniture for holding the actual number of servers and consider a couple more in case something in the future, a KVM is also necesary if you want to just use one GOOD monitor for managing those machines, power and good UPS in case something happens...after you make your list try to get some general prices from the market and then compare how much you will need...if you can measure that you will keep things under control. Then you talk with the person in charge for the money approval and present your proposal, after you have the budget you will have the power of decision avoiding a lot of delay. Avoid buying things one by one until you dont have most of your shopping list ready, give a look for clearence stuff too and good luck

Along witht he raised floor, isolated A/C and pleanty of space to work behind, It is a good idea to have a glass wall between the server room administrators and the servers so that the "techies" can observe any happennings without openning the room and therefore playing with the A/C levels. This is good from an OH&S issue as "in a server-room, no-one can hear you scream"!

I have also seen server rooms with remote control web cams that enable a techie to look at the physical state of the box aswell as the diagnostics at their workstation.

Hope this helps

I know that most of the basics have been covered but just a few things to remember.
1. What cabeling are you using UTP/coax/fiber (remember that cat 4 and 5 are out and 6 and 7 are in for new construction)
2. are the cables coming in from the floor or cieling? (rember the building codes)
3. rember space is very important, is the room large enough to accomidate the servers and the 2 of you and maintain a steady temp?
4. how is the line noise in the room? have you tried a test cable yet?
5. don't forget the fire suppression system, what kind and will it work on electrical fires?
6.hows the security? and what is the rodent problem like? (remember people aint the only bad guy.
Ya should be able to answer all these things off the top ofyer head if not find the answer. if ya need help we are here.

I have done several server/computer rooms and there are some really good suggetions in this discussion.
Try to have server/computer room on an above ground-level floor...flooding. If you are installing a large UPS make sure you figure in the weightof the batteries as it pertains to floor loading. One installation I did I had to scramble to spread the weight over a larger area in order to stay under floor loading specs. In some cases you need to hire riggers in order to install A/C and UPS's make sure you calculate this in the cost. Check with riggers if you need to supply protection for floors when moving in equipment. I recommend purchasing a few sheets of one inch plywood cut so that it easily fits in doorways to protect floor and carpeting. Good Luck

All of these suggestions are great. Here is what I have done in the past;

1) What is your budget?
2) What space do you have to work with?
3) What equipment is going in now?
4) What growth do you expect in 1 year, 5 years?
5) Do you own or lease, plan accordingly with the length of time you will be there.
6) Do you have the proper power to the room?
7) If you are building, place the AC and UPS outside the room if possible.
8) I like raised floors but they are expensive, overhead cable racks are fine.
9) Put the equipment in an orderly fashion and group everything if possible. Save on cable runs by putting patchpanels in.
10) If you can prewire, do it! It saves time in the long run.
11) after everything is being built, be flexible. Things change overnight in this business. You will grow faster than expected, hopefully! Be will to move things around.
12) Be open to new ideas, technology changes quickly!
13) If you cut corners to save money don't cheat yourself of space. If you think it's too much now you will think it's not enough a year from now.

We cannot over emphisize the need for space, power and A/C.

After less than four years from when it was built the server room in this building is out of space and short on power. When it was built the projected time until a power supply upgrade would be needed was 10 years. After a year of negosiations and in ability ot add equipment we are finally going to get more power, almost double our current capacity. Now if only we had more space.

All backup devics should be in a seperate part of the building, ideally in another building.

Get your A/C as redunundent as you can.
Good luck!

Aside from locks and retinal scans,etc. ;-)
Make sure that racks are as far away from the door as possible and workstations as close to the door as possible. This way no one will be near the racks without a good reason, and for those who are too curious for their own good, a decent chair with good casters will get you between them and the racks quickly. Make sure that equipment that needs to be accessed more frequently (tape units, etc) are closest to the workstation and/or door. Consider including pull-out shelves and/or storage in the racks. The shelves give you work space for tools, screws, documents, diagnostic equipment, etc, instead of using the top panel of a hub, server or router that happens to be accesible. The rack-mounted storage cabinets (locking if necessary) lets you keep spare screws, patch cables, wire wraps, tools, and even reference materials where you need it the most. Joe from the accounting department is less likely to go opening a compartment in an equipment rack as opposed to pulling open a desk drawer when he needs a screw driver to tighten his eyeglasses.
Space around the racks is critical both for access and ventilation. Also, when installing or servicing equipment in the racks, you will have room to stage equipment without the risk of bumping something else in the rack.
If a large wall window is not possible, consider a glass door or door with a large glass insert. This will keep people from poking their heads in.
A raised floor is great if you have a closed server room and an outer work area, but in reality, consider how the data and telecom is going to enter and leave the room. If all your wiring is ceiling run to the rest of the office, the raised floor is not a necessity.

We recently set up a server room that houses 18 servers. We are in the medical field so we need to make sure that we always are up and running. So we had two UPS's installed that are totally seperate from each other for redundancy.

We also needed an emergency power off button to cut off the power in case of a fire in the server room. Get this, the contractor that installed the switch and the UPS's put the emergency power off button logically in between the main power and the UPS's. Which means that if there is an electrical fire then the UPS's will keep it going! If the emergency button is pressed the only thing that doesnt get power is the UPS's ... go figure.

This is just an example of the type of wastefulness and incompetence that awaits you if you dont pay attention to details, even those details that others are supposed to take care of.

Oh ... I forgot to tell you all about our sprinkler system that was installed right above our servers, theres another story that reeks of absolutely no foresight.

amazing huh

One thing that gets overlooked is the size of the entrance door to the equipment room. You need to make sure the doorway will allow equipment and lan cabinets to enter without having to remove the door or frames. A 42" wide X 84" tall door should handle most items. Check your equipment dimensions.

Take the time and money to do your wiring right. If you do it right it will outlast your servers. If you use a contractor to do the wiring, check with someone who has used them before.

Use patch panels and wiring closets so you can make modifications and do testing with fewer problems.

These are some good sources for telecom/networking cabling:

http://www.graybar.com/
http://www.blackbox.com/

Kevand, I would need a lot more info before I could begin to comment. I suggest that you first inventory your existing network, you need to know #users, desktop systems' OS's and etc. If the users are linked in something like a peer-to-peer then the OS's should already be mostly the same. My second suggestion to you is to go to DELL's website and pose this same question to them. They can give you some really cool tools for downloading that will help you graphically design your racks, but theproblem is you need to know what your requirements are as far as what servers you'll need. Thirdly leave 2x room for expansion on the switches and routers (if the budget permits), if your company is going to grow at all in three years it will probably be close to 2x expanded by the end of those three.
Good Luck! jodi.a.minshall@intel.com

If you've seen the latest Pacific Bell commercial regarding the web, don't do that. Oh how powerfully the message comes across about half thought ideas. In the telecoms I did Federally, the final signature for planning wasn't going to have to use it. In Rambo's words, YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE. All we could do was tolerate.
1. Thoroughly document what you're doing to avoid creating mysteries weeks and months beyond initial use. Would you want to blindly figure another's mess?
2. Consider ALL cabling carefully next to equipment placement. Non standard Cabling is 70% of all systems problems [Groth/McBea]. It is low voltage looking for least resistance equating trouble with shoddy installment. Remember what the UPS does to answer any question EMR might influence other operations. To store power for backup means what to other devices?
3. How much speed/efficiency is expected from configuration? Servers are right next to Main CPU's in what they're given to start. God forbid you forget the inexpensive means of fastest clocks and software programs for servers. Consider "traffic" conditions that will challenge efficiency on all platforms. How bogged down due you want processing to get? Poorly done systems, not electricity's speed 182.272 mps, defeat their own purpose.
Mysimon has some very good deals at great prices. Best does not have to mean exstravagant price.
4. Do with integrity. Only you know where you stand on how well all steps are done. Regardless of recognition or not from others, good karma will come out of well done. Only "flunkies" will fear your skilled work.
I speak from experience or I'd have no place to say anything.

...when will you have it to do over?

A lot of good suggestions an insight here. Wish I had this 3 years ago.

The only things I have to add...
1)plan redundancy for power all the way back to service feed, if possible. From dual power suppliesto seperate panels to seperate UPS and so on.
2)Utilize the services of experts. Elec trical and mechanical engineers know the codes and can support your requirements. A good cabeling vendor will save embaressment and time. Document what ramifications to expect if specific details have to be cut back, i.e. C Y A.
3)Don't let others rush through details. Lay out the requirements and make evryone stick to them. Like others have said, LABEL and DOCUMENT everything.
4)Are you moving existing racked equipment into this new computer room? Not only are the door dimensions and a ramp into the room important, but look at the path you have to take to get there. Do you have to use elevators? Wiil the racks fit? What about the future? Howwill you get the equipment to the new location?
5)Consider a fireproof cabinet to keep software and licenses, as well as any onsight backup media. You do store your backups at a secure off-sight location, don't you?

Lastly, give yourself plentyof time. Don't start the implementation until you are satisfied that all the details are covered. Good Luck and don't hessitate write if you want more info.

Well I think you should:
1. prepare floor plan first including all available outlets (power, tel., etc.) including existing doors, windows, etc.
2. Prepare a climate sheet for temp. and humidity to arrange for air conditioning.
3. preapare the plan of how to proceed by then starting with space utilization, fire alarming and fighting, security demands, power: capacity of ups and available power that will include spaces for spares, batteries and all of that staff.
there are lots of other concerns please mail me and i will discuss it with you with pleasure at ytantawy@misrnet.com.eg

Security:
No windows and all doors have only the amount of space (100 sq") required glass by fire code and that being the mesh glass. Locks that are covers so as not to be jimmied. Never underestimate the disgruntled employee.

Heat dissapation:Take into account both the machines, monitors, lighting and humans.

Power: 20 min battery for everything. If you really need things up all the time (as in my case) a generator is needed.

Location: Look to flood, tornado, fire, and assess thearea. If you are prone to floods, do it on an upper floor. If you have secondary locations, put your backup sites there if there is tornado problems.

Offsite storage: Make sure you have a place to store offsite backup media.

Wiring: A bit of pre-planning avoids a lot of Spagetti later.

Fire protection: Gas of some kind like CO2. No sprinklers. Make sure you have abort buttons in case the system wants to go off in error.

raised floor: ? Only if you really need it for mainframe typestuff. Almost never for servers. Rack mount them when possible,

Lots of good advise on here!

Before you consider what's in the room, treat the room as a black box. Pick the best location in the building for the room.

Outside walls are not normally used (damp), and find out where water pipes are etc.

I've seen servers rooms built under mains water pipes, which of course burst and flooded the server room.

What about interference. Is the room next to any Radio Transmitter, what about electrical noise from power plants, lift room's etc.

Six servers is not very huge.
The room's power needs to be on it's own filtered power circuit, make sure you know where the switch is for this room if the trip needs to be reset. Six servers (depending on the size) will pump out considerable heat, Air conditioning is thus required. Have a unit installed and make sure the water/coolant overflow will not go into that room.
Network cabling needs to be lightning grade - meaning if the room itself takes a hit the cables don't fry. Have a good switch or router to connect the servers to in that room, it makes the job of moving/adding servers much easier and rolls troubleshooting into a compact area, make sure that you cable the room with at least double the power points and network outlets thatyou need now and check that your switch has room to grow.
UPS's will be required. - Using your vendors specs calculate the voltage required - The monitors draw more amps than the servers so you could run three servers on a 1000v ups,with the monitors running off the mains but it comes down to cost. Does the network need to stay up in a power failure? Ours does because we have a remote call function that a server pages us and sms's a phone and the message is sent through one router that has an internet gateway, thus we recieve notification that our servers are on battery power and for us to come in.
Bench space. - I would recommend that a bench is built along the wall at a resonable height. Cable power to be under the bench with holes in the bench to feed monitor, keyboard and mouse cables through. Place servers under the bench with monitor, mouse and keyboard on top.
Label all servers, mice,keyboards and monitors, thus easily identifying all machines.
I would also recommend a decent amount of shelving and cupboards to store doco, manuals and software for the servers in this room.

UPS Specification:
Get professional help to measure the electrical load. Don't trust what the manufacturer states on the plates on the back of the boxes. Don't use a three phase device unless you have a server that requires a three phase supply. Stick with a single phase unit if possible it will make the room a whole lot safer. If possible, install power monitoring software on all servers. You will need to get some kind of distribution box to make the serial connection between the UPS and the servers Finally, if your site has an emergency electrical supply generator, make sure that the UPS will accept input from it. If the frequency control on the generator is not up to the mark, the UPS may refuse to draw power from it resulting in the batteries being drained.
Air Conditioning:
Again, take advice. This should include the effect of sunlight on the room in summerand particularly where windows are involved. This can be limited by fitting either blinds, or filter glass. This can add considerably to the AC load. Add a fresh air fan to the spec. This will pressurise the room, and so keep the dust out. While on the subject of dust, don't put printers in the area, and don't store any paper or manuals in there either.
Finally
Plan for growth. Review who needs access to the server room. Consider how vulnerable the room is to outside attack (brick through window etc). Lots of folk don't like computers! Keep records of all the connections in the room, both power, andnetwork. What was the room used for before? What is below the proposed server room? Are there any holes in the floor or ceiling? AC plant uses lots of water. Where will the water go if the plant starts to leak? Position leak detection pads in the floor void if there is one.

Have Fun! Be creative!

You have to remember that cabling used is important which is determined according to traffic requirements, so did you plan for traffic, bottle necks, data streaming, and dont forget thae backups media rather backup tapes, Zip drives, optical media, etc. On the other hand the topology you are going to use is important, beside thae capabilities of your assistances if exist, are you going to build the network with your team or are you going to outsource it or you are jsut specifying the technical structure.
Dont forget the backbone you better start with it first then you can manage the design very quickly.

Besides set-up you should make sure you have a durable and static free floor. Also one that make laying cable easy. SMED flooring is ideal for this application.

I have recently moved into a new server room, which I designed at our new facility. I would suggest eliminating any furniture that is not mobile (need wheels), for example, cabinets, desks, server stations, etc. ? I have found this very beneficialfor the simple reasons you can get to the back of your servers if they are on the perimeter and it allows for easy moving of your furniture configuration. If at all possible raised floor is great for many reasons but it does have a cost factor. I would also make a point to make sure the climate control is at least more than sufficient. It is better to have too much than not enough. Lastly make sure you have enough electrical power on each wall and if at all possible generated power in case of power failure. Hope this give you some good ideas.

Some hints to help with heat, power, ease of use.

1. Get a switch to allow one monitor, keyboard and mouse to serve 4 CPUs. This allows you to use the switch to flip back and forth between servers.

2. Make sure you have a phone inhouse extension and outside line for troubleshooting.

3. Lots of electrical jacks. Things always grow and putting in power later is a pain.

4. I prefer no windows...so users are not always tapping on the glass.

5. It should be a locked room. Access only to IT folks.

6. Room to store manuals and software.

7. Make sure there is room to completely walk around all equipment racks. Will save on hardware repair frustration in the future.

8. Good furniture. You will be in there for long stretches and need to take care of yourself also.

I have just completed a project where you had 7 nodal sites... Each nodal site had seven servers. We used the Dell rackmount server series. Although cable management was a nightmare but it is still the best solution when thinking of cost. Regardlessof cost you can bet no one gets sacked for buying a Compaq. The Rack should give you space for the UPS. And you can buy an iPac.

Don't use that UPS web management software.
Put it in a room on its own electrical circuit and thermostat.

Make sure that you have an area to work comfortably. Many times you will want to work on a server (i.e., apply a service pack, install new software or even setup a new server). If you have to stand for long periods of time, that may be a little uncomfortable. Do you also need space for installing hardware? Will you have to take your server out of the room to install a new harddrive or memory? That can be very cumbersome.

Also, think about the type of holes that you will have on your racks. Are you going to have a problem mounting equipment because the holes are standard?

1. Servers: Have redundant power supplys
2. Power: Have different power circuits for each power supply. Bring enough (plan for expansion) circuits.
3. AC: have a small spare AC that you can use as a backup
4. If you have one of the smart fire systems install a heat detector in the server room to triger a supervisory alarm if the temperature goes above normal. Have someone attend this alarm
5. Security: log who goes in/out the room. If the company's security system is based on card readers have in/out reades. Have door locked at all times.
6. Avoid windows, wood rooms or any room that can be set on fire easy.
7. Have a backup server on the other side of the building (or separate buildings if possible). Run fiber between rooms if possible.
8. Have a clean ground for your equipment.

And the most important, plan for expansion.

If you are in a northern climate you will want to check with the A/C vendor for a unit whose compressor can run in the winter. Although the rest of the building is being heated to a comfy 68 F the server room still thinks its summertime and needs cooling in the dead of winter.

Another reason to locate the server room in the center of the building is to prevent 100 meter limitations in 10/100 Base-T wiring. In my experience the actual limit is closer to 92 meters. If the room is in a corner of the building the drops at the far end may risk CRC and alignment errors due to excessive run length. I use linear distance/1.414 < 100 meters to account for all the right triangles in wiring path. If the floor plan is large you may need switches instead of hubs so the frames get retimed and get a fresh 100 meter running start.

Two things that I have found extremely useful
when it comes to setting up server rooms are
making sure that any cabinets you buy have
sufficient air flow to handle the equipment
you are putting in them and if possible
putting a drain in the floor so that in the
event you do get any water in the room, it
drains away from the equipment.

When buying cabinets, look for ones that have
more than one fan and the ability to add
additional ones if necessary. It is always
good to add a fan at the bottom of the
cabinet if it is going to be reasonably full
to ensure proper air flow within it.

A floor drain has saved me a lot of problems
on more than one occasion. A burst pipe in
another room can send water all over the
entire floor, so having a drain in the server
room allows it to get the water out without
affecting the equipment.

I am sure all will agree that once you place five or more servers in one place, with monitors and keyboards, you now take up most of the rooms space with a desk larger than a Buick. Try a smaller rack with room on bottom for five servers CPUs and a KVM switch, which will connect you to all through one Keyboard, Monitor, & mouse. Make sure to include future with purchase of switch (need 5 connections, buy 8 w/ cascadablity).
Why zip-tie only to cut and rezip-tie each time something is removed or replaced. Velcro is the way to go. And know you can even get strips that are precut for this propose.

Also consider an Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) when sizing a server room. It can be very handy if your area is plagued with brief power outages. The UPS and A/C need to be sized together since cooling will be required by whatever power load is in the room. The suggestion mentioned of a 5-year plan with 20% growth is a good start. When calculating the load of the equipment, you can use the vendor's specifications. Also, some of the UPS vendors web-sites (e.g., apc.com) have "calculators" which let you size the UPS by selecting the vendor and model of the equipment. Remember the cooling requirements of the UPS when sizing the A/C too.

Another matter to consider is whether a backup power generator is needed. If having no power forseveral hours, or possibly days, would have a sever impact on the business, a generator may be justified. In some cases you may not be able to have a generator at a location because of lessor or zoning issues. A generator should be sized to handlethe load of the UPS, A/C and as many office workspaces that would be required to keep the business going. Two years ago we had snow storm that shut off the power for 3 days. Our generator keep the corporate headquarters systems up and available toour remote users that had no weather issues.

Overall this is a very good article providing good advice to those planning their first computer room.

One thing that I see too often involves the lack of secure access to the computer room. Card readers, coded locks, etc. should be used at all entrances/exits to the room.
In addition, make sure the hinge pins on the doors are in the interior side of the computer room. The best lock won't mean a thing if a vandal can pop the pins and remove the door. Also check on raised floors that extrude beyond the computer room (i.e., a ramp); have some time of screening to prevent unauthorized access from below the floor.

When determining size and growth, take into account power requirements as well. Better to overpower at the start than try to bring in new circuits later. Consider all varieties of power as well if possible. You may be well equipped for 115VAC (inthe USA), but not 207V 3-phase.
Also, look into a central UPS versus individual UPS's per server. Saves time, better management, etc. Don't forget to make space for this and allow for growth.
A backup generator may also be in order if uptime is crucial.

We recetly completed a new server room, so I can now tell everyone what we did wrong. One of the best things we did was to use a KVM switch. This helped to utilize the racks we had to house more servers. We purchased a kvm product that would handle the original 46 servers but with enough capacity for growth, we are now up to 51 servers and I have not had to purchase any more switches or cables to accomodate. We used this same principal in our UPS purchase. Although we only needed about 30KVAwe went with a 75 KVA unit to give us the expansion room as well as longer uptime. Those are the good things. Some of the things we did wrong were the raised floor. we only got 4 inches or crawl space under the tile. I now realize that this should be at least 8 inches to easily fit all the cabling as well as make it easier to route the cables. Of we made the mistake that most first timers make, and that is we are now out of room to accomodate any more server racks. This has led to again utilizing the old closets that we were trying to get away from.

Our server room is in the basement of our building, and is normally secure. However, the ceiling is at street level, and the conduits run into the ceiling. This morning we had a severe storm and the street drain couldn't handle the runoff, our conduits filled up and drained into our suspended ceiling, which soaked and then collapsed onto our servers. Luckily we have a subfloor and most of the water ran into there, but that's where we run our power cables and we blew a circuit breaker and ourpower went out, taking the air conditioning unit with it. Our main server paged me at home at 5AM so I was able to get in here in time to rescue everything. Make sure that your server can call you if anything goes wrong, and make sure you keep yourservers and UPS at least a couple inches up off of the floor. Also, run subfloor wiring inside SOMETHING in case of flooding (you never know).

I did not see a paramount design consideration mentioned, probably because it is so obvious. This is physical security. Your design should be so that there is never a reason that non-IS persons should need access to the room housing your servers.

Courteous PCs/terminals and printers should be located outside of the secure server area.

All that has been said so far is true; but, two major points have been omitted. The UPS system, its required duration and recharge cycle and the tape or equivalent backup system.
I started designing our new server room in November of last year to replace seventeen clone tower servers with a rackmount system. The servers started arriving in January and the last of the old units (the exchange server) will be migrated out this weekend.
The UPS requirements were evaluated to only require a graceful shutdown and restart with a 18 minute window to allow for the vageries of our outside power supplier. It proved to be less expensive and more efficient to us a separate UPS then one mounted in the rack. Incoming power to the UPS is a single 208 line and a distribution panel above the racks allows for individual twistlock plugs for the PDU's (power distribution units)from each rack. A separate external earth ground for the racks is mandatory.
Tape BU can be individual to each sever or combined. My solution was to add an additional NIC to each server and created a subnet that existed only in the server room to a single BU point with a small tape library for a total BU potential of 1.8 TB.
The heat ouput of the three rack system plus the external UPS is estimated to be 36,000 BTU's per hour. Allowances were made to have the existing AC supplimented with an additional remote mounted roof unit.

If you can, put in a raised (static free) floor. This will assist in cable management as well as flood insurance and keeps static out of the environment. Also, try to get three to four seperate circuits dedicated to your server room(one per wall if possible). Don't cut corners where your UPS is concerned either plan your UPS with 100% growth in mind. A portable A/C unit for the computer room has bee a Godsend for us. We got a 'MoveinCool' unit that has saved my servers on several occasions when the main A/C has either failed or been shut off. Make sure your wall and door vents are properly positioned to provide adequate air flow. If at all possible, set aside an area that you can put in a lackable fire-safe vault/cabinet for your backups and software storage. Last but not least, make sure your server room can be secured.

If you can, put in a raised (static free) floor. This will assist in cable management as well as flood insurance and keeps static out of the environment. Also, try to get three to four seperate circuits dedicated to your server room(one per wall if possible). Don't cut corners where your UPS is concerned either plan your UPS with 100% growth in mind. A portable A/C unit for the computer room has been a Godsend for us. We got a 'MovinCool' unit that has saved my servers on several occasions when the main A/C has either failed or been shut off. Make sure your wall and door vents are properly positioned to provide adequate air flow. If at all possible, set aside an area that you can put in a lockable fire-safe vault/cabinet for your backups and software storage. Last but not least, make sure your server room can be secured.

When designing a "server room" it is important to consider environment, ease of maintenance, expandability, disaster recovery, etc. Budget is also of primary concern. If you have the choice, a well-lighted, windowless, reinforced-wall room with redundant AC and power (via UPS and/or genset, fuel cell, etc.)that is large enough for all networking and telecomm equipment plus room to work on everything and even room for a desk and/or bench situated in the building where the room won't flood or get doused by water (even from sprinklers - keep water AWAY from expensive electrical and electronics - use gas! Any water sprinklers will kill even the equipment that's not on fire.)and is out of the "traffic zone" of the company is ideal. In the real world, a balance must be set between all of the above. It does help to get as many opinions or quotes from "experts" as possible. Talk to electricians, architects, network engineers, telcomm engineers and service guys, etc. they know their specialities and can help you decide how the various pieces should fit together. This will keep you from making the room too small, using non-standard equipment, or forgetting some important factor, like I'm sure I have done here.

Nobody'd be so dumb as to carpet a server
room, right? Well, my client didn't, but it
took some work to talk them out of it.

On the other hand, they left all the phone
closets with bare concrete floors. So
whenever anyone does any network /phone
work, there are dusty footprints up and down
the halls.

Just a reminder, don't forget the floor.

Electricity is a critical role. Sub panel the room out with its own power and circuits. Properly calculate volts/amps that will be drawn on any one circuit at a given time and spec the room accordingly. Don't forget to leave room for expansion. Never have any appliances on any of these circuits maybe from an adjoining room/office. Always isolate your circuits exclusively for use only in your computer room and pay attention to any sub contractors that come in after your server room is built. You wouldn't be the first victim of electrical problems in your server room because a contract worker spliced into your power supply!

You can even put in place line conditioners and quality surge protection in the hardline itself or at the outlet level to save space, rather than buying seperate hardware. Now when you spend your $$$ on proper backup power supply hardware you will probably have a redundancy in surge protection and line conditioning.

There are a lot of really good suggestions here for the physical design of the room. What I would like to suggest, in addition, is that once you have settled on a design and have actually built the room that you should THOROUGHLY document everything you have done, including the serial numbers and purchase order numbers for the equipment. Document the all of the equipment's start up and shut down procedures. Don't forget the auxillary equipment such as switches, routers, UPS's, and AC. As a newbie to server management a "how to" book would have been invaluable in cutting down on the learning curve for our small network. Be sure to include the "obvious" things too such as any assigned static IP addresses as well as a good description of the switch cluster hierarchy.

Get a UPS & isolation transformer in front of the ups.

Supply plenty of dedicated power to the server room. (You don't want your bosses' coffee pot to trip the circuit breaker and bring down the servers.) Also, some vendors insist that their product have its own dedicated power supply. You don't wantto have to call in an electrician each time you install new equipment.

Documentation is vital in any IT/IS department. System Admins come and they go, its the industry's way, it seems. The most important factor to remember is, "You owe it to your company to fully ensure the support of the server and servicing equipment." With this in mind, remember that some day you may be somewhere else. Is your replacement going to be able to come in and quickly get up-to-speed on how things are set up? What if your servers and server room go through a stage-three disaster (everything is destroyed)? Do you know how things were set up enough to duplicate that configuration?

Like any good programmer will tell you, documentation sets the mark between the professionals and the amateurs. Good documentation makes everyone's job easier. Gone are the days of "holding information hostage" to provide job security. This position is a "service" position. And documenting everything in a neat, well ordered manner is probably the best thing you can contribute to the company who is counting on "you" to support them.

There have been MANY issues raised in the comments that are wonderful issues and extremely important.

One of the most important though, is that if you are not extemely familiar with LAN/WAN/MAN design and installation, up to date with building codes, BICSI standards, TIA/EIA standards, etc. then you should strongly rethink your position.

System administration is a completely different horse than LAN design. A professional company will consult with you, look in the ceilings; available rooms, and the available space they have, which would include the size of the doorways, etc. They will verify whether plenum cabling is required or if PVC is adequate (Plenum is ALWAYS recommended however).

And if a profesional company installs it, you can get a warranty for as much as 25 years on all of the cabinets, wiring, jacks, etc. that they install.

Most importantly, a professional company will design and document the installation thoroughly. You should receive As-builts, LAN design,and cable testing results - in living color. Even a small installation can literally take 200 pages or more of documentation.

In conclusion, a professional experienced company can save you thousands of hours of time in headaches today, tomorrow and ten years from now. And the majority of reputable companies are fast, efficient, and cost-effective, i.e. they are worth their weight in GOLD. Regardless of the size of the installation, you should always consult with a professional, certified firm.

You will also need to consider electrical power. In our datacenter, we use local UPSs, which, electricaly, are in front of our backup generators. These UPSs are 220V vs. smaller 110V ones. Something that you need to plan for in your Power Distributin Units. Also, you should have sometype of automatic monitoring system, either manned via some third party, or un-manned (such as a unit sold by Sensaphone), that will monitor heat (or lack of A/C), smoke, electrical outage, etc. We are using one, and when one of the sensors trips, it starts calling a pre-determined list of staff.
Hope this helps.

Power is often ignored. Make sure you have a very good isolated ground. In addition, if possible run the entire room off a single breaker panel. This allows you to power everything with a generator should the need arrive. If you are designing a large building with multiple wiring closets and server rooms, try to have them all powered off a single transformer and put a generator in line. The main goal here is to keep your future IP telephones alive if you lose power to the building.

Our server room has been wired with isolated circuits. This way if an office circuit breaker gets tripped, it doesn't affect the server's. Likewise if you have your servers on separate circuits not all your servers will lose power. And of course make sure you have all these on some type of UPS.

I am, quite frankly, FAT! In the obese sense of the word, not the current teenage PHAT. Every so often, for one reason or another, I have had to find some way to squeeze in behind something to get serial numbers, power consumption, or some other odditem of interest. You might want to take this into consideration, too, because whoever designed the server room that I currently work in definitely did NOT!!!

Be sure to budget a web cam for your room. Place it high, in a location that shows the most critical area(s). Then, either assign a routable IP to the camera, or link it, secure or otherwise, to your Internet, Intranet or Extranet site. This way you can view any goings-on inside the room from anywhere, anytime.