Network Communications News (NCN) September 2016 | Page 36

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E

cable management & labelling

Fully operational

The amount of cable used within
a data centre is substantial.

Mike Irvin at HellermannTyton examines the requirements of today’s data centres, how cable
management plays a key role and addresses the issues that impact operational effectiveness.

T

he data centre has become
the heart of many businesses
– without it everything stops.
Maintenance, management and
design are crucial in keeping
services running, providing
support and creating capacity. A
high performance data centre relies on
a number of key components; power,
cooling, hardware, infrastructure and
cable management.

Demand led
As the demand for data centre
capacity continues to increase, so do

the internal demands placed upon
it. However, with increased capacity
arise a number of issues that all impact
success, profitability and productivity.
These include data storage capacity,
installation speed, and the age old
dilemma of cable management.
In previous years, the role of cable
management was to ensure electrical
wiring in a building was safely contained.
However, with the rapid and continual
evolution of networks, fibre optic
capabilities and the need for greater
storage, cabling must form an IT network
that can protect data and provide
sufficient performance.

The need for speed
One of the foremost requirements of any
cutting edge data centre is speed. From
initial installation through to supporting
the network usage, each element needs
to be taken into consideration and the
quicker the infrastructure is up and
running, the quicker the data centre is
ready for use.
In designing and implementing
high density networks, many data
centres and data reliant businesses
want systems that provide reliable
performance, greater bandwidth and
flexibility to accommodate future
growth. However, they don’t want to

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