Features

Research is the lifeblood of any credible university, whether student-driven or homegrown from professors on campus. This is particularly true of universities with a reputation for pushing technology forward. The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), located on the campus of University of California at Irvine (UCI), is one such example.

Calit2 opened its doors on the UCI campus in 2005. The two-campus multidisciplinary research institute integrates UC Irvine and UC San Diego research expertise with industry insight. The UCI location, a four-story, 120,000-square-foot building, is a testing facility where university professors can design, build and test projects to advance telecommunications and data technology. With 167 faculty members actively engaged in Calit2 activities, the institute is conducting research in areas as diverse as the environment, transportation, emergency management, healthcare, global economics, education and entertainment.

“Calit2 is one of the few buildings on campus that had numerous advance preparation meetings,” says Todd Strand, infrastructure engineer at UCI. “From conception to conclusion, our design team was closely tied to the professors. This was positive, as we quickly gained an understanding of how we could best accommodate all of them, while avoiding the expense of special modifications and technical systems for each professor. An excellent example of this was the testing facility.”

The Calit2 testing facility required special rack enclosure cabinets so professors who received grants for specific projects could purchase, install, maintain and protect their electronics. The cabinet design would also need to work well in an environment that encourages new ideas and relationships. Space is assigned by project, not by department, so many projects that may start out with a single researcher develop into new partnerships.

“Product decisions fall under great scrutiny in a state-run organization,” says Strand. “As is typical, research panels were formed as equipment decisions were made. This provided an opportunity for me to offer opinions on the most appropriate rack enclosure cabinets for the testing facility. This included cabling infrastructure, among other equipment that does not necessarily connect to the cabinets.”

Specially designed cabinets
Strand evaluated several cabinet vendors but had a specific solution in mind from the start, understanding the special needs of the facility. APWMayville, based in Wisconsin, offered the best solution for Calit2’s requirements, in his view, through its specially designed Pioneer “Co-Lo” racks.

The Co-Lo design solves a specific problem for Calit2 by allowing professors to protect their investments made possible by grants. The racks are co-located together in the testing facility and feature locking doors. Entry is similar to an airport locker: A professor can grab keys to the cabinet, integrate technology for experiments and take the keys when she leaves. The professor removes the equipment and leaves the keys in the door upon completing the experiment.

Strand ordered two Pioneer Co-Lo cabinets at three-feet deep, seven-feet tall and 24-inches wide. Each features 19-inch adjustable rails and evenly spaced, drilled holes to easily shift and move equipment throughout the rack.

Each rack features two large lockable cells. A professor can “acquire” an entire rack for a larger experiment, or just the top or bottom for smaller projects. Research projects can be separated from each other or researchers can use multiple cells to connect different projects. The enclosure design also provides easy access throughout the rack, with enough versatility to remove certain elements and/or link the two cabinets together.

The cabinets were designed and built in the company’s Wisconsin facility, where engineers can pre-wire the cabinets to reduce tie-cable runs between and overhead the cable trays. Once delivered, no special modifications were required prior to installation.

Although the cabinets were an easy fit, modifications to the cabling infrastructure were required prior to integration. Two snake trays were installed on top of each other, above and below the ceiling grid, reducing the amount of visible wires and creating a safer research environment.

power supply an issue
While rack space, protection and cabling were immediately addressed with the Pioneer cabinets, the presence of an appropriate power supply was another issue. To ensure that enough power was afforded to all research projects, each cabinet features APWMayville Power Options power strips.

The Power Options’ range addresses the heightened power requirements in the modern data communications facility, which is typically heavy on servers and other power-draining IT equipment. The strips handle 208 power, three-phase electrical and other standards, and snap into place vertically or horizontally. This offers flexibility in power management and equipment integration between different projects, since one professor’s project can be radically different from the next.

All equipment is rail-mounted through pre-drilled holes. Various bracketing solutions were delivered with the racks to secure rail-mounted equipment. The cabinets also feature an “easy knockout design,” as Strand explains, which eases cabling and wiring requirements whether entering the cabinet from above, or from the bottom up through a raised floor.

Strand had initially envisioned 80 Co-Lo racks at Calit2, with 40 apiece in two server rooms. Facility design changes and budgetary constraints, however, meant starting with just two racks. These racks were part of a cabling, electrical and UPS infrastructure that ran between $500,000 and $600,000.

The racks are centrally located at the end of the row in a 32x32 server room closest to the telecommunications terminal room, with copper, CAT 6, and both single and multimode fiber tie cables to an intermediate terminal on that floor. “These racks will eventually integrate into a row of racks in the center of the server room that will link into each other, with each rack featuring built-in HVAC and UPS devices,” explains Strand.

“The ultimate goal is to eventually integrate these cabinets into our central server room,” he adds. “For now, the main power supply going into the racks comes from the power supply in the server room, which is terribly undersized because of another financial cutback. Originally, both the third and fourth floors were to have their own PDU (power distribution unit). As of this time, only the fourth floor has this feature, and the third floor is fed from the same 75 KVW PDU. We’ll need to address this important issue to build a successful central server room.”

Cooling procedures are also an issue, since there were not enough funds available. One Liebert 18-ton system was installed in each server room to handle the anticipated load. Strand says this will most likely not be enough to cool the equipment that was going to be in the final design.

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