Publisher sees copper now, fiber later
A fiber backbone with total fiber-to-the-desk capabilities provides high-performance voice, data, and video transmission.
Carol Everett Ortronics Corp.
Saint Mary`s Press, Christian Brothers Publications, was founded in the basement of Mary`s Hall on the campus of Saint Mary`s University in Winona, MN. It moved into its own building in 1967 and has grown to become a leading publisher of religious materials, including high school and parish textbooks and newsletters. Three presses print 50 different books a year, which are distributed in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
In 1996, Saint Mary`s Press found that the Category 3 wiring it had installed five years earlier had become insufficient for the large file transfers required by the facility`s five departments--general management, editorial development, marketing, graphics, and finance. In addition, broken lines had caused failures in voice and data transmission. A new system was long overdue.
"Our previous system, which was trying to emulate data transmission over Category 3-type cable, was slow and nonproductive," explains Jim Koenig, network administrator for Saint Mary`s Press. "When reviewing the many copper-based and fiber-based systems, we wanted to go for the gold and communicate over fiber through atm [Asynchronous Transfer Mode]. We figured that in the short run we could incorporate a fiber backbone between the servers and use Category 5 over our existing Ethernet 10Base-T network, and eventually replace atm cards in the servers and go all fiber. We did consider Fast Ethernet, such as Gigabit Ethernet over fiber, but it would have been an added step and an added cost when what we wanted in the end was atm."
Koenig found that the only significant initial costs in installing fiber-to-the-desk capabilities are the termination hardware and labor. The cost of installing dark fiber alongside copper cables during a network upgrade is less than retrofitting the building at a later date. "Network managers and planners are beginning to look at the lifetime costs of a network, rather than just the initial first installed costs," states networking consultant Mark Grzelak of Virtual Communications in Newington, CT. "Fiber is clean, easy to install, and has a far longer life cycle than copper-based systems. Saint Mary`s Press is very progressive with its plans to bring fiber to the desk. They see the long-term benefit of being able to support higher data-rate systems without recabling."
Star topology is a home run
"With only 65 workstations and 348 data and phone circuits located in one two-story building, this would be considered a relatively small installation. However, this is a quantum leap for desktop publishing, since this is a highly advanced fiber-based system," states Russ Neitzke, president of Winona-based Digicom Inc., the network installation company. "Saint Mary`s Press requested to service its finance, graphics, and printing departments, which used many operating systems, from Macs to PCs. In addition, the company needed a system that could provide the bandwidth for large file transfers and a system that would be unaffected by the harsh interferences found in printing plants."
For its intranet, Saint Mary`s Press selected a "home-run" layout, or star topology, which consolidates all equipment in the main crossconnect or in a main closet. A secondary wiring closet serves as an interconnect to those workstations installed more than 50 m away from the main crossconnect.
"Although eia/tia standards regulate that in a Category 5 scenario the cable runs can be up to 90 m, I go on the premise that by keeping them 50 m apart, the shorter the distance, the faster the speed--and the lowest phase distortion can be realized," says Koenig.
Centralizing all the equipment in a single location makes network changes easier to accomplish. The home-run configuration also simplifies the cabling and increases network reliability by reducing the number of interconnections in the structured cabling system. This architecture is the most economical for fiber-to-the-desk because electronics and fiber costs are centralized, thereby minimizing costs.
The single main switching station contains two hubs and servers. The servers are linked so that if one line goes down, the other can still function without the loss of data and with minimal downtime concentrated on that one point. Both servers access the same cable-management hardware. In the case of a cable break, data can be accepted on a primary link and transmitted on a secondary link. The system`s long-term reliability and functionality depend on the efficiency of its servers and associated hardware that route information from the fiber-optic backbone to its final workstation or information center.
Modular solutions
Saint Mary`s Press prides itself on its orderly printing procedures and immaculate working environment. The orderly atmosphere was considered when selecting a cabling infrastructure for its wiring closets. Not only did Koenig want equipment that could accept upgrades easily, without replacing all the cable-management products, but he also wanted easy identification of lines for future moves, adds, and changes as well as an easy transition from Ethernet to atm.
Working closely with Anixter Inc., in Minneapolis, MN, a stocking distributor of networking systems and components, Saint Mary`s Press selected compatible products for each block of the cabling infrastructure. "The solution at Saint Mary`s Press was for a modular combination of copper and fiber products that would immediately get them up and running today while providing the capacity for tomorrow`s networking environment," states Mike Taylor of Anixter.
"Together with recommendations from our distributor and our networking sales representative, Jamie Roux, of Primus Datacom [Minnetonka, MN], we specified and selected cable-management panels and four cable-management racks [Mighty Mo IIs] from Ortronics--one main distribution frame and one intermediate rack in the main telecommunications closet and two intermediate distribution frames in the secondary closet. These racks could accept Ortronics 24-patch rack-mount fiber cabinets for all data and phone connections needed now, as well as allow upgradability to fiber servers and atm hubs in the future," states Mike Wadewitz, vice president and engineer for Digicom Inc.
"We installed Berk-Tek lanmark 350 plenum--a Category 5 enhanced unshielded twisted-pair cable offering support for future local area network applications, such as 1000Base-T--and Berk-Tek fiber-distribution cable," states Neitzke. "We selected Ortronics 32-port Category 5 high-density modular to 110 patch panels and cable-management connectivity hardware that could accept current networking requirements and the incoming fiber, as well."
The intranet system installed between the wiring closets uses 2-fiber round plenum fiber-optic cable. The 133 circuits provide two-way transmit-and-receive capabilities. All the wiring for data and voice that is connected via fiber-optic cables comes into the telecommunications closet through routers and connects to a hub in the Mighty Mo II cable-management racks, which then converts the circuits from optical to digital. From there the circuits are patched with fiber jumper cords to the Category 5 cable and then out to every workstation. Category 5 cable is strung to the desk to provide 348 data and phone circuits. Dark fiber is strung alongside for future upgrades to accommodate high-speed, high-bandwidth, two-way data and video transmission.
Each office has four strands of fiber and at least four Category 5 jacks. Each desk has computer access. A typical workstation in an office containing dark fiber consists of an Ortronics Series II single gang faceplate with a snap-in Series II eight-pin modular jack module for data and voice, plus blank modules for future fiber expansion. All fiber locations in the office use a Series II 2 ST polymer sleeve 45° exit module with blanks for future fiber expansion.
Colored icons at each workstation outlet match the cable that corresponds to the cable-management rack in the telecommunications closets. In addition, each jack is numbered at the station to coincide with the appropriate port on the Category 5 or fiber patch panel.
atm in the fast lane II
In accordance with Koenig`s plans for future capacity expansion, the Saint Mary`s Press network will accommodate evolution to atm. The installation of fiber cards and atm switches at Saint Mary`s Press will result in a fiber network operating at 155 Mbits/sec. The atm switch will be located in the telecommunications closet, and everything will feed into that switch.
"We are currently using fiber between the closets to provide our Internet connection," states Koenig. The graphics and printing departments transfer large files and are in high-emi [electromagnetic interference] environments that include, for example, fluorescent lighting. "We expect that fiber optics and atm will solve our problems," he adds. atm also will allow electronic transmission of multimedia library materials to campuses throughout the United States, as well as allow two-way video transmission.
atm will be the solution provider and lane II (Local Area Network Emulation) will be the software to emulate the system. lane software recently became a standard with the atm Forum. This high-level software emulates the local area network for atm users by interpreting and converting it; lane II is the software`s next generation.
"lane is a protocol interpreter and is able to emulate each atm cell to ultimately demonstrate the best ways to configure each element separately. lane software demonstrates the many channels of atm, which are used concurrently for many different functions," explains Grzelak. "This becomes attractive for use in a network that does not require dedicated lines, but works best with relatively small fixed-length cells."
"The most critical planning decision was for horizontal distribution," comments Koenig. "After our careful analysis, followed up by a complete wiring system that will support all our communications needs, we feel that the products and pathways that we have installed for our network will continue to support our network and future enhancements." u
Carol Everett of Everett Communications in Holliston, MA, is a freelance writer for Pawcatuck, CT-based Ortronics Corp.