[K12OSN] Help design a new elementary school!

[Jim Kronebusch]

> for some good points.  In terms of specific questions people 
> have been asking, we are building an entirely new structure, 
> not renovating an old one. And the design is a typical school 
> - 3 floors, fixed-size classrooms (average 800 sq feet) for 
> each grade, art, library, etc.
> 
> To summarize the points so far:
> 1) lots of conduits for pulling cables now and in the future!
> 2) wiring for ceiling projectors in each classroom
> 3) planning for wireless (what does this mean anyway? thinner walls?)
> 
> (The other options, such as smart boards, etc, are a bit 
> beyond our budget, but I doubt they affect anything in the 
> design phase.)
> 
> There was some discussion about the IDFs - I'm not sure what 
> that stands for, but I'm assuming that it refers to where all 
> the servers are.  We currently don't have anything like that 
> in our school. We just have the tower for the lab sitting in 
> a corner of the lab room. 
> Is that the best approach? I thought a server room was mainly 
> for rack-mounted servers.

There are MDF's and IDF's.  The M stands for main and the I for
intermediate distribution facilities.  Your MDF is where your internet,
phone, and cable will enter the building.  This usually ends up on an
outside wall.  In an ideal world, place your MDF and IDFs central to the
structure.  And place them directly above/below each other.  This will
equal out cable run lengths and make it much easier to pull more cross
connects between wire rooms.  Use large conduit.  Make sure there is
plenty of room for pulling more cable in the future (no matter how much
you plan, you'll need more someday).  Pull more cable than you think
you'll ever need.  Cable is cheap, and when pulled in groups doesn't
increase labor much.  No less than two data cables to any location.
That way there is always a buffer for failure.  Pull fiber, it is cheap
to pull.  Even if you just leave it in the wall and don't terminate it.
Eventually your copper connections will be exceeded and having at least
a small fiber backbone already in place to rooms will put you way ahead
of the game.  And pulling glass fiber through cramped conduit after the
fact may be tough.  Definitely use a gigabit fiber backbone between your
MDF and IDFs.  Pull coax to every room.  Stem all of your runs as a star
from the wire rooms.  Not sure how long or wide your building is but be
sure if the floors are large enough that your IDFs are place so that no
cable run exceeds 100 Meters.  You may need 2 IDFs per floor, if so run
a Gig fiber backbone between them and place them centrally in their half
and directly over/under each other.

If you are really bored read the TIA/EIA standards in regards to wire
room location and standards.  They actually make a lot of sense.  When
placing your racks for mounting patch panels and switches be sure to
place them where they are easily accessible from both front and back, it
will reduce your headache tremendously.  Develop a wiring scheme.  I
like to use one that is intuitive to the point that if I look at a jack
it tells me what kind of data it is, what wire room it originates from,
and its unique number. Example: Data Run from IDF B and it is the 15th
jack on the patch panel, label it D-B-15 (Data, IDF B, jack 15).  Choose
whatever makes you happy but it sure beats cross reference charts and
toners.  For Phone from IDF D puch down 48, P-D-48 (Phone, IDF D, punch
down 48).  Do this with coax, fiber, anything.  And in your wire room
label your cross connect runs in the same fashion.  Troubleshooting will
never have been easier.

Your electrician needs to be fully aware of your wiring scheme.  If you
plan on having an wireless access point hanging 30ft in the air in the
middle of your concourse, he needs to put a outlet there.  For every
location you have a dual data drop, put a quad outlet.  Think about what
will be plugging in at all locations your data drops will be.  Don't go
cheap on this and put a lot of thought in it.  Especially in your
computer labs.

Pull CAT5 for phone.  And make sure all 4 pairs are terminated on the
punch down blocks.  This allows you to run 4 phones off a single cable.
This will save your butt in the future, and if needed you can always
convert it to data.

Hope this helps.


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