Installation practices just don't seem to mesh with desired outcomes when it comes to implementations. The customer's needs analysis (user needs/company goals), network assessment, and site survey are tools that lead to success. Knowing what to look for in existing installations and discovering land mines requires being on site and making a time investment.
I included photographs in my past two posts, Part I and Part II, and in this third photograph shown below, there are more details in plain view. While some of these details are alarming, even having "best practices" doesn't mean that installation guidelines won't be overlooked or even ignored. When building codes and manufacturer requirements aren't heeded, then less-than-desired outcomes plague customer sites. These bad results can include poor performance, higher maintenance costs and business disruption.
What we found:
Gas Hot Water Heater – Located less than six feet away from the TDM Nortel system pictured. Installers should not install anything with a ring generator (which does create a spark) near gas sources. While serious fires don't occur often by ignition-by-ringing, it does happen. I recall an incident involving a Comdial system installed right next to a gas-fired hot water heater in a townhouse office in Georgetown which resulted in a fire that burned the cable plant from the demarcation next to the water heater all the way to the third floor. While the water heater is not in view in the photo, the sprinkler system and sprinkler head is shown in the top left corner.
Sprinkler Systems – Not only is crossing sprinkler piping and laying cabling atop sprinkler pipes against code, it is incredibly dangerous to firefighters. Further, to place equipment beneath a sprinkler head just doesn't make sense.
Accessibility – The 66-blocks that have terminated 25-pair cables that feed the TDM system also have jumper cables that are entangled with everything else, ( which includes security camera cabling, LAN and fiber patch cords, and coax from the cable provider.
Once a site begins on the path of poor housekeeping, it usually continues for years. As it is now, we will spend a significant amount of customer dollars ripping out services, lines, and connections; we spend mostly time in covering our tracks in case we disrupt something like the router stuck between the LAN switches and patch panel for the analog trunks using the drop and insert router.
In addition to the chaotic install, performing any moves-adds-changes-deletions (MACDs) is cumbersome. A convergence project also means an opportunity to clean house, and good housekeeping on a job reflects on the people doing the work.
The promise of all IP networks means opportunities exist to improve over past practices and to deliver better, faster, cheaper and easier to use service. Following old practices and mistakes, and ignoring sins of the past on installs translates to lost opportunities. It will take us months to transition this campus and to ensure that all services are functioning properly. Because documentation is nearly non-existent, this task is added to the pile.
The demarc and Intermediate Distribution Frames (IDFs) and Main Distribution Frames aren't obsolete; their future is bright because less equipment, better housekeeping and managing the network means managing change. Customers that don't manage change or are connected to vendors incapable of keeping sites clean will quickly learn that cost benefits will erode quickly. When it doesn't look right, it probably isn't, and that's a simple lesson in the complicated network calling for convergence.
What may be a clash of personalities or simply dysfunction between traditional TDM and IT is that the ITIL practices may appear to telecom personnel as too rigid or inflexible, and getting something to "just work" often goes outside the scope of proper management and adhering to guidelines. It's safe to say that the U.S. market is still under a huge transition.
But these aren't the only challenges – as I mentioned in prior posts, businesses must have reliable and affordable bandwidth, and their infrastructures must be capable of supporting uninterrupted services that place demands on the converged network. These demands mean that the weakest link is either the link itself, lack of alternate paths or internal issues that are disruptive to the network. Convergence translates to reliance upon the network, and this will force businesses to improve their infrastructures ... else they become less competitive in their own businesses.
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Related Articles You May Be Interested in Reading:
"Site Surveys Reveal Convergence Realities – Part I" by Matt Brunk
"Site Surveys Reveal Convergence Realities – Part II" by Matt Brunk
"Adtran Converges More, Changes MSP Space" by Matt Brunk
