Network Closet Remediation Project

I lead a project to upgrade a LAN Closet in a Large Hospital. The preferred method to upgrade this closet would have been to rebuild it over the course of a weekend, but since this closet served the Emergency Department (the counties only Level 1 Trauma Center) this was not an option.

Project Goals:
1) Replace extremely old Nortel 5510 switches with new Cisco switches that were POE capable
2) Provide power diversity to minimize downtime events
3) Provide switch stack diversity to minimize impact of losing an entire switch stack
4) Migrate users with a minimum of downtime

To minimize downtime, the desired plan was to turn up the new switches and migrate users over individually to minimize downtime to short intervals of less than one minute. This also allows for not all devices in the department to be down at the same time.
Some issues that were encountered with this desired approach included.
1) Inadequate space to physically mount the switches
2) Inadequate power to have both sets of switches powered simultaneously

The plan I developed, in working with our vendors was as follows:
1) Install Diverse 30 Amp 3 Phase circuits and install two power distribution units, one on commercial power, and one tied into the building UPS. This along with the fact that the Cisco switches we installed were configured with dual power supplies maximizes our survivability during a power outage. This was tested during the first week that users were live on the new switches, as maintenance took place on the UPS circuit without any interruption to users.
2) There was not enough space available to install the 10 new switches. Create space for mounting the new switches by reterminating all of the station cabling on new high density patch panels. We had older patch panels in the rack that accommodated 48 ports of CAT5 cabling in 2 rack units. By installing high density patch panels we were able to free up enough rack units to install the new switches in locations that were more optimal.
3) The existing cable management was not functional with the number of cables that were installed. We came up with a plan to replace the existing non-functional cable management with a better solution.
4) As part of our efforts to tidy up the cabling, we replaced all patch cables with “Reduced Diameter Cables”. These cables take up less space in the cable managers and allow plenty of space for growth.

Before

After

Contact us:

Timothy O'Hara

Phone/Text 716 465 4999

E-Mail tim@oharagroup.biz

Last Updated : April 23, 2023