Site Drawings
A marked-up drawing of the site, with cableways, cabinets, points and other information
When I work on planning a large project, I invariably use AutoCad. Since the 1990s, this has been a staple of every large engineering project I’ve ever worked on. For layer 1 designs, we are normally provided with draft CAD drawings by the architect, and will sketch over these at meetings, marking them up to identify communication cabinet locations, and the routes which cable containment will take. We also markup summaries of power outlets and communication outlets at the consumer side. As the project develops, these informal marked up drawings progress to the services engineers, and an additional set of drawings is produced showing cable ways, cabinets, and computer rooms. Related support services such as Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) are normally indicated at this time. And if it is a data centre, single-line diagrams of the power arrangments will be provided.
As part of the software available to you through the University, you do have access to AutoCAD. If you are interested in Layer 1, I recommend you download and install when you finish the taught modules. Find a basic online course which covers an introduction and the terminology. You will find this of use if you ever do this work in industry, but we will not be covering these topics in this module and you do not need it for the assignments.
Site Drawing
On a site, any good design will have multiple paths between buildings and cabinets. A ring is the cheapest implementation and for networks with more than 3 locations, you may decide to use a mesh. I would certainly show two paths to every building, separated by the greatest possible distance. Any other location must have at least two ways to get to it!
In any marked-up diagram, Include
Buildings and redundant ducts between them.
Floors and main trunking, in an industrial environment, steel!
Cabinets and some indication of point densities. You need to show specific numbers, normally this would be with a symbol. Typically, I will provide 4x13A and 2xCAT6 to each seat.
Wi-Fi Access Points. It is normal to provide one per floor in a small/open plan building, but for complex locations we use site planning tools, we do not cover this in the course.
Security cameras and other infrastructure items.
Floor boxes where required, these are frowned upon by safety people!
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