The Telecommunications Industry Association has published a new standard: Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers, TIA-942.
The purpose of this standard is to provide requirements and guidelines for the design and installation of a data center or computer room. It is intended for use by designers who need a comprehensive understanding of the data center design including facility planning, the cabling system and the network design. TIA-942 will enable the data center design to be considered early in the building development process, contributing to the architectural considerations, by providing information that cuts across the multidisciplinary design efforts; promoting cooperation in the design and construction phases.
This document presents an infrastructure topology for accessing and connecting the respective elements in the various cabling system configurations now found in the data center environment. In order to determine the performance requirements of a generic cabling system, various telecommunications services and applications were considered. In addition, this standard addresses the floor layout topology related to achieving the proper balance between security, rack density and manageability.
TIA-942 specifies a generic telecommunications cabling system for the data center and related facilities whose primary function is information technology. Such application spaces may be dedicated to a private company or institution, or occupied by one or more service provider to host Internet connections and data storage services. The topologies proposed in this document are intended to be applicable to both private domain or public domain data centers in satisfying their respective requirements for connectivity (Internet access and wide-area communications), operational hosting (Web hosting, file storage and backup, database management, etc.) and additional services (application hosting, content distribution, etc.). Failsafe power, environmental controls and fire suppression, and system redundancy and security are also common requirements to facilities that serve both the private and public domain.
TIA-942 was created by TIA TR-42.1 Subcommittee on Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling and ratified in April.
The TIA is based in Arlington, VA. For more information visit www.tiaonline.org.