Cabling


High Density Fibre Solution optimises use of space in BT Operate’s data centres


Space today is an expensive commodity, and nowhere more so than in Data Centres. The need to pack ever more equipment including cabling into more and more confined spaces is being driven by the increasing costs of the buildings that house them, and the land they sit on. By Brand-Rex.


This is why a company such as BT attempts to keep its use of space in its data centres to a minimum, while also increasing their cabling density, enabling it to offer more and better services to its customers.


BT Operate, the operations division of BT, runs communications services for customers over BT’s core network and systems, as well as handling BT’s global 21CN platform. It implements and operates the software, hardware and networks that supply BT’s services to its own other divisions –


Retail, Global Services and Wholesale – as well as their external customers.


An important element helping to optimise use of space in its nationwide chain of data centres is a newly developed high density fibre frame, custom built for BT Operate by Brand-Rex.


The relationship between Brand-Rex and BT started when BT Operate was looking for a new source of fibre frames. It felt its original supplier didn’t provide value for money in both


the products and services supplied, partly because it was shipping its products from the USA, but importantly because the products presented were generic and not specifically designed to meet their data centre needs, resulting in overcapacity.


“Effectively, we often wanted a half rack solution,” explains Paul Woodward, lead data centre technical specialist for BT Operate, based in Cardiff. “Also, the cable management in the original rack was not as good as we thought it could have been. So, we turned to Brand-Rex and worked very closely with them and the cabinet manufacturer on the development of custom built cabinets.


“As the end user, we were able to give them constant feedback on what was positive in terms of the design work. The result is, we have produced what we think is one of the best high density patching frames for both fibre and copper on the market today. That is why we are using them as standard in all BT Operate data centres.”


Woodward estimates the new high density frames are giving BT Operate around 30 per cent more capacity –


34 | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS | www.datacentresols.com Winter 2010


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