South Australian (SA) Health has over 30,000 employees providing healthcare to a population of 1.6 million people. To help run its ICT services efficiently, the organisation has a network of 380 sites servicing over 18,000 PCs.
At the heart of the SA Health network is a data centre located in the capital, Adelaide. This single-floor, 868 m2 building, built in the 1980s, also provides data centre facilities to other departments of South Australia’s government.
100 m2 of the purpose-built centre is dedicated to the needs of SA Health. Within this area, the organisation’s ICT Infrastructure Division has recently completed a new Performance Optimised Data centre (POD) with a range of innovative, performance-improving and cost-saving features.
Advanced connectivity infrastructure is a key part of the POD design. To provide connections between servers, switches and SANs, SA Health chose solutions from CommScope’s Systimax range. Both 10G fibre and copper solutions are used in combination with state-of-the-art Systimax VisiPatch 360 patching hardware. The overall result is a high-performance infrastructure that is easy to manage and beautifully organised. It delivers best-in-class 10G and 1G performance, and its ergonomic ‘reverse’ patch cord connectors eliminate the mass of hanging cords that obscures the connectors in traditional panels.
“VisiPatch 360 is a next-generation patching solution that really performs,” said Lincoln West, Manager - Network Services at SA Health. “Its high connector density and scalable design gave us great flexibility in the way we arranged the ports. And, in operation, moves, adds and changes are now much quicker and less error-prone because of the clear access to connectors. The compact design and reverse connectors, combined with integrated vertical and horizontal patch cord management, make the whole installation look neat and tidy.”
Connections to the SAN environment are supported by the Systimax LazrSpeed InstaPatch Plus solution. This multimode fibre solution is also used to support both 10G and 1G applications between servers and switches, and in connections between servers.
The InstaPatch Plus Solution is a high-density, factory terminated and tested modular solution that enables installers to connect system components together simply and quickly. Up to 96 fibres can be ready for service in the time it takes to make a single connection using traditional methods. At the same time, the InstaPatch solution simplifies design, configuration and ordering of fibre equipment.
The VisiPatch 360 Solution forms the cross-connect for both fibre and copper infrastructure linking servers and switches. The 10G copper infrastructure chosen for the POD was the Systimax GigaSpeed X10D Solution. This comfortably exceeds all the specifications of the Category 6A, Class EA standard for 10G copper cabling.
“This is the first time we have used the cross-connect approach to linking devices in data centres - so we had to be sure we were using the best equipment from a supplier we could trust,” said West. “The SA Health data centre is absolutely mission critical, so we needed confidence that all fibre and copper connections would deliver high performance - and be simple and economical to manage.
“Efficient management, including fast, error-free moves adds and changes, is the key to maintaining high service levels for the many hospitals, clinics and other facilities that depend on the data centre.”
Design, planning and project management of the POD project was handled by the ICT Services Department at SA Health. The system they developed will handle data applications at 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps, supporting fibre channel and VoIP. This makes it backwards compatible with legacy applications and ensures the migration to 10G will be a simple process.
The cross-connect using VisiPatch 360 technology makes all fibre and copper connections easy to work on, and reduces the risk of mismatched services. Its flexible design approach also ensures that future expansion will be a simple process.
Installation work was completed by Systimax business partner TAF and Associates, based in Kidman Park, South Australia. A team including four Systimax-certified technicians installed eight full VisiPatch 360 frames with 2256 terminations to support equipment fields and switched IP fields. VisiPatch 360 four-pair leads are used to connect GigaSpeed X10D copper infrastructure and InstaPatch connections support all the fibre applications.
Within the new POD, the 25 Systimax cabinets are linked via cables routed through overhead basket trays. Switches and severs connected via the cross-connect have redundant links to each cabinet.
“The completed SA Health POD could serve as the pattern for data centre facilities serving other government departments,” said West. “We could extend use of the technology to the whole Adelaide data centre, giving the benefits of reliable 10G links and lower management costs to other sectors of government.
“The same technology has already been deployed in standby data centre facilities. This is also backed by the Systimax 20-year extended product and application warranty, which was another key factor in our choice of CommScope infrastructure solutions.”
