When it comes to data center design, it’s true that you need to sweat the details—your business operations and continuity depend on it. Therefore, part of this process includes choosing the proper cabling pathway and ensuring this construction will enable multiple products to work together.
In this article, the cabling experts at Connectivity will offer a review of the most commonly seen cabling pathway types.
What is Cabling Pathway?
The easy answer is that cabling pathways allow for the placement of data center trunk cables. They cross-connect cables between racks and cabinets. They come in two forms—overhead pathways and under-floor pathways—and both are designed to accommodate all standards-compliant cabling. Furthermore, effective cabling pathway design allows necessary changes to be implemented at a later date. What this means is that cabling pathway should support cable weight initially with the ability to add more cables later as the facility grows, and data needs are increased.
Types of Cabling Pathways Defined
Here is a brief overview of the types of cabling pathways available to you—indeed, there is a great array of styles.
Conduit: These are pipes that cable is placed in and pulled through—and they can be metallic or non-metallic, and rigid or flexible. They run from the telecommunications room to work area outlets. It’s important to think about the future with this particular cabling pathway and it’s recommended that the pipes only be about 40% full by your current cable needs, leaving you space for growth.
Cable Trays: This is a form of cabling pathway that is open and equipped with sides that allow cable to be laid within the tray’s entire length. They are ideally used to handle a large amount of horizontal cable runs and offer great accessibility when performing maintenance, troubleshooting, and adjusting for change.
Basket Tray: This is an underfloor cable tray used primarily in data centers. They typically require a plenum air space, so all cable and patch cables would also need to be plenum to enable proper air flow.
Ladder Racks: This is made of tubular steel and comes in sizes ranging from 6” to 36” wide. Ladder rack installation is simple and comes with many accessories including 90-degree bends, cable retaining posts, and waterfalls. All of these accessories allow for cable to be routed without experiencing damage.
Raceways: This is a special type of conduit utilized for surface mounting horizontal cables and is usually pieced together in a modular fashion. A vendor will provide connectors that prevent the bend rate from being exceeded. They are mounted on the outside of a wall if it is not easy to install cable in the wall.
How to Decide? Consult a Professional
While this article is a general overview of cabling pathway options, in reality, it is very necessary to consult with a cabling expert, like the team at Connectivity, when evaluating your needs, your working condition and environment, and many other factors.
Our team designs cabling pathways for a variety of businesses in diverse industries. We can consult with you one-on-one to understand what your business needs right now while also implementing a future-proof strategy to handle change in the long run.
For more information, reach out to Connectivity today.