Apologies for a lack of updates this past week concerning our new facility in Seattle. We have been working two shifts a day doing the wiring for the network. This involves bundling wire in groups of 24 as it comes off of spools and then laying it up into the ladder-rack. It is very time-consuming and labor intensive, but like the rack installation, it is something we insist on doing ourselves.

Above: Four and a half miles of Category 5 Ethernet wire. When complete the new facility will have over thirty miles (48 Kilometers) of network wiring.

We built a jig and spent days pulling measured bundles of wire. Next we pulled these through the ladder racks, which are a grid of horizontal pathways suspended above the server racks. We much prefer overhead wiring to the alternative of "raised floor." Raised floor was designed for the mainframe systems of old, where there would be a low density of machines (and network wire) with circulation of cooling air being forced through the floor. With today's datacenters being very dense with servers and networks maintaining thirty miles of wire under the floor would become difficult and would inhibit air circulation. Wiring can also be messy and hidden under a raised floor. We prefer to invest the time to create a very clean and visible wiring plant, as you will soon see. Getting there of course is anything but clean. The wire bundles are difficult to manage before they get suspended. They must be kept clean and not allowed to be stepped on or tangled. We made use of the ample space available to us in this new building to arrange the bundles neatly prior to raising. The longer runs had to be delayed until New Years Eve when the building was officially 'closed' for the holiday and we could make use of corridors for laying them out.

Above: Our longest cable run, a 120+ foot 12 wire bundle, destined for our server building lab is pulled from the spools by Chad Quimby and Rus Pagenkopf. The above shot is a panorama of two photos taken at a ninety-degree angle, with the end of the run being down the hallway.

The bundles were pulled into the ladder rack, either with a rope or sometimes by hand. The next step is to drape the ends into their final locations in preparation for termination (where the individual wires inside the cables are punched down into a patch-panel at both ends of the run.) The final step is to "lace" the cable bundles to the ladder rack to keep them neat and straight.

Above: Wire runs completed, awaiting termination.

Termination work will begin Monday, January 3rd. We had hoped to start December 31st, but a delay in our second fiber installation has pushed back the entire schedule a few days. Server moves can not begin in volume until we have some network redundancy in place. This should happen sometime later this week.

Next up: Termination, cable lacing and initial server moves.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to wish a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all of our clients and friends.

--Chuck Goolsbee V.P., Technical Operations digital.forest, Inc.