SMART BUILDINGS: Make Them Tech Smart

Information technology has been rapidly evolving resulting in

development of systems that can measure, evaluate, and respond to change. This

ability to respond and also control change has sparked developments in the way

we design our physical environment, and more recently the buildings in which we

work. The BPO and tech wave has given impetus to this trend in India. Thus, we

are witnessing significant increase in 'intelligent buildings'-buildings

that incorporate information technology, communication systems, and mechanical

systems, making them more comfortable, secure, productive, and cost effective.

In India, structured cabling has picked up well. Almost all of

the new IT parks are on structured cabling, even small users and SOHOs are using

it. With rising awareness and low-cost PCs coming in the market; the networking

concept would certainly get a boost.

What is a Smart Building?



An intelligent building is one equipped with a robust telecommunications

infrastructure, allowing for more efficient use of resources and increasing the

comfort and security of its occupants. An intelligent building provides these

benefits through automated control systems such as heating, ventilation, and air

conditioning (HVAC); fire safety; security; energy/lighting management; and

other building management systems. For example, in the case of a fire, the fire

alarm communicates with the security system to unlock the doors. The alarm will

also communicate with the HVAC system to regulate airflow and prevent the fire

from spreading.

Smart

buildings are not a new concept in India. The CMC building at Bandra Kurla

Complex, Mumbai was one of the smart buildings that came up in 1990s. However,

it was a new concept at that time, and not too many such buildings are noticed.

Initial followers were the IT companies while now the IT parks have taken it up.

This concept is on the rise amongst all corporates and the government sector.

On the enterprise front, all of them have deployed structured

cabling. Even the government enterprises have started to use them for all their

offices, whereas while only a few offices earlier were on a LAN. The

introduction of computers and various peripherals in the workplace has increased

indoor clutter. Electrical and telecommunications facilities in office buildings

are under pressure to satisfy the demand of rapid growth of computer and

networking technologies. This would impact worker productivity.

So, how can we evolve our existing buildings to smart

buildings?

The Transformation



Conventional buildings can be transformed into intelligent ones by

installing a single structured cabling network. Most buildings have disparate

cabling with different designs and administration methods, which leads to

inefficiency and system failures. The installation of a structured cabling

system turns the conventional building into an intelligent one.

The use of structured cabling has grown in the last three years.

All new building projects usually have structured cabling. Even the old ones

have started to rip off their old cabling and adopt structured cabling standards

for voice communication as well.

Data centers are examples of buildings which factor in the

networking and computing technologies to make their buildings intelligent and

futuristic. But not all buildings are built on the premise of data centers but

can still be converted to smart buildings.

The deployment in India can be termed as 'growing'. We still

have enterprises, especially in the government sector, that have yet to migrate

to using of computers and networking these to share data within and across the

enterprise.

Structured cabling has played a key role in getting these rich

media, bandwidth concerted applications closer to the user community. A well

defined structured cabling system can be the arteries and veins of the network.

With convergence and ever increasing bandwidth capacity, voice, data and video

are coming closer together as new technologies develop. Rich media and

bandwidth-hungry applications depend on the cabling system that provides this

communications capability.

Making Business Sense



Though in India we have not experienced a significant transformation to

smart buildings, CIOs of various enterprises have identified the need. Ashish

Dandekar, Enterprise Management, NSE.IT opines, "buildings represent a

large, long-term investment that must make good business sense and be shielded

from obsolescence in today's fast-paced business environment. When we had gone

about building our data center in early 2000, we designed meticulously,

factoring in future scalability and redundancy." It's important to plan a

building in advance for the roadmap on IT infrastructure, physical security,

building strength, to mitigate risks of fire, water, utilities, failures, etc.

It not easy to haul old cables and lay new ones as first they come with a life

for 15 years and moreover, it involves lot of construction, internally and

externally, to lay a fresh set of cables.

A structured cable network must be designed with scalable

overlay capacity for future requirements.

Business requirements such as communicating data quickly and

reliably; ability to exercise greater control over the work environment and

improve productivity and cost-effectiveness make structured cabling an

imperative business aspect.

Cabling is at the heart of every network, with communication and

fast and accurate delivery of information among an organization's most

important business priorities. If the wrong cabling installation is chosen, the

consequences can seriously affect an organization's bottom line. With

installations lasting from 10 to 20 years, planning for future applications is

pivotal in this process. As a result, IT requirements should always be viewed in

the context of the overall business strategy in order to balance present and

future network needs with overall organizational goals.

Minu Sirsalewala

Smart Practices

Intelligent choice of network and cable types depends on the

types of devices to be connected, their location and the way they are used. At

the planning stage, consider future as well as present requirements.

Under-specifying network configurations and cabling systems is a common error.

Since the expense and disruption caused by a premature replacement are great,

trying to cut corners at the installation stage may be unwise and will result in

ongoing rearrangements at a much higher financial cost and with associated

disruptions or delays in deployment of services.

The use of structured cabling allows established systems, as

well as newer ones, to benefit from the latest cabling techniques. Cabling is a

key component of any networked system, so decision makers should be prepared to

commit up to 10 to 15% of the total cost in this area.

The first cabling decision is between unshielded twisted pair (UTP),

shielded and/or foil screened cable types, optical fiber, or a combination of

these.

It is important to check the space available for cable runs

before making decisions on cable type, understanding that optical fiber cabling

offers many advantages for backbone deployment of LAN applications.

UTP cabling is preferred worldwide and is capable of supporting

high data rates to the desk. A significant number of installations are already

running gigabit speeds over high performance UTP cabling, with the migration to

gigabit over UTP expected to pick up the pace dramatically over the next few

years. 10 Gb/s UTP connections are expected to be initially implemented in data

centers, low-rise backbones and for mission critical applications. Although the

exact timing of the migration to higher speeds for a given organization is not

easily predicted, the selection of a suitable infrastructure today can determine

the ability to react in a speedy and cost-effective manner whenever the need

arises.

In practice, the most important network decision for most users

is the selection of a supplier. Besides implementing the network, good suppliers

can offer valuable advice and information. Since networking is a subject for

specialists, it is vital to select a supplier or consultant with skills and

experience that can be trusted.

Source: Systimax