Hirschmann was selected to supply IP networking devices for a new type of building IT infrastructure, called EcoFlex'IT, developed by Ingetel-bet, a French IT consulting firm. Installed a few months ago in several large office buildings across the country by Exprimm'IT, one of Hirschmann's French partners, EcoFlex'IT drastically reduces the carbon footprint and energy consumption of IT networks and is also exceptionally versatile.The first EcoFlex IT network, operational since December 2010, manages over 700 users daily, along with numerous other connected devices, including personal computers, IP phones and videoconferencing equipment, shared printers and fax machines, and Wi-Fi and DECT access points.
The eight-story, 11,813 m² building in which it is installed has a single IT room housing the main distribution frame. The IT and network cabling is organized as follows:
• All building cabling is centralized in a single distribution frame where the cabling components occupy only 16U of the 42U of height in each rack.
• Eight optical rings, one for each floor from the ground floor to the seventh, are installed in raised floors. They are connected to the building's distribution frame via IT shafts.
• Each ring is equipped with four or five active consolidation points (ACPs), depending on the work area of that floor, installed in a rack embedded in the floor. elevated.
• Each ACP is connected to 12 fiber optic cables from the ring's inlet and another 12 from the ring's outlet. One ACP in each ring acts as a bridge ACP and is therefore connected to the building's distribution frame via another 12 fiber optic cables, enabling the connection of peripherals to the IP network hub.
• In addition, each ACP has four twisted-pair connections that ensure the distribution of TDM links and carry the dry contact breakout from the ACP box to the dry-contact IP breakouts located in the distribution frame and connected to the IP network, which is managed by the network management platform.
• The twisted-pair distribution from the distribution frame to the ACP is handled by multi-pair cables connected to a patch panel in the distribution frame (one RJ45 rack for each ring) and a special module installed in the IT shaft on each floor. From there, they are connected to each ACP via a 4TP cable attached to a 4-RJ45 box located in the ACP box.
• Each box ACP distributes all user IT terminal devices located in its distribution area, which covers approximately 200 m².
Each ACP box can house one or two standard DIN or 19" ring switches, providing the capacity to distribute from 4 to 48 downlink ports to user terminals in its distribution area using devices from the Hirschmann MACH or RS series.
The customer selected Hirschmann MACH102 switches with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) modules and the new Hirschmann MACH104 switch range. The complete installation uses more than 65 switches and 90 PoE modules to provide a green solution for the entire building. This underscores Hirschmann's commitment to the continuous development of green solutions for Industrial Ethernet applications.
The direct and indirect contribution to overall sustainability of all Hirschmann switches is assessed at every stage of their design and manufacturing, as well as during installation, to ensure that their environmental impact and carbon footprint are minimized.
EcoFlex'IT is a registered trademark of Ingetel-bet.
