Cabling system enhances security: costly unscheduled downtime averted with monitoring of physical connections - Special focus: cabling, wiring and enclosures

Communications News, Nov, 2002

Last year, Northern Trust's new U.K. headquarters in London suffered two instances of downtime caused by mistakes in cable patching. Northern Trust was determined to ensure it could not happen again.

A recent LAN Technology report showed 70% of network outages are cabling related--with 80% of time devoted to addressing outages reported to be diagnostic, and 20% spent fixing the problem. The largest percentage (59%) of network problems is directly related to the physical infrastructure and its connections. Time focused on tracking and diagnosing network outages becomes a problem in itself.

Northern Trust, among the 20 largest U.S. money managers, has 82 offices in the United States, and master trust and global custody operations servicing clients across 37 countries. Northern Trust understands the need to quickly identify connectivity problems that could cause unscheduled interruptions in its network service.

"Our customers need to trust our systems' reliability. One hundred percent uptime is critical," says Stephen Parrott, Northern Trust's vice president for technical services, adding that a new cabling system installed in the London facility this year "provides us with complete control over our network, automatically notifying our support people of any problems. It will reliably support the business for the next three to five years. Every eventuality we have thought of has been catered." The system also monitors the Category 5e network at a second London Northern Trust building.

The new facility is fitted with Molex Premise Networks' Real Time Patching System, utilizing iTRACS technology as its core system element. Featuring intelligent patching for permanent monitoring of the physical infrastructure, the CAT 6 system is one of the first in the United Kingdom.

The system for the building was being designed just as the new technology was introduced; once installed, it monitors the physical connections in the network. Moves, adds and changes are recorded automatically.

Technical experts say while CAT 6 installations are becoming increasingly common, they are significantly more complex to implement. Great attention to detail is required on the part of installers.

"Connecting a patch lead incorrectly is considered an easy--and perhaps costly--mistake to make," says Parrott. One disconnected wire within a network can potentially disable an entire floor, cutting-off dozens or even hundreds of people, leaving them without access to information or data. According to research reports, average losses from such interruptions are estimated at $90,000 per hour.

"If it happens with the new system, an alarm alerts the technician immediately that something is wrong," Parrott says. "The fault is flagged on the system for the IT manager, enabling the staff to correct a mistake before it can develop into a problem."

The fully flood-wired system has a split riser, 50[micro] multimode fiber backbone from the data center to a subequipment room on each floor, and a supplementary copper backbone for connection of voice or remote monitoring services.

To address security issues, Northern Trust designated its new data center as a dark area. No one can enter the room unless physically provided access in order to carry out a designated task--to assure complete confidence in the cable connections. IT staff has always remotely monitored servers and routers, and now does the same with the cable frames.

A system can be retrofitted to work in all networks, regardless of cabling infrastructure. "The retrofit option saved us thousands of dollars because we did not have to replace existing patch frames," Parrott says.

Benefits of monitoring and managing the physical networks connections, Parrott says, are reduced operating costs, reduced risk of operational disruptions, greater asset utilization and more consistent levels of service. "Technology is playing an increasingly important role in trading," says Parrott. "With this network, we can demonstrate control, which means reliability for our traders and our customers."

For more information from iTRACS: www.rsleads.com/211cn-254