Société Arabe Internationale de Banque (SAIB) in Cairo, Egypt has built its new data centre using HD patch panels, raceway systems, and pre-terminated copper and fibre cabling solutions from R&M. The investment is future-proofed to be Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) ready and in its next phase will involve the integration of the R&MinteliPhy system for full visibility and manageability.
SAIB was established in 1976 and in addition to providing all manner of banking and financial services provides products & services that are in compliance with the provisions of Islamic law through its Islamic branch. The Bank was keen to develop a new data centre and its initial requirements called for eight server racks, six network racks, and four security racks along with six more racks left for future use.
When R&M began its discussions with the Bank, it became clear that along with providing the physical infrastructure solutions, R&M would also have to add value through the R&M Network Advisory Service. “Over a series of discussions, WebEx conference calls and presentations between the technical team in Dubai, and the sales and partner teams in Cairo, we carefully laid out plans for the data centre design,” said Mohamed Allam, Country Manager, R&M Egypt. “Working with the room layout and customer’s expectations regarding services and connections between the racks, we managed to propose an excellent design that incorporated best practices.”
A total of forty R&M HD Panels were housed in the racks to provide the needed copper and fiber optic connectivity with full AIM retrofit-ability at later stages. As per R&M’s proposed design, one hundred sixty Cat6a trunk cables of various lengths were used to for connectivity between these racks.
For fibre optic connectivity, additional HD Patch Panels were used to house two hundred R&M HD MPO modules. Two hundred MTP12 OM4 Trunk Cables were also used ranging from 10 to 25 meters based on the data centre design and rack arrangement. Additionally, FO Field OM4 connectors were used for fibre optic connectivity with external fibre optic connections.
To make sure moves, adds and changes to trunk cables between racks will be an easy job; R&M utilised its raceway system complete with bend-radius controlled fittings such as tee-joints, horizontal elbows, along with trumpet outlets for cables drops. The raceway helped match the containment design and fulfil the customer’s requirements within schedule and budget.
Equinox International, R&M’s certified partner, supported the vendor’s efforts during the site surveys, technical exchanges, and BOQ preparation phases. The presence of this strong certified local partner proved essential to success due to the sophistication of the project. The installation efforts were extensive but relatively direct due to the extensive surveys and preparation work done prior to the project.
SAIB’s data centre cabling is capable of supporting 10Gbps over Cat6a Copper (10GBASE-T) and 10Gbps over OM4 Fibre Optic (10GBASE-SR) along with 40Gbps over OM4 Fibre Cabling (10GBASE-SR-BiDi). The use of R&M’s pre-terminated Cat6a copper and OM4 fibre solutions, fully customisable in different lengths and with different wiring and configurations, enabled the bank to precisely match the needs of its data centre architecture.
“Thanks to a forward thinking design approach, and the utilisation of components that exceed the highest international standards, SAIB has a secure investment that will meet its future requirement while also effortlessly supporting advanced features such as automated infrastructure management with minimal additional investment,” concluded Mohamed Allam.
