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The aerial photograph shows the many and various buildings which make up the MIRA site. It is an unusual and fascinating collection ranging from a listed cottage and a number of brick-built 1950s and 60s blocks, to a brand new test centre with integrated vehicle testing bays and office space, still under construction.
Reliability
As part of a rolling programme to upgrade the network across the site, a decision was taken to replace 10Base2 wiring with a Category 5 voice and data network, in order to improve reliability. The company turned to system integrator ECS, who recommended a Molex Premise Network Category 5 cabling system.
Colin Roe, Operations Director, ECS: „The Molex solution is backed by a comprehensive 25-year warranty, which gives the MIRA IT team confidence in its reliability and offers the flexibility necessary to cope with this sort of evolving campus site. Despite the variations in layout and construction of the older buildings, we have been able to ensure that the entire network is covered.”
Unlike many other manufacturers, Molex offers two levels of warranty. Where the full Class 1 performance warranty cannot be awarded because of the physical limitations of the site or the building, a Class 2 parts and labour warranty is available. Even customers with difficult sites can have peace of mind that their cabling hardware is fully covered by a manufacturer’s warranty.
Mike Dallaway, MIRA’s senior IT network support engineer explains: „Our customers, the motor manufacturers, expect us to provide 100% service uptime for their projects. The Molex and ECS partnership has delivered the network hardware, design and installation to give us the level of reliability and resilience we need to support that.”
The completed network provides about 1,500 points throughout the site and supports 600PC’s, 30 servers, 40 UNIX workstations, printers and other peripherals, as well as a voice network. There is more than 30kM of fibre in total on the site, the longest run of which is 1.4km from the central location to the Proving Ground site.
Security
The installation programme at MIRA was carefully planned for minimum disruption to the test and research programmes. Buildings have been refurbished and cabled one-by-one over the past two years. Throughout the process, ECS has worked very closely with MIRA, to optimise the system, overcome difficulties as they arise and importantly, maintain the high security which surrounds many of the MIRA projects.
„We have worked with ECS for many years now and know they understand the security issues here,” continues Mike Dallaway. „Cable runs often have to cross a number of test areas and getting access to all of them at the right times is not always easy. The installation teams often worked weekends and evenings when access to an area was not possible during normal working hours. They reacted to situations as they arose and worked hard to accommodate our needs.”
MIRA’s main office accommodation is a large 1950’s block built in five sections with concrete walls nearly 1/2m thick. There were no convenient cable ducts here, so the solution was to run most of the cables overhead. „The floors and ceilings in some of the older buildings are not aligned from one room to another,” explains Colin Roe. „No two buildings on this site are the same and there are always new challenges, but we haven’t been beaten yet!”
Flexibility
The project-based nature of MIRA’s work means that the use of a building or part of a building can change from one year to the next or from one month to the next. Flexibility had to be built-in to the network from the outset. Network moves, adds and changes are often required, as engineering staff move from one project to another. MIRA favoured the design of the Molex patch panels as being particularly easy to use, especially when it comes to making frequent changes.
„We have tried to cable each building to a level which would support all of the uses that the building could be put to in the future,” explains Mike Dallaway. „Now, with new buildings, IT issues are considered early on in the design and build process. The IT network is designed into the fabric of the facility.”
Designed as a high integrity system, the network consists of multi-mode fibre backbone, with Category 5 copper to the desktop. Built-in resilience is provided by a ring and star backbone configuration. The copper cable segments have been kept small, with a maximum of 200 runs off each wiring centre to maintain integrity. There are switches at all the concentrator points, for maximum speed of communication with the central servers.
Performance
Now that the MIRA site is fully cabled with a Molex Category 5 network and the reliability requirement has been met, the emphasis for MIRA’s IT department has shifted to the issue of performance.
„We have a highly intelligent user base, expecting a lot from the network,” explains Mike Dallaway. „It is MIRA’s philosophy that the technical infrastructure – including the IT network – should always be able to provide the level of support demanded by the project teams. With large computer-aided engineering and other files being sent and received, the performance requirements are always increasing.”
MIRA plans to move to Gigabit speeds on the backbone later this year and is already working with ECS to install switches and other active equipment to support this. They expect to be looking at Gigabit to the desktop within two years.
Automotive Industry
MIRA’s site at Nuneaton is at the heart of the UK’s motor manufacturing industry. Steve Gayton is Major Accounts Manager for Molex Premise Networks: „We work closely with installers and end-users in the automotive industry, providing technical support and advice on a daily basis. Molex systems are installed at many of the major vehicle and component manufacturing sites in the Midlands and we have a strong network of certified installers here. We are very pleased to have the opportunity to support the industry further, though our work with MIRA.”
