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Planning what and how your computer network will look like on the other side is key for minimal downtime and eliminating problems. It is all too common that the computers are handled by movers or regular staff, and the relocation does not complete in time or on budget. Avoiding these Pitfalls is important to your business's bottom line.

Other than what goes into the computer room, knowing where to put the computer room in your new facility is a critical decision you'll make with your entire moving project. I'll describe the scenario for the Manufacturing Company I had moved some time ago. A team of architects and interior designers drafted what they thought to be an outstanding floor plan for our new space. For the computer room, the architects created a room approximately 50 feet long by 20 feet wide. To my amazement they put this computer room on the far west end corner which would have made a great corner office. Why wouldn't that work? The simple answer is network cable distance limitations. Category 5 (CAT5) and CAT6 cabling are rated to support a specified bandwidth at approximately 300 feet (100 meters). With the computer room at one end of the building, half of that building full of computers would either not get a network signal at all (no login ability), or would be significantly weaker than full speed. What speeds are we talking about? We chose CAT6 cabling, which is rated at 350 MHz. This is sufficient to support Gigabit (1000MB) to the desktop. We currently only implement 100MB. When the time comes to upgrade, however, all we'll need to do is update the network interface cards in the PCs and update the network switch blades in the computer room.

Certainly, there are other alternatives to a centralized computer room. Our company is small enough to get by with a single wiring closet to "home run" every cable run to a centralized cabinet. Larger companies and companies with multiple floors need to implement routers and bridges to send the network signals through the cable over longer distances.