Credit Suisse Invests in Category 6 System for New Headquarters
When you are one of the world's leading global investment-banking firms, the performance of the structured cabling infrastructure on which your network operates is crucial. High-speed data transmission, network reliability, and robust application support today and tomorrow are essential to keeping business running smoothly. When global investment-banking firm Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) decided to consolidate three office locations into one state-of-the-art facility, it understood the importance of a sound structured cabling system and approached the project with this in mind.
When you are one of the world's leading global investment-banking firms, the performance of the structured cabling infrastructure on which your network operates is crucial. High-speed data transmission, network reliability, and robust application support today and tomorrow are essential to keeping business running smoothly. When global investment-banking firm Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) decided to consolidate three office locations into one state-of-the-art facility, it understood the importance of a sound structured cabling system and approached the project with this in mind.
For its new Singapore office, Credit Suisse selected One Raffles Link, a prime site in the Marina area for financial institutions. The building, in which CSFB is the main tenant, is the largest pillar-less building in Asia. CSFB's new office is located on three floors of the building, with room to accommodate its growing staff as well as future expansion plans. The new facility is home to CSFB's IT center, office workstations, and real-time trading floors.
CSFB views their network as a key strategic asset. Since they plan on being in this facility for many years, installing a cabling infrastructure that could support their current applications and provide bandwidth for tomorrow was of the utmost importance. The firm considered a category 5e solution, however they had concerns about its ability to support applications beyond gigabit Ethernet. After reviewing their existing networking technology and the potential demands of future applications, the need for a category 6 cabling system became evident.
In choosing their category 6 cabling system, CSFB took steps to maximize their cabling investment and minimize any risk associated with purchasing a leading-edge cabling system. Detailed independent test lab results from vendors were reviewed to evaluate system performance. In addition, all vendors were asked to give a live demonstration to prove compliance to all proposed TIA/EIA category 6/class E requirements. Side-by-side field tests of system performance were conducted and after reviewing all data, the Siemon Cabling System® was chosen based on the superior margin it offered on all category 6 parameters.
Richard Kirby, Vice President of Global Network Services for CSFB, recalls, "The Basic Link testing revealed that the Siemon solution performed far better than the competition, so the technological decision was easy. When we considered other factors, such as experience, warranty, field support, and simplicity of maintenance, we came to the conclusion that Siemon offered the best overall value for CSFB's network infrastructure."
CSFB commissioned LantroVision, a company with over 10 years of expertise in the design and installation of structured cabling systems, to manage all aspects of the project. The cabling system would cover CSFB's three floors in the new building, including trading room specific floor plates and diverse mechanical and electrical systems. The main closet (central IT Suite) contained over 200 racks and, due to the extensive length of the building, the main closet fed into two sub-equipment rooms (horizontal closets) on each level, to serve the building's North and South wings.
One of the technical challenges was to minimize cable congestion. (This was no easy task, especially since the raised floor was barely 100mm above the concrete bed). To accomplish this, LantroVision carefully laid out all sub-floor cables in a strategic grid configuration. The end result was a high density cabling grid design that minimizes cable congestion yet meets all CSFB's work areas requirements. A total of six nodes per 1.8-meter grid were installed for workstations, while 12 nodes per 1.8-meter grid were installed for all trading desks. All in all, a total of 35,000 work area outlets were installed. This high density configuration satisfied the immediate communication needs of traders, plus ensures economical moves, adds, and changes for CSFB's fast moving, rapidly evolving business.
The entire installation took just three months to complete and used over 70,000 Siemon MC6™ patch cords, 35,000 MAX® 6 outlets, 800 HD6™ patch panels, and many kilometers of category 6 cable. Once the network was installed, CSFB's staff of 700 was carefully transitioned to the new office over a 6 to 8 weeks period with zero downtime. "It's remarkable how smoothly the move went as we consolidated three different locations into one," commented Richard Kirby.
Today, CSFB's site is still the largest single structured cabling installation in Singapore. The impact of Siemon's end-to-end category 6 system on CSFB's operations is clear. The new cabling system provides enhanced reliability and faster data connectivity to all workstations as well as video at trading desks for up to the minute information. Siemon continues to support the project with its comprehensive 20-year warranty covering parts, labor, transmission performance, and all current and future category 6 applications.
"CSFB is very pleased with the successful implementation of the new cabling infrastructure, which has been superbly supporting our network requirements for the last 15 months since the site opened. We are confident that our cabling investment will meet our needs for even higher network bandwidth in the future," said Kirby.
After the success of the first installation in Singapore, Richard Kirby and his team deployed Siemon Cabling Systems in other parts of Asia Pacific, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and India.
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