Multifloor or multiroom link environment

Data processing equipment can be located on multiple floors or in multiple rooms. These could be adjacent rooms on a single floor, adjacent floors in a single building, or widely separated rooms or floors within a single building. This type of trunk system can be installed using 1x InfiniBand and FICON®/FCP channels, since they support a maximum distance of 10 km (6.2 miles).

Although the cost is similar to a single-floor environment, the design factors could be more complex. For example, access between floors or rooms could require structural modification. Also, trunk fiber cable routing could be through hazardous areas or in areas where building wiring also exists. As the complexity of this environment increases, it becomes necessary to have a more organized arrangement of trunk cables and distribution panels.

The flexibility that exists when using distribution panels and trunk cables allows easier initial installation and reconfiguration. It also allows placement of trunk cables between the floors or rooms in a more permanent location. This environment involves additional factors, such as building codes, cable routing, contractor information, security, redundancy, and damage and disaster protection. Because these factors did not exist in single-floor environments, installation planning decisions become more important. Also, because this environment requires distribution panels and trunk cables, the number of connections for each link increases. This causes a higher link loss, thereby making link-loss calculations more critical.

A multifloor or multiroom link environment usually has more relocation activity within a floor or room, but not necessarily between floors or rooms. For example, consider a configuration that has I/O devices in one room or on one floor and processors in another room or on another floor. The I/O devices should have connection capability to multiple processors, and processors should have connection capability to other processors. The need to physically move more I/O devices to the processor area or a processor to the I/O area, however, might never be necessary.

Figure 1 shows a data processing configuration that occupies two floors (or rooms) within the same building. The first floor or room contains processors and I/O devices, while the second floor or room contains only I/O devices.