IT departments are known for shaking things up in an office. That said, your IT infrastructure hates to be shaken up by seismic events. In fact, tremors and quakes can ruin equipment and bring operations to a halt.
For businesses that are located in areas of expected seismic activity, uptime and contingency plans must also account for structural failures that can compromise operations in seconds. That means CISOs, CTOs, and facility managers must account for standard issues, such as power redundancy, cooling capacity, cybersecurity, and carrier diversity, as well as seismic activity.
How an Earthquake Can Take Down Your Network
Even moderate seismic activity can damage racks, dislodge cable trays and shear connectors, collapse pathways, and cause intermittent network failures that may be difficult to isolate. For high-risk operations, including data centers, healthcare, finance, and first responders, that risk is simply too significant to ignore or minimize.
But what is needed to ensure continuity of services during seismic events? It all comes down to physical infrastructure that is engineered to remain operational under lateral (side-to-side) movement.
The Answer to Seismic Threats is Physical Stability
What your IT infrastructure needs during seismic events is physical stability.
Essentials for IT Environments to Endure Seismic Movement
- Equipment anchored in place
- Protected cable bends and pathways
- Sturdy tray connections
- Preventive measures to minimize swing collisions
- Shake-proof physical network connections
Keeping Your Seismic Cable Locked Down
The most common approaches to stabilizing pathways and support systems are rigid bracings and cable bracings. They sound interchangeable, but the differences are important to understand.
Rigid Bracing
Uses metal struts, steel members, or other hard structural supports to limit or minimize movement. Often, these tactics are used to secure heavy cable trays, large ladder racks, and equipment support frames. They work because they are strong, resist lateral movement, and provide predictable structural performance. Those strengths also come with a cost. Their rigidity creates a less forgiving movement profile. Therefore, they demand expert engineering and installation. Why, they will transfer forces to the connected systems when not used correctly. That’s the inverse of what you want during seismic activity.
Cable Bracing
This method uses steel cables attached diagonally to stabilize systems. Unlike rigid bracing, cable bracing allows for controlled movement and therefore transfers less force. Cable bracing is used for suspended tray systems with long pathway runs. It’s an ideal option for retrofits and areas with moderate load profiles. An added, but perhaps less important benefit is that it uses less space and tends to be less visually intrusive. Here again, design and installation are jobs for professionals. Accurate tension is a must, and load limits are thoroughly understood.
Which One Is Best? Rigid Bracing or Cable Bracing?
The right solution isn’t universal. The best option for your facility depends on a number of factors, including:
- Seismic design category of the building
- Tray span lengths
- Cable weight and fill levels
- Ceiling structure and attachment points
- Clearance constraints
- Operational Importance
The right solutions typically include both techniques.
What Are TIA-942 and NEBS Standards?
TIA-942 and Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) Standards are the rules your facility should meet regarding its telecommunications infrastructure.
TIA-942 Addresses
- Pathway design
- Redundancy levels
- Reliability tiers
- Cabling architecture
- Physical infrastructure planning
NEBS Evaluates
- Seismic survivability
- Environmental durability
- Fire resistance
- Operations continuity
A Seismic Checklist for Structured Cabling Systems
A handy starter for facility managers to assess their seismic readiness.
Anchoring and Supports
- Are cable trays anchored to structural members?
- Are supports rated for seismic loads (not just static weight)?
- Are rack anchors appropriate for the slab type and equipment weight?
- Are wall-mounted enclosures properly reinforced?
Bracing
- Are tray systems braced laterally where required?
- Is bracing spacing appropriate for run length and load?
- Are the rigid and cable bracing methods selected appropriately?
Pathways and Cable Protection
- Is the cable bend radius maintained under movement scenarios?
- Are fiber trunks protected from sharp tray displacement?
- Are vertical drops secured and strain-relieved?
- Is pathway overcrowding avoided?
Equipment and Integrity
- Are cabinets stabilized against rocking or tipping?
- Are patch panels and switches securely mounted?
- Are heavy UPS or battery systems separately evaluated?
Documentation and Compliance
- Are the as-built drawings current?
- Are local seismic code requirements documented?
- Are TIA-942/NEBS requirements referenced when applicable?
- Have recent adds/moves/changes altered load assumptions?
Traditional Redundancy Is Not Protection From Seismic Events
In many IT infrastructure continuity plans, the secret sauce is redundancy. If one service/path/system fails, a second one steps in. But redundancy works a bit differently when it comes to seismic activity.
Having duplicate circuits won’t help if they are run through the same tray. If it fails, all runs fail. Therefore, the type of redundancy you are looking to achieve isn’t just secondary systems, but secondary systems routed differently along diverse pathways. It’s only protection from structural failures.
Essentially, protection from seismic events comes down to structural engineering. The way things are built, supported, and protected. The switches, servers, and circuits are only as resilient as the trays, anchors, and supports that hold them in place. In earthquake-prone areas, where uptime is critical, they need to plan for resiliency so they can fail less, recover faster, and better protect essential systems.
Ready to Future-Proof With Structural IT Design
Preparing for seismic events is essential to future-proofing ongoing operations for many organizations. Identifying and deploying the best approach to achieve it requires working with an expert. Matrix-NDI solves the challenges of your business operations by unlocking the full ROI of your technology investments. We design and install networks built for maximum speed and perfectly matched to bandwidth demands.
Why Work With Matrix-NDI?
We have on-staff Registered Communications Distribution Designers (RCDD), coast-to-coast service, and elite data networking partners, including Extreme Networks, Nile, and others. Ultimately, Matrix-NDI aligns your business with the devices, internet service, and software to achieve all technical objectives. We invite you to reach out with your needs and see how our expertise, partnerships, and national scale can be leveraged to solve them.
Contact Matrix-NDI to get started. Let’s build smarter, safer, more connected spaces — together.
