Instant Office Center Tenant Directory
Upon entering the building, visitors to the Instant Office Center are met with an office directory to help them quickly find the office they are looking for. It is more than just a directory, however: a simple computer utilizing Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs displays each building tenant with their office number on an internal Web site. Users interact with the site via a built-in touchpad. Clicking on a business name in the list takes the visitor to that business's Web site within a frame that allows users to return to the directory, and is automatically reset after one minute of inactivity. With the use of special kiosk software, the user is effectively locked from other areas of the computer. The entire system is contained within a sturdy pedestal, similar to maps found in a shopping mall. The internal directory is plain HTML and can be remotely updated via wireless network.
Instant Office Center Server Room
When we first came upon the server room at the Instant Office Center, it was nowhere near a network administrator's dream of an ideal server room. Servers were sitting on rolling shelf carts while server racks sat gathering dust in the corner. There was a limited number of network ports around the room, and most were in use so there wasn't much available for expansion. Network cables and power cords came together in a tangled rats-nest, and keyboards and old CRT monitors were scattered haphazardly among the computers. In short, it was a mess.
We began the transformation by pulling dozens of cable runs under the false floor. Most went to the network backbone for access to the Internet, but we also ran several cables for an IP KVM switch to be mounted in one of the racks. We then proceeded to mount the servers in the racks on sliding rails, so that individual machines can be pulled out and worked on without the need to remove them from the rack. To minimize clutter while maximizing accessibility to the computers, we utilized IP KVM controllers mounted to the back of each server - we can access and control any of the server computers from one central location, using one keyboard, mouse, and moniter. Each rack has three battery backup units and three IP power controllers, allowing the servers to be power-cycled remotely if necessary.
