Surfing Close to Home

We make no secret of the fact we love the outdoors, especially windsurfing; so when someone asked for a bit of IT consultancy for a new inland surfing venue being built just outside Edinburgh, there was only ever going to be one answer. Lost Shore was still in the early construction phase and after a number of interesting conversations, our role was expanded to be network delivery partner.

For those that haven’t seen anything like this before, it’s an artificial wave machine in a cleverly designed ‘pool’ of water, so that the waves break in a known fashion. Go read all the technical stuff on their website and the WaveGarden technology that creates the waves. Here in Edinburgh, it’s been located in an old quarry - recycling / upcycling the area into a new and vibrant space.

Hitting the ground running

The build of the site was already well underway when we got involved, so we aren’t going to take any credit (or blame) for where cables were run or what type they were. All of that was done by others and was included in the construction build package. What wasn’t included in the build package was the networking equipment (switches, routers, wifi etc); so there was still quite a bit of work to be done; starting with some kind of design.

The real challenge was pouring over construction drawings to find out what was going to be installed, and then trying to marry that back to some kind of reasoning as to why; what were the original requirements? Clearly the answer was that we’d never really find out, but a bit of structured thinking started to help us come up with a plan - based on what the customer wanted as an end result.

It may sound odd, but the client team who are involved in the early design process are very rarely the same people that will have to run the thing day in day out. There are so many decisions the client is faced with, most of the infrastructure (including IT) is just left to the architect or main contractor to specify & design - especially for a start up company that’s still not really started the hiring phase for operational staff.

IT Architecture

From a cabling perspective, the site was fairly well specified; fibre running to the majority of buildings and spaces allocated for comms racks and IT kit that wasn’t also seen as a ‘store room’. Compared to other projects where we’ve had to shoe-horn IT in as the architects think that everyting will be in ’the cloud’ so take up zero space, this was quite a revalation. Data cabling around the buildings was less generous; key items of plant and access control all were serviced, but not much thought had been given to how the staff would use the spaces, nor how the kitchens would operate.

Budget was a concern to the client, so we were always looking for ways to cleverly deliver the best solution while optimising where possible. Small things like using BiDi fibre optics to make the most of the available fibre cores, letting us patch through some locations without needing switches. Using one larger fibre switch in a core building, rather than needing 6 medium sized ones spread around the site.

The curve balls

Clients are always on the lookout for ways to value engineer costs out of the build. but sometimes there are unexpected knock on effects. One decision taken was to not put satellite dishes or TV antennas on every building - residential and commerical - but switch to an IP TV solution. Aesthetically makes perfect sense; but was never part of the original network requirements, so never part of the design.

For hotels where cabling is tightly controlled generally within a single building, this is relatively easy to deploy. Where you have 50+ separate accommodation units, each with their own local network, IP TV takes on a whole new level of complexity. It also drives up data requirement across the site; you need fast networks with plenty of bandwidth as the same links are now carrying guest WiFi traffic, building monitoring data, staff data plus a whole load of streaming TV which wasn’t originally planned - the architect designs had dishes and antennas.

Fortunately the product selected could use multicast transmission, so the IP TV element wasn’t going to saturate the network; just add a bit of extra complexity to our deliverables.

Go Live

As construction neared completion, it was all hands on deck to get the IT kit in place, connected and tested. Changes to site testing schedules gaves us some last minute worries, and the inevitable discoveries of cabling being brought up to the wrong end of some buildings made for long days.

We pulled in staff from some of our partners to help with the extra work (it’s reciprocal - we help them out too), but the finish line was approaching fast. Key systems went live and the staff started their induction training on building processes; all the while, we were trying to stay at least one step ahead of what they needed to be working next. The final outcome was that we’d delivered everything we were asked to plus all the extras, yet kept things under budget - happy customer.

Construction sites are a unique challenge - things seem to move along at an almost glacial pace. Nothing can be installed early as the buildings either aren’t there, or aren’t finished. We need IT spaces finished so we can install and test; construction want everyone out of buildings so they can decorate and clear up ready for handover and the inevitable ‘snagging’ lists.

Clients see the end of construction as a finish line and they are eager to open; in reality, it’s the start line of a follow on race and for us it’s probably the most stressful and busy time.

We’re proud to say we were part of the Lost Shore project. Many of our team are keen to get in the water to try it out - but only once things warm up a bit. For now, sitting in the cafe and being a spectator next to the fire is just fine.

• Fibre
• Networking