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Hi community, I am a junior network administrator. I want your help. My company is designing a new network structure for CCTV cameras in a 20000-meter square yard. I have planned to have 5 more additional IDFs along with the MDF to cover all the CCTV cameras. My question is what should be the backbone cabling for 1 MDF and 5 IDF?

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For starters, how many cameras would be on each IDF and what is your total throughput to each.

If you just needed 1 Gig and it’s 100m or shorter, then Cat6a would do it. If you need 10 Gig and it’s under 100m you could go cat 8

If it’s over 100m then it has to be fiber.

Under 100m and need 10 Gig, then it’s a matter of what’s more cost effective, Cat 8 or Fiber. I’ve never gotten a bid on Cat 8 so I have no idea what it runs.

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I don’t know if this is for a small business with a big field or if you’re at an enterprise facility with high security concerns. So I’m just going to toss these out for your consideration:

  • You’re also going to need to know the video quality you intend to send and how you are sending all those feeds from the IDFs to the MDF.
  • Are you using IP cameras? (I don’t want to assume, because 12G SDI is still a real thing.)
  • Were these cameras intending to pick up audio as well? Or, will there be any audio considerations over IP, like squawk boxes, alarms, or intercom stations?
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Well, I would say that each IDF may need to connect almost 25-30 IP cameras. and 3 of the IDF is far from MDF so lets say they are 100m above far from MDF.

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I would say that it is a small to medium business and the security concerns are not that high. Its just that the video qualities should be clear. and I am using IP cameras all over the yard without audio.

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It depends on what you mean by:

Backbone is IDF to MDF/IDF
Single mode fiber is the standard choice for backbone cabling. It supports a wide range of speeds/transceivers etc future proofing it.

Horizontal cabling is from an IDF to an endpoint. This should be appropriate to the intended use - typically copper cat 6/7/8

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I’m going to suggest you go with a full-fiber solution here. Mostly because future proofing. Eventually (hopefully) this company will want to fully utilize all the IDF’s and having it run with full-fiber now will prevent you from reworking the backbone later. Give yourself enough “pairs” to work with that each IDF can handle more and more equipment. You’ll never regret having capacity later…you’ll always regret having to redo the backbone.

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Generally, you should always use fiber for your uplinks to your IDFs. You should also bring all the IDF uplinks to the MDF, making the MDF the “core” switch. Try to avoid connecting one IDF to another IDF, if you can. If something breaks, it can make it harder to track down where the issue is.

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I would always go Fiber between MDF and IDF.

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So would I. I’m just listing the options.

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I wouldn’t necessarily always go fiber. copper SFP+ (or better) [rj45 gbic] has the advantage of being reported to a standard network jack if something goes wrong and you need a backup route just for troubleshooting.

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I don’t know all of the distances involved. I don’t know if any of this is between buildings. Given that it seems that some of the runs may be more than 100 meters, and that this might be between buildings with different ground potentials, fiber seems like that way to go unless you can show that Cat 6 or better can do the job (less than 100 meters, all same building). If you do go copper, 10G is max throughput available. If you go single mode fiber, the throughput is only limited by your switches and the optics that you are using.

Given that a 10G SMF optic is $34, and that the same single pair of fibers can do 400G today for $219, why would you pick something else that has less bandwidth but isn’t significantly cheaper?

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I’ve never seen a multi building connection be less than 100 meters from closet to closet but one may exist :slight_smile:

I doubt any midsize or smaller companies are doing more than 10G to IDFs usually 25/40 is for switches to servers/storage/backups. The advantage of copper here potentially maybe not having to contract it out of you do not have the skills or equipment for fiber termination, but again all of this depends on the specifics of OPs setup. Fiber is in most cases the better choice here. I would not bother with fiber potentially in a multi story building where the IDFs were all directly underneath each other and you’re talking very short runs. I’ve rarely had that luxury though. Usually it’s spread out on a single large floor and over 100m per run, so Fiber is the only choice.

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Because OP says this is for CC in a yard, I haven’t been assuming buildings. The IDF’s could just be network hubs in kiosks. They could be pole mounted boxes. We can’t make assumptions on anything really.

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There are basically 2 requirements here…

  • bandwidth requirements between each IDF
  • distance between the switches
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This is one of those how long is a piece of string questions.

The locations, distances, and environment of the IDFs determine some things, then the orientation of the 20,000 m^2 facility does as well right? Seems like many of you are assuming a square box. Could be a triangle, or an obelisk. Further limitations for power for the IDFs might require them be all at one end of the facility.

Simply without a drawing that shows the facility/power/IDF proposed locations we cannot accurately assess what the OP needs.

I’ve done my share of green field manufacturing installs, and it is not unusual to wind up with IDF boxes further out than you’d expect because there is no source of power, or its in the middle of a proposed equipment rack, or near moving equipment, etc. You design based upon not “ideal” placement but practical placement. So while you might be ideally able to put an IDF 80 meters out, but that puts it in the middle of a forktruck isle and no power in sight. So you put it 120 meters out, up high on a post, and that increases the run to 130 meters, so you need to run fiber to get the 10Gig you might need, as that IDF services say 1/3 of the cameras (cause now it happens to be near the center of the action).

So I guess I’m telling the OP, how about a simple facility plan, and some idea of locations you are considering, and rough distances maybe we can help better.

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Actually, at this point any response from OP would be helpful! It’s been two days since they last checked in. Either they’ve got the answer they’re looking for (and should mark the ‘best answer’) or they’ve gone a different direction and ghosted us!

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@Jay-Updegrove I do like to respond to these just the same, as when these questions arise, it helps foster thought process within others when they face something similar. I have been fortunate to have worked in two green field facility IT implementations for manufacturing. I have no doubt it could happen again. I’d add too in a manufacturing environment CCTV or network itself, sometimes it is very helpful to place your IDFs well above ground level, and locked. I’ve had fork truck drivers drive mast up (which you are not supposed to do), clock even cabinets halfway up a wall (destroying thousands of dollars of equipment and taking network down). I hate putting IDFs up high too, in unconditioned air, the hot(ter) air is up there in Summer, and can be tough on equipment.

Point is setting these environments up, can be way less straight forward than you’d think.

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Hi, welcome to the community! For a setup with 1 MDF and 5 IDFs across a 20,000 m² yard, it’s best to use fiber optic cable (preferably single-mode for longer distances) as the backbone between the MDF and each IDF. This ensures high bandwidth and low latency, especially for CCTV traffic. Also, consider using redundant paths for reliability and future scalability.

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I’ve never been fortunate enough to go into a ‘blank slate’ situation, everywhere I’ve been used older existing buildings built well before the time of computers and nothing was purposefully planned for network equipment. It’s always been an afterthought, at best. I’d love to take on the challenge though!

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