A Tidy, Maintainable Cabinet Wiring Methodology? 43
mawhin asks: "I've seen a couple of articles highlighting readers' favourite tidy/untidy cabling, and conversations along the lines of 'I always do my cabling *real* tidy' / 'yeah but how can you change stuff when everything is zip tied down'. 'Use velcro not zip ties' is obviously a good tip, but what I'd really like to know is how you all do it. My particular situation involves multiple racks of switches next to racks of patch panels. What methodology would you recommend for installation and ongoing change to ensure that stuff is tidy enough to be able to trace cable; isn't so tight the you can't re-patch without stripping big chunks of cabling out; and the arrangement doesn't inevitably deteriorate?"
Panel to Switch Tip (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever notice that most switches group their ports in 4 or 6 to a group? What I do in these cases is bundle my patch cables in that same number between the panel and switch. makes it much easier to trace one when you can locate the small bundle, then isolate the specific cable. I usually just used the same twist ties that the patch cables came packaged in, but you could also use velcro. I was just being frugal. In most cases, I tied the bundles together in at least 3 points along the length of the bundle, assuming they're all going to the same panel and switch. Kept the bundles neat. I typically routed the small bundles using cable management panels on the racks that came equipped for it (all of them, after I started specifying).
It's not photo-pretty, but it is practical, very easy to modify at need. Some of those photo racks I'd be afraid to mess with for fear of having to try to return it to that state!
Mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)
I do this because the other people I work with will string a cable across the room at neck height or ankle height. They don't care. Their tolerance for sloppiness is far higher than mine.
Even though they are happier when they have to trace a problem just after I've finished cleaning up. They're not willing to put in the effort to keep it clean. And there's really no way you can make someone be neat (without firing him).
Numbers at each end (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy the patch cables that are serialized at each end.
Buy THE CORRECT LENGTH patch cables.
Use Velcro, never zip ties.
Always leave room for expansion.
Color code. We use green exclusively for telecom (TDM, and VOIP), Blue for standard jacks, etc. NEVER violate color coding, even though it is incredibly tempting to do so.
Keeping Your Racks Neat Takes Work (Score:2, Insightful)
In my data center, temporary cables are bright red (other network functions are also color-coded), and the policy is that each temporary cable has a service tag (little paper-and-string one) on it with the initials of the person who installed it, the date they installed it, the date they expect to remove it, and the number of the bugzilla bug that's associated with it.
Related policy is that any non-red, non-bundled cable gets removed immediately by anyone who sees it, as do any red cables without a service tag.
When I started this policy, there was a lot of unhappiness about it (and the racks were an unholy mess), but after about a year or so, I've noticed that our wiring guys no longer need to spend a day or two a month rerunning wiring in some rack (with an associated service outage). Three years later, the data center has doubled in size, my headcount for management has stayed the same, and everyone is (usually...) working 8-hour days.
Oh, and the other hard bit about keeping racks neat: If you're managing people who don't share your desire for neatness and documentation, get used to being called all sorts of nasty things behind your back when you start putting "neat rack" policies in place.
Re:Cable management (Score:3, Insightful)