patch panel tidying up >_<

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Hello all

I started my 2nd line role about a month ago. I am not sure if you can call it a problem but, if anyone has seen our patch panels, its horrendously not manage properly. While some cables are clean and been bunched up by velcro straps, I am not sure if its manageable.

For example, if I get a job logged to me saying a user has no network connection, I cross reference the port number where the user sits then go to the patch panels to that number on the patch panel. then that patch panel goes to the other network panel. At this point, I have to trace the cable from the patch panel on the left going to the right. as the patch panels are stacked to the brim with 15 panels on each side. The real problem I mentioned before was, If I was tracing that cable, its either in the middle of the others 20 cables that have been velcro too tight or loss somewhere in the back. Which means I have to get a another network cable
And we have come to the point where there is no spare ports on the right hand side.
There is glass doors for both sides of the patch panels but still connected as one if you know what I mean?

Forgive me if something sounds odd. Its my first time getting to grips with patch panneling

I was thinking about putting labels on the outer network cables. Put not sure how to further take this idea

Any suggestions, preventions or more information, please me know. I am always keen to improve.


-Mallet

 

Ahhh, patch panels. The joy of IT people the world over. Don't worry, you'll get used to seeing patch panel nightmares after some time, but you might want a stiff drink at the end of the day

 

The last patching job I did was a bit of a mare, I had 2 days to basically repatch over the Xmas period. You could tell that someone had at one stage managed the patch cabinets correctly but then had either moved on or given up. If a patch panel is not secured you find the office bods will just wonder in and repatch as they please!
I started by doing an audit of all ports within the building, then cross referencing them in the patch cabinet to log were they went. I then ripped all cables out and started from scratch. I don’t use cable ties as they are difficult to manage, Velcro is perfect. I use blue for data, red for voice, pink for printers and yellow for servers. I then stick a patch panel list on the door showing were all ports are patched within the cabinet. Some people tend to write the ports on each end of the patch cables example A1/G4 and on the other end G4/A1. I find this pointless really as if you have a neat cabinet cables are easy to trace, I never leave a cabinet were possible with the doors not able to shut and lock. It's easy to get very Anal with patching, but as long as it’s neat and easy to manage I move on. There are companies out there that patch every cabinet no matter were in the world it is, Exactly the same, to the point of tying the cables together on the inside of the cabinet exactly the same!

Hope some of this waffle gives you some idea's.

 

Yep, thats correct.

Some good pointers there. thanks. lol, when I was searching some days ago I came across some sites that were offering patch clean ups. I just couldnt cant believe it, i thought it was a joke but they were real companies offering such a service

-Mallet

 

You think you got problems? Try looking at this lot for a cable trace...


That was at a contract I worked about seven years ago. Hijo de PUTA it was fun pulling all that out and reptching

 

I was involved in moving about 10 racks (full of servers, of course) from one city, to another, in one night, ensuring everything ran 24 hours later.

This was a situation where the mother company's data center was a cheaper place to host our servers, than the hosting center.

Luckily for us, the mother company had a dedicated team of rackers and patchers (the company has like a quarter of a million employees, not counting the other company that also owners 50% of the company I worked for back then, also a major corporation), and these guys were PROS! And when I mean pros, they were AWESOME!

The most interesting part was when, rather than unplug all cables, they just took large scirrors and SNIP SNIP SNIP went all RJ45 cables on every rack.

The racks were mounted in a van, driven about 40 miles to another location, and then all servers patched up with brand new cables after the 'snippets' were removed from the NIC ports on each server.

Ahhh... we spent that weekend bringing up the environments (Domain Controllers first, i.e. my job), then some other servers that relies on the DC's (including Exchange servers, once again my job), and so on it went until all was back up.

Got the pics of that night, even got free pizza *cool*

Nice memories... Would I do it again? lol, you kidding me, I got enough heart attacks planned for the next 40 years

 

Not bad, one controversial company in Geneva had this, times 10 due to the couple thousand patches they had to maintain for user. Luckily, was not my duty to keep that beast maintained

A very BEEEEEAUTIFUL rack job was done at the mother company of what I mentioned above. We're talking about a Data Center eating up the electrical juice of a village worth 50k humans. Their dev data center ran over several floors spanning rows and rows of servers. Each racked in such an impressive manner that it was like an art in itself. Still leaves me speechless thinking back at it.

 

If you had the time then ideally start from fresh but the best thing to do is start a brand new patching schedule and do x amount of lines ecah day(depends on how much sparetime you have) I hated having to trace anoluge lines all the way back from floor box, panel in riser room to another panel, then to the ground floor and then from that panel to the entry.

Its all about time and doing it properly.

As for labelling, i just use to label the phone lines with their phone number in the riser rooms on each floor.

 

Ah, but the thing is, you had a team of people doing it. This was just me! And if you look at the cables, you'll see they're the skinny old telco kind - not CAT-5/CAT-6 - so they twist together (literally) like spaghetti.