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Questions tagged [cable-management]

Cable Management is the term used to describe how one cables up an infrastructure.

When using cable management, one wants to achieve a tidy cable setup. Often they make use of:

  • cable retainers
  • cable colors
  • labels

Bad cable management: enter image description here

Good cable management:

enter image description here

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I've inherited a rat's nest of cabling. What now?

You know, you see pictures like below and sort of chuckle until you actually have to deal with it. I have just inherited something that looks like the picture below. The culture of the organization does not tolerate down time very well, yet I have…
Chad Harrison
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Cable Management Policy

We've all seen good and bad examples of cable management. What are objective, measurable requirements that can be used in a policy to maintain cabling order in the rack/server room/data center? I'm not looking for "Don't do spaghetti wiring!" but…
Adam Davis
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What is a patch panel?

What is a patch panel? How it is different from (layer 2) switch? EDIT: I think my primary question (and confusion) is this: Why don't network connections go straight to the switch? Don't we still require 1-to-1 connections from switch to patch…
Arie K
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How do you organise the cables in your racks?

I'm migrating my current half-size rack to a full-size rack and want to take the opportunity to reorganize and sort our spaghetti-hell of ethernet cables. What system do you use for organising your cables? Do you use any tracking software? Do you…
Tim
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How can I clean up a spaghetti monster of cables?

So I have gotten a new job at a medium sized company as an IT-administrator. I have also inherited this monster (actually, there is 2 of them) from the previous administrator: I'd like you guys expertise and experience on how to make sense of it.…
caspert
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Best practices for power cabling racks in DC

With network cables it is easy. I use velcro-ties, coloured cables, 0U vertical cable organizers from APC on side of the rack -- easy and neat. However with power cables it was always giving me headaches. With some of the racks I am using Vertical…
bart613
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Why do rack switches have their ports on the front?

I've ordered some rack hardware from Dell. A 42U rack, a 3U EqualLogic SAN, two 1U PowerConnect 5424 switches, three 1U PowerEdge servers, and some other stuff such as a tapedrive, firewall, UPS, etc. Since I have little experience with racks I…
Martijn Heemels
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Rackmount cable length calculations & best practices

I'm redoing the cable management for a small company with a modest server room. It's my first time trying to organize an absolute mess that their former IT-guy left. A huge problem that I'm finding is that very long Ethernet cords were used where…
Jake Wilson
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What is the proper way to manage cabling behind patch panels?

I have a 4-post 19" rack with a 72-port 2U quickport patch panel where horizontal structured cabling terminates. The cables are bundled and enter the rack at the rear. From the back of the rack, they need to get near the front of the rack…
alx9r
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To use cable management arms or not

I would like to open up a discussion on your experience with either using cable management arms or not. It seems like a nice idea to ensure that you have enough cable slack to be able to pull a running server out of a rack without worrying about…
Richard West
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Daisy Chaining UPS Power Cable

I have a rackmount UPS. The UPS has a 6ft long 12AWG thick power cable that powers it from one of the server room's 20A wall plugs. The current orientation of the cabinets is not ideal. All but this one are easily moved, however this cabinet's UPS'…
SnakeDoc
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Server room wiring questions

I'm looking at rewiring our server room to be more presentable, organized, and easier to troubleshooting. Right now we currently have 4 HP racks (don't know the model right now). We do not have a building UPS so we are placing UPS's in each rack…
Jacob
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Cable Routing: Can I route power and network cable through a Server Arm?

I know that power cables can sometimes interfere with network cables. When routing cables it is best to separate the power from the network cables. When using a cable management arm (like below) can I route both the network and power cable…
sixtyfootersdude
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Cable management strategy for a small chassis switch

I'm working with a small site buildout that contains a single HP ProCurve 4200vl chassis switch. The data cabling contractor did not provision for any cable management. I'm looking at the rack pictured below and would like some suggestions on how to…
ewwhite
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Does UPS Rack Position Matter

Short version of question: Is there any reason a UPS (or any other device) should be at a particular level in a rack. Long version (with explanation): I have a full height rack with two servers, two Dell rail mount UPS units, a direct attached…
user426724
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