nanog mailing list archives
Re: Cable Colors
From: Joe Abley <jabley () ca afilias info>
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:28:38 -0400
On 17 Jun 2008, at 11:25, Justin M. Streiner wrote:
I was in a data center for a large bank here in Pittsburgh a few years ago, and they definitely went the extra mile to keep their cable plant neatly organized and properly dressed, and they continued to maintain that after the building was turned up.
A boutique hosting company of my acquaintance once decided that cable management within racks was rather important -- they had the rather pragmatic opinion that setting things up right to start with was not enough, and that they also needed a conscious plan to keep things tidy as the cabinets filled up that did not rely on techs following rules or being diligent.
The initial cable install for the pre-provisioned servers was done with much planning and documentation by people who did data cabling for a living, and was correspondingly tidy. The cables were all blue. Any change that was required after that was installed using a red cable.
Once per week the data cabling people would return, within a posted window, and replace the temporary red patch cables with cut-to-length, tested, blue cables which were run according to the larger cabling strategy, and rigourously documented.
This approach had the advantage that the cabinets always looked pristine and the documentation was always current (modulo a few red cables), regardless of what changes had happened since the original install, and regardless of who had made those changes.
The theory was that bringing in dedicated cabling contractors to do audits once per week was cheaper in the grand scheme of things than dealing with the implications of messy cabling. There was an additional advantage that any potential customer who was shown the suite was overwhelmed with the pristine neatness of it, and felt immediately comfortable with the idea of emptying their own appallingly messy and undocumented machine room into such a place.
Joe
Current thread:
- Re: Cable Colors, (continued)
- Re: Cable Colors Wayne E. Bouchard (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Tuc at T-B-O-H (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Jon Kibler (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors David Coulson (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Steve Bertrand (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors David Coulson (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Steve Bertrand (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Jay R. Ashworth (Jun 17)
- Re: Cable Colors Steve Bertrand (Jun 17)
- Re: Cable Colors Justin M. Streiner (Jun 17)
- Re: Cable Colors Joe Abley (Jun 17)
- Re: Cable Colors Jay R. Ashworth (Jun 17)
- RE: Cable Colors Steve Dalberg (Jun 17)
- Re: Cable Colors David Coulson (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Steven M. Bellovin (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr. (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Joe Greco (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Derek J. Balling (Jun 16)
- Re: Cable Colors Owen DeLong (Jun 16)