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The Electric-Spaghetti-Rack belonged to one of our favorite customers in Gainesville, GA. We pinged on them about having it re-cabled for around 2 years, but it was difficult for them to justify the expense in time and materials for a cabling job that looked terrible but worked (most of the time). We were finally able to prove that it was hindering their employees and GCITS technicians from doing routine maintenance and repairs with network issues when several office employees were unsuccessful in locating a problem cable after four hours of intense searching (all stemming, believe it or not, from a carpet installation where the guys laying the carpet decided to cut those pesky cables that were in their way).
We were told to do the job quickly, using pre-made cables, and to leave the telephone wiring (which was problem-free) to the telephone contractor. I bring up these points because:
1. A proper rack cable job should have custom-made cables. Extra cable length takes up space, looks nasty no matter how you try to conceal it or pretty it up, and reroutes or interferes with crucial airflow.
2. The telephone cabling was non-problematic at the time, but any sort of tracing or wiring problem would put them in a similar situation as the one that they had with the network cabling.
What you see below are the photos from the original rack wiring plus several years of disparate (read non-GCITS) technicians performing patch jobs that they were (obviously) unqualified for.
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BEFORE |
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In the column of photographs on the left, you can see that the wiring was sloppy and haphazard, with no differentiation made between two networks running simultaneously on one rack. The original cabling was done with standard, pre-cut, 3 meter cables, each of which was coiled and hung (without strain relief) wherever it was convenient for the original cabler. Difficult to see, but still present, are several network switches, routers, and (believe it or not) there's actually a 4U server buried in there.
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Taken from a slightly lower angle than the first picture, you can see that there are a few generations of wiring here. Notice the fat sheaf of blue cables coming in from behind and above, then a newer set of four or five gray cables coming into a ghetto-rigged distribution panel (labeled with pieces of colored electrical tape, no less). |
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Extra cable coiled and hanging in front of the server (yeah, we knew where it was all the time). Airflow definitely restricted, but not measurable with equipment we had on site.
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You may also see that, due to some dead ports on one of the switches, a five port hub was "temporarily" installed atop one of the routers. Hubs are not switches, and have really no place in commercial applications, being prone to packet collisions and other problems. |
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Unsure which way the cable should flow, previous technicians determined either the shortest route for shorter cables, or the direction that allowed them the most convenient cable-stuffing for longer cables. In either case, determining cable origin and termination is difficult. |
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AFTER The Electric-Spaghetti-Rack became the Datacenter Rack overnight, much to the delight of the office workers and the satisfaction of the Site Manager. Please see below: |
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You may notice that the ghetto-rigged distribution panel is still in place. We wanted to take it out, but apparently the company providing the T-1 line for that network insisted that their "installation" be left alone. Blue cables were used to identify cables on the network that this Distribution Warehouse shared with its Parent Corporation (LAN-WAN-LAN), while gray cables were used to identify the separate Local Area Network (LAN).
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It's all about gentle curves (for strain relief, not just aesthetics) airflow, and ease-of-use.
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Routers and switches at half capacity for expandability, each clearly labeled to identify its network and destination. |
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