A Tidy Rack!

osaddictosaddict London, UK
edited September 2010 in Science & Tech
We're moving office in about 6 weeks, as part of this we're moving to a new comms room, and getting a new rack.

It's going to be two racks bolted together.

Our current rack, after about 2 years use is pretty messy and chaotic now, some patches are a nightmare and require someone with matchstick thin yet long fingers. Oh and my colour coding to separate data from voice is not fully maintained.

Do any of you guys have tips for laying out and maintaining a rack - to keep everything neat and tidy? - Are there any hidden tips or tricks besides the obvious?

Comments

  • CycloniteCyclonite Tampa, Florida Icrontian
    edited August 2010
    Beat the people who don't follow any of the labeling/color-coding/organization schemes. :p

    It bothers me every day to walk into our server rooms and see the mess of wires that came to be before I started working at my current company. I can't seem to get full permission to fix it, either.

    In all seriousness, I think a lot of why things end up a chaotic mess is because someone gets lazy, or they don't want to take the extra few seconds to properly cable-tie or color-code. You need to drill it into everyone's head (even yours) that you're going to keep it tidy. It truly pays off in the long-run.
  • osaddictosaddict London, UK
    edited August 2010
    Cyclonite wrote:
    Beat the people who don't follow any of the labeling/color-coding/organization schemes. :p

    It bothers me every day to walk into our server rooms and see the mess of wires that came to be before I started working at my current company. I can't seem to get full permission to fix it, either.

    In all seriousness, I think a lot of why things end up a chaotic mess is because someone gets lazy, or they don't want to take the extra few seconds to properly cable-tie or color-code. You need to drill it into everyone's head (even yours) that you're going to keep it tidy. It truly pays off in the long-run.

    I'm not into self harm! lol - I'm guilty of it occasionally. The worse problem isn't the colour coding it's not being able to run cables neatly from port to port - either because they are burried too deep or because there's not enough space along the sides or in the management bits to run the cables!
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    Velcro ties seem to work around here. If I get a chance to, I'll try and snap a few pictures of our maintenance team's cable-fu tonight for to give you some examples. Of course the big thing, I think, is planning. We figure out ahead of time the max number of servers a rack is going to have then run all the cables at one for them and bundle them all to the racks. That way everything is done at once, labeled and ready to go. Cuts down on the mess that gets made when you try to add stuff later.
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