Routers and switches at data centers

binarysoul

Few days back I made a trip to a very large data center and was somewhat overwhelmed by the complexity of routers, switches, DSUs, modems, mainframe and some devices that I even couldn't recognize

The one thing that scared me was the cabling to interconnect many devices. As the guy explained the sequence of connections, I looked like a deer in the headlight

When it comes to cabling routers, switches, telco and modems interconnections, what should I know as a MUST. I admit I don't know a lot about cabling, but at least I'm willing to learn.

bighornsheep

How big was your shocker?

The place I work at has two data centres, one with 10 rows the other with 6 rows of 36U racks, each row contains 6-8 racks EACH.

so 16 x say 7 racks each on average x 36U = 4032 Units of rack space...this is of course not mentioning the dozens of blade server chassis and blade switches that they have.....

borumas

Basically make sure you label special connections, then when you unplug everything and start to rebuild you will know what you are doing, I was scared when I first started rewiring closets and seeing the guys just unplug everything and letting it fall on the floor. Eventually you learn how the sites operate and what devices go where and how to cable them.

rossonieri#1

hi,

simple steps maybe like :
- draw a basic diagram first like internet --> router --> fw --> switches --> LAN
- then separate the diagram into segment by device/zone function like clusters of firewall, clusters of switches, DMZ server farm.
- get their subnets - then ips
- from there you should have the idea which cable plugged to where, this device routed to where, and so on.

HTH.

NeonNoodle

Label your cables.

Pash

NeonNoodle wrote:

Label your cables.

My Co-Worker Says exactly the same, at first I was like "whatever" BUT after having to spend hours going through spaghetti junction to pull out 10m cables, I have to agree that it is essential.

Rearden

Also, use the right length cable. Nothing makes a closet a bigger mess than using 7 footers when the switches and ports are 2 feet apart.

RTmarc

Rearden wrote:

Also, use the right length cable. Nothing makes a closet a bigger mess than using 7 footers when the switches and ports are 2 feet apart.

That's my personal favorite. When I started with the company I'm with now, they would use 50' cables to connect the servers to the switch IN THE SAME RACK. I'm OCD about these things and I think I went into either a seizure or convulsions after seeing it for the first time. Needless to say, one of my first projects was re-cabling everything.

networker050184

Label and diagram everything as everyone else seems to agree. I like to leave some extra cable length for ease of connecting to any device in the rack or close racks. Its much easier than getting a new cable everytime you have to switch the location of a cable. As long as you keep the slack organized it doesn't cause a problem.

mikearama

Hah!... OCD. Love it!

My pet peeve is cable management... the place I worked last didn't spend the money on cable managers. The racks came with vertical runners, but from there everything fed into the patch panels and switches. We went with a product called Neat Patch... now it's a thing of beauty.

My only continuing concern is that our farm, like bighorns, is big... 6 rows, 10 racks per row. As the farm grew, patch panels were added, and not all of them connect to the comm rack. So in rows 5 and 6, many of our devices and blade switches hit 2 and 3 patch jumps to reach the server switch stack. I'd love to get a contractor in to rerun the drops.

rossonieri#1

mikearama wrote:

Hah!... OCD. Love it!

My pet peeve is cable management... the place I worked last didn't spend the money on cable managers. The racks came with vertical runners, but from there everything fed into the patch panels and switches. We went with a product called Neat Patch... now it's a thing of beauty.

My only continuing concern is that our farm, like bighorns, is big... 6 rows, 10 racks per row. As the farm grew, patch panels were added, and not all of them connect to the comm rack. So in rows 5 and 6, many of our devices and blade switches hit 2 and 3 patch jumps to reach the server switch stack. I'd love to get a contractor in to rerun the drops.

i'd love to see it

this week customer - have the same problem,
cant believe it - hand-made patchcord plugged directly to the switches without wire management down from patchpanels.
just like bunch of noodles/spaghetti in front of their racks!!!

i said, well me myself maybe not a very well managed person - but how come you guys net admin did something like that??? what exactly is your job???

you know - when i did the survey,
an admin walk by the rack, and i ask do you looking for something, sir?
he said : nope, i have a broken link here - but not sure where...

the point is - never ever let it happen, do it right before it get worse.

cheers...