Data Center Cabling Management – How to Do It
Managing a data center and its cabling network is more often than not a challenging task for data center managers and network engineers due to the abundance of issues that can arise. Listed below are 4 practices that will ease your data center cabling management process.
Data Center Cabling Management – 4 Practices You Should Follow
1. Designing the Network or Structured Cabling Infrastructure in Advance
For a successful and smooth installation and management of data centers and their cabling network, the design of the cabling infrastructure must be predetermined. Following are some factors that you’ll need to consider when predesigning your network infrastructure:
- Whether or not structured data cabling will be used
- What are the port density and bandwidth requirements
- How often the network capacity will need to be expanded
- Whether copper or fiber optic cables will be used
2. Documenting All New Cabling Installations
Documenting new cabling installations may appear to be unimportant, but a lack of documentation can make maintaining, troubleshooting, and provisioning new equipment extremely challenging. It’s critical to keep track of cable types, connectors, cabinet heights, and the quantity of data and power ports to ensure consistent and reliable uptime.
3. Determining the Required Cable Length Prior to Installation
Getting an accurate measure of the length of cable required can help keep your data center free from excessive loops and loose cables. It can also help reduce cabling costs by allowing you to avoid wasting your budget on an extra length of cable. Instead of taking the more time-consuming route of measuring the distance with a tape measure, you can get an accurate level for the required cable length using CDIM software.
4. Validating Connections
While the distance between the starting and termination points and the length of cabling required is a key factor to consider, the compatibility of physical connectors is equally vital. Adding new equipment to your network requires having switches or ports that will support the equipment.
Using DCIM software will provide a thorough evaluation of the compatibility of your connections allowing you to make an informed and strategic decision when deploying new equipment.
Conclusion
Integrating the above-mentioned practices into your data center cabling management process will ensure easier and more efficient management of your data centers and cabling network.