To the networking guys

[Zirax]

Thought you would appreciate this. Just had a quick shifty around the office ducting while the network engineers were in.

The main data lines to/fro rackmount switches were black, in their own ducting and cable tied.
The cable going to the desks from the switches were pink, in their own ducting and cable tied.
Upon going to the main switches for the floor, the links between the switches were cable tied to the left, with the pink cables cable tied together on the right, according to which switch they were plugged into.

If network cabling could be an artform, that was it..... it was impressive and yet a thing of beauty at the same time Really it should be good seeing that we are an IT company, but normally that means nothing.

[Daz]

Heh, me and Burble talked about this once - we're both bastards when it comes to cabling! Colour coded, labelled at both ends, and tidy - end of

[Dr. Z]

I might have to post a pic of my cabling in a bit...

[Davey_Pitch]

Originally Posted by Daz

Heh, me and Burble talked about this once - we're both bastards when it comes to cabling! Colour coded, labelled at both ends, and tidy - end of

I remember chatting to you about it recently as well. We're crap here at work, but in a school you can't really disconnect the network long enough to colour code and label everything. They're meant to be doing a network topology review/change in the summer though when there's no kids around, so I might see about at least labelling everything then, would make life soooo much easier in full network cabinets.

[Haly]

Originally Posted by Davey_Pitch

I remember chatting to you about it recently as well.

I've not really chatted to Daz about it, but I have been told what's wrong with my various cablings

[Will]

Originally Posted by Daz

Heh, me and Burble talked about this once - we're both bastards when it comes to cabling! Colour coded, labelled at both ends, and tidy - end of

Ditto.

I once made one of our engineers redo it all from scratch - I arrived and it was absolutely dire. I told him, "you didn't do it like I asked you to", he just replied with something like "I presumed this would have been good enough....", I said can you unplug the port-side front serial server for me please - he didn't know which cable it was - that proved my point I think

(unfortunately I've had to do it a few times... ah well they'll learn - the hard way )

Anyway it was almost shooting myself in the foot as I had to stay there the weekend to make sure everything was working properly - but to his credit he did it, and did it VERY well.

[Dr. Z]

Ok, here we go Daz, I suggest you dont look

Network cables start off here:

http://www.statichiss.co.uk/IMAGE_00101.jpg

Then join this:


http://www.statichiss.co.uk/IMAGE_00102.jpg

http://www.statichiss.co.uk/IMAGE_00103.jpg

More here:


http://www.statichiss.co.uk/IMAGE_00104.jpg

Then here:


http://www.statichiss.co.uk/IMAGE_00105.jpg

I do TRY and lay them tidily, but then I move stuff about so often its hard to keep right

[Daz]

Heheee, if you did that for me, then I'd be making you do it again

[Dr. Z]

Originally Posted by Daz

Heheee, if you did that for me, then I'd be making you do it again

One day I might sneak into the apps room with a camera and take some photos of the cabling in there.

LAN, power and audio in one teeny room makes for hell. Oh and there is some lovely Krone in there too. The distances involved make for some interesting cabling - there are two monitors in the studio but VGA isnt good enough over the required distance... so there is a box that splits each individual core of VGA into 15 seperate BNC connections, for 30 coaxial cables to be fed through to the studio and reassembled.

Then there is the audio patch bay, allowing the output from pretty much anything in the whole place to be piped to anywhere else. no small amount of cabling involved there! I might measure the trunks of cable next time I am down there, pretty sure that they come to about 10" thick... none of it labelled.

[Daz]

Originally Posted by DRZ

... none of it labelled.

Pity the poor bastard that ever has top change or troubleshoot that lot!