Cable Colors

Steve Dalberg sdalberg at marchex.com
Tue Jun 17 17:31:21 UTC 2008


> On Tue, 17 Jun 2008, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 01:03:32AM -0400, Steve Bertrand wrote:
> >> I would like to know ANYONE who has a policy strict enough, and 
> >> enforces it so as to have even an almost perfect cabling 
> >> infrastructure...is there such a thing?
> >
> > ValPak, Largo FL.
> >
> > Their datacenter is new, $3.6M in a new completely automated $200M 
> > building, and it's *gorgeous*.  Thanks to APC for 
> organizing a (sales) 
> > tour about 3 months ago; I love facility porn.
> 
> I was in a data center for a large bank here in Pittsburgh a 
> few years ago, and they definitely went the extra mile to 
> keep their cable plant neatly organized and properly dressed, 
> and they continued to maintain that after the building was turned up.
> 
> That's the real test.  I've seen lots of data centers and 
> colo facilities that looked great for the grand opening and 
> started turning into rat's nests as the move/add/change 
> tickets started coming in :(
> 
> jms
> 
> 

I opened a ~100k square ft DC in 2001, and it is still immaculate (i'm
not with the company any longer btw), for one very simple reason...  Its
someones job.  All the guy does is run cables, if anyone brings in their
own cable, it gets immediately unplugged and cut in half  (not kidding,
its happened).  All cables are labelled at each end, with hostname/patch
panel/switch-m-p info, so at any point you can reference the run.  When
you make it someones job, they can take pride in it.  If you have a guy
who has 10 other things to do, being tidy will end up low on the list...

The mucky mucks toured the Data Center and were very impressed, then
they asked the facility manager how long they spent cleaning up.  The
answer was simple, "It always looks like this."  

My advice to anyone with a large facility.  Hire someone who does good
work, pay them well, and give them your confidence to do the right
thing.  Don't depend on NE's, or SA's to keep it tidy, because honestly,
there will come a time when they have bigger fish to fry.

Steve




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