rack rails

Mon Mar 30 14:18:18 UTC 2020

* David Funderburk

> 2 - Do you know of any universal rail kits for 1U, 2U and 3U servers, routers, switches that work well?  The brand names are nice but expensive. Thought I'd explore some cheaper options first. We use a lot of MikroTik, HP, Dell and some CISCO with a few other things here and there.

When it comes to network equipment meant for mounting in four-post data centre racks with PSU-to-port airflow, the included kits are usually anything but nice.

The problem is that they typically only allow for insertion/removal through the rear of the rack (unlike servers, which are almost exclusively mounted through the front of the rack).

When a rack has been filled up, removal/insertion through the rear will often be essentially impossible due to cables, vertical PDUs and stuff like that that gets in the way.

Explained in pictures here: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/techblog/2019/08/06/rack-switch-removal.html

If someone knows of a generic rack mount kit for data centre switches that allows for insertion/removal through the front of the rack, i.e. from/to the cold aisle, I'd be very grateful.

Best thing I've come up with so far is to use shelves, but that doubles the amount of rack units I need to use (1U switch sitting on top of a 1U shelf...)

Tore