[188374] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: DataCenter color-coding cabling schema
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Sat Mar 19 01:41:23 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <56ECAE76.5060106@west.net>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 22:40:12 -0700
To: Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
> On Mar 18, 2016, at 18:42 , Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
>=20
> On 3/12/16 12:15 PM, Joe Hamelin wrote:
>> I know at Clearwire data centers we used gray for network, blue for
>> management and orange for RS-232 console. At least for the initial =
build.
>> Later re-work or additions were whatever the tech had on hand ;) =
They also
>> had labels on each end of each wire showing the path through the =
system,
>> sometimes up to six lines. It did make it easy to bring up a data =
center
>> and find cabling errors. To see the system last more than a year or =
two up
>> upgrades would take some strong rules and oversight. I think it =
would be
>> worth it if your management system can keep the religion.
>=20
> That's the issue, keeping it that way. "Gray for network" is likely to =
result in mostly gray cables which won't really help to differentiate =
things in the long run. Breaking it down further can get tricky in terms =
of definition. Each network has a color, but then there's this trunk =
link....
>=20
> We had a customer who had a scheme involving five different colors. =
When they did the initial build their wiring vendor came in with barrels =
of new cables of various lengths and colors and it looked really nice =
with cable management and all.
>=20
> After a couple of years it was pretty much random in terms of color =
coding. Keeping multiple lengths on hand for dressing in raceway without =
incurring either tons of slack or bow-string taut wires is tough but =
possible, doing that in half a dozen colors can be daunting.
Yes and no.
If you have a requirement that all cabling between racks goes via fixed =
cabling from patch panels and patch cables are only used for intra-rack =
runs between equipment in the same rack and/or equipment<->patch panel =
in the same rack, it gets a lot less so. This can also help keep a lot =
of other things more sane in the long run as well.
I found that you could deal pretty well with any intra-rack run =
(assuming 7=E2=80=99 racks) if you stocked the following lengths:
0.5=E2=80=99
1=E2=80=99
1.5=E2=80=99
2=E2=80=99
2.5=E2=80=99
3=E2=80=99
4=E2=80=99
5=E2=80=99
6=E2=80=99
7=E2=80=99
8=E2=80=99
10=E2=80=99
That=E2=80=99s a total of 12 lengths. We kept those in stock in Yellow =
(SMF), Orange (MMF), Other colors all Cat 6: Blue, Red, Purple, Green.
Total of 72 part numbers to keep track of. We got one of those =
roll-around bin carts that had 4 rows of 9 drawers on each side. Worked =
out perfectly to have 72 kinds of cables. (IIRC, we did 3 columns per =
color working up in size from left to right).
We had a guy who was responsible for making sure none of the bins were =
ever empty. I think he checked the cart twice a week and ordered once a =
month most months. I think we tended to keep at least 5 on the cart and =
topped the bins up to 20 for most sizes and 40 for the popular =
size/color combinations.
We didn=E2=80=99t have any trouble maintaining the system and as long as =
the right color was available, we got pretty good compliance from the =
people installing cables. (Our =E2=80=9Cretraining=E2=80=9D method for =
people who ran a wrong-colored cable didn=E2=80=99t hurt, either.)
YMMV.
Owen
