[92180] in North American Network Operators' Group
Data Center Wiring Standards
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rick Kunkel)
Fri Sep 8 20:37:39 2006
Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2006 17:36:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rick Kunkel <kunkel@w-link.net>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Heya folks,
I hope this is on-topic. I read the charter, and it falls somewhere along
the fuzzy border I think...
Can anyone tell me the standard way to deal with patch panels, racks, and
switches in a data center used for colocation? I've a sneaking suspicion
that we're doing it in a fairly non-scalable way. (I am not responsible
for the current method, and I think I'm glad to say that.) Strangely
enough, I can find like NO resources on this. I've spent the better part
of two hours looking.
Right now, we have a rack filled with nothing but patch panels. We have
some switches in another rack, and colocation customers scattered around
other racks. When a new customer comes in, we run a long wire from their
computer(s) and/or other device(s) to the patch panel. Then, from the
appropriate block connectors on the back of the panel, we run another wire
that terminates in a RJ-45 to plug into the switch.
Sounds bonkers I think, doesn't it?
My thoughts go like this: We put a patch panel in each rack. Each of
these patch panels is permanently (more or less) wired to a patch panel in
our main patch cabinet. So, essentially what you've got is a main patch
cabinet with a patch panel that corresponds to a patch panel in each other
cabinet. Making connection is cinchy and only requires 3-6 foot
off-the-shelf cables.
Does that sound more correct?
I talked to someone else in the office here, and they believe that they've
seen it done with a switch in each cabinet, although they couldn't
remember is there was a patch panel as well. If you're running 802.1q
trunks between a bunch of switches (no patch-panels needed), I can see
that working too, I suppose.
Any standards? Best practices? Suggestions? Resources, in the form of
books, web pages, RFCs, or white papers?
Thanks!
Rick Kunkel
