Network Rack Ideas - short patch cables okay?

D Unit209

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Hey Guys,

I am setting up 6 new IDF closets for a new building coming up soon. There will be about 250 to 300 users on each floor and I'm looking for any clever ideas you guys may that I haven't thought up or haven't seen yet. I've read some people not liking shorter than 1' ft cables, but why the hate since the distance from the patch panel to workstation is probably over a hundred feet or so?

My last job, I set something up like file #1 and #2. For the new job, I am thinking of doing it more like #3. What do you guys think?
 

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I like #3. But I haven't seen cables that short for sale. Maybe I haven;t looked hard enough.
 
Maybe people speculate there's more chance of the cable being damaged from a 180 degree turn in such a short distance? I say go with it if it works. If they were solid core cables, those people might have more of a case, but patch panel are stranded core
 
Those that are against short cables are probably dealing with larger amounts of equipment and/or more changes to their setup. The issue with short cables is it requires more patch panels and makes it harder to reconfigure your rack if you need to make certain changes. If you are going to have relatively long term consistency and plenty of space in your rack, then short cables will be cleaner and look better. Not to mention they likely also will be less susceptible to being accidentally pulled/tugged/caught or otherwise in the way.
 
This setup is designed for a network closet to connect end devices only (workstations, printers, and laptops) to Cisco stackable access layer switches.

As a standard, we usually have (2) Cat6 running to each cubicle - 1 blue port and 1 green port as a "spare" for printer, laptop, etc. That being said, all blue ports will get patched and undergo very little change if any at all. I will have another open rack set up for all the "spare" green ports that will be set up to use longer 3 to 5 ft patch cables.
 
I have done a few racks like number 2, but that way doesn't work well with enclosed racks. It is nice to be able to swap to a different port if needed with longer cables.
We use these at our facilities along with 3 foot patch cables. They do take up 1-2u depending on the one you go with https://shop.neatpatch.com/products/np2-cable-management-bay

Thanks, I've never seen that before. I think I could use this in some of my old 6500 setups that require varying lengths of 3 - 7 ft cables.
 
Not a fan of inserting switches between patch panels - you need space behind the panels to actually run and terminate the ethernet drops into the punch downs and the fat switches get in the way for the techs. Additionally, it makes it much harder to properly stack the switches without making spaghetti in the back of your rack between stack cables, power cables, etc. The cisco stackwise cables also have limitations on distance which can screw you over in a 8 switch stack setup.

If I can, I'll have 2 racks in an IDF - one rack that is passive for all fiber and CAT6/6a drops, another active rack with equipment. You will need vertical cable managers between each rack to properly run and hide the cables in appropriate trunks behind the covers so everything is neat and tidy. I also never use enclosed, deep datacenter racks and typically use 24" deep 4 post telecom racks for any sort of LV cabling/equipment. If I need servers, I dedicate an entirely separate rack for that as they are different animals to rack/power and much deeper. IDF room itself should locked with key card access which should eliminate need for lockable racks unless you are in some sort of co-lo environment or don't have control over the room for whatever reason.

For smaller IDF's, I'll use a single rack and put all patch panels on top 20U or so of the rack with fiber cross connects at the tippy top as they should never be touched once OTDR'd and patched. Equipment goes directly underneath. I also use 2U horizontal cable managers with covers like the one mentioned above to move cables "east to west" if I need to in a neat fashion.

For MDF's, I'll do 3 racks. One passive for patching, 2 core equipment racks on either side with power being fed from multiple panels/electrical bus feeds. Each core/aggregation switch is split between racks along with the core firewalls.

I've been using the "slim" CAT6 at all of my new sites as well. It's amazing how much space they save and how much neater they look. Also pay the extra money to label every patch cord with patch panel port number along with switchport number - you or someone else will thank you later especially if you have to swap a switch due to an emergency for whatever reason.
 
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I've done office patches in a variation of #2 (patch panel, space, switch, space, patch panel w/ 12" cables), #3 exactly w/ 6" cables, and a variation of #1 with 6" cables (don't recommend that, too much stretch).
I prefer #3 for the aesthetics and is still a pride to the office to this day at my last company, they replaced the solid door with a glass one and added some LED strips just to show one of the IDFs to on site customers.

However this really only works best if you're getting enough switches to make all the ports hot (our office was a single port per desk to reduce cost and the VOIP phones looped through to the PCs, so that wasn't an issue).
We had the tech run enough slack to be able to pull the panels out a full 90 degrees to re-punch if needed, but they haven't had to touch them since they were installed 5 years ago.

We did 200-250 runs at each IDF and ran 12 fiber pairs giving us redundancy for each switch, plus a spare pair or two so it didn't matter where we placed the switches.
It ran back to the MDF where we had the main distribution stack and firewalls that facilitated all the traffic anyway.

For server racks my preference is in the main rack with distribution pair at the top, cable management, then the firewall pair, and storage switches in the middle.
Then for the extension racks pair of network switches top of rack going back to the main dist stack, and storage switches mid rack
 
Thanks for all the good information guys, I really appreciate it. Just to be clear, this building will only have access layer switches. All the floors (2nd thru 6th) will be home run to the 1st floor MDF (via 20Gbps etherchannel) and then connect back to our distribution CORE located in the next building via 40Gbps etherchannel. I really like #3, but felt very wary of the 6" patch cords and came up with this type of solution in the attachment using 12" cables and 1U blanks (switch, 1U blank, patch panel, switch, and so on using 12" cables). The 1U blanks take up more space, BUT the 12" cables don't look as tight or stretched. As you guys assumed, we have enough switches in the stack to make each port hot, with one cable going to the voip phone, and then to the PC.

Basically, the LEFT rack will connect all the phones (and PCs), conference rooms, training rooms, etc. and the RIGHT rack will connect any printers, laptops, or misc. The LEFT side should be very static, whereas the RIGHT side may undergo change as printers move or users need an extra port in their cube for some reason. Opinions? Should I move the RIGHT rack to the middle maybe?
 

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Thanks for all the good information guys, I really appreciate it. Just to be clear, this building will only have access layer switches. All the floors (2nd thru 6th) will be home run to the 1st floor MDF (via 20Gbps etherchannel) and then connect back to our distribution CORE located in the next building via 40Gbps etherchannel. I really like #3, but felt very wary of the 6" patch cords and came up with this type of solution in the attachment using 12" cables and 1U blanks (switch, 1U blank, patch panel, switch, and so on using 12" cables). The 1U blanks take up more space, BUT the 12" cables don't look as tight or stretched. As you guys assumed, we have enough switches in the stack to make each port hot, with one cable going to the voip phone, and then to the PC.

Basically, the LEFT rack will connect all the phones (and PCs), conference rooms, training rooms, etc. and the RIGHT rack will connect any printers, laptops, or misc. The LEFT side should be very static, whereas the RIGHT side may undergo change as printers move or users need an extra port in their cube for some reason. Opinions? Should I move the RIGHT rack to the middle maybe?
I would, definitely.

I'm curious how long your "short" patches will hold up considering how much bend radius you will have to apply to connect from patch panel to switch for the rack on the left. Another reason why I don't like switches right above/below patch panels.
 
I would, definitely.

I'm curious how long your "short" patches will hold up considering how much bend radius you will have to apply to connect from patch panel to switch for the rack on the left. Another reason why I don't like switches right above/below patch panels.

We had 1ft between patch and switch, no need for fillers, ran that set up for about 6 years, never had an issue with connections, I do understand that added "stress" of a tight bend, I had used CAT6 for all of mine.
 
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