Network pics thread

Sure, sometimes you have to slam something together and just get it working --but this should not remain the case forever. Professional networks are neat and easy to troubleshoot, maintain, revise, and upgrade. Personally, I am guessing that your situation is one where it's working now so why bother with the expense of re-doing it to a proper condition. Ultimately, it's up to you, but it hardly looks professional.
 
Professional networks are neat and easy to troubleshoot, maintain, revise, and upgrade.

No, they definitely are not.

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I think I've posted this in here before, but I'll post it again. That's a Fortune 50 company. Definitely a "professional" network. Large networks are very rarely neat, or easy to troubleshoot, or maintain, etc, etc.
 
No, they definitely are not.

I think I've posted this in here before, but I'll post it again. That's a Fortune 50 company. Definitely a "professional" network. Large networks are very rarely neat, or easy to troubleshoot, or maintain, etc, etc.

Ahhhhh that rats nest. And I thought our core had a rats nest of cables lol
 
Why? How do you justify the downtime and expesne?

Downtime is easy, unless you have no maintenance windows, then if you don't have maintenance windows you have other issues.

Expense is relative, it should only cost a few hundred $$$ to get the cable management and cables, if you don't make them yourself.

The last place I was working for we had the second Saturday of the month as our standard maintenance window. During that day I could take down whatever was needed to update, patch, re-cable, whatever was needed. A few weeks before we (the CIO, IT Manager, and myself the Senior Network Administrator) were let go, our CIO had us take the local datacenter down to re-cable, label, and document where everything was plugged into because the company was going to be moving that office in a few months.

We also did the same when we swapped out a bunch of switches for a core switch we pulled all the cables and re-cabled everything.

After I left when they moved, they didn't use the documentation I put together on what was where. It caused them tons of issues, several things on the voice side didn't work because they were not plugged into the Voice VLAN ports, things that were in the DMZ ended up not in the DMZ, things that were not in the DMZ were now in the DMZ, etc.
 
The last place I was working for we had the second Saturday of the month as our standard maintenance window. During that day I could take down whatever was needed to update, patch, re-cable, whatever was needed.
What was your up time goal? 95%?
 
What was your up time goal? 95%?

Don't know about his, but my new company's uptime depends on the hardware or server. For instance Email has a 99% uptime guarantee, however my LOB servers for the corp side of things have a 7-7 100% and outside of that a whatever I feel like. Hardware is 99% (hypervisors, switches etc) and our warehouse operations are 99% (those guys work 24x7 so gotta have them up).

I also usually try to roll cabling and hardware changes into standard maintenance , so for instance we had to install a new card into our Procurve 5412, so I took a 6 hour Friday maintenance to also clean up one of our patch panels instead of the 1 hour I was originally planning.
 
I am expected 24/7 100% uptime. Shame that the setup has some key servers not in any NLB or cluster so I can never do windows updates!
 
Back from the #4953
fcinstalled.jpg


4Gbps link works between ESXi and Fileserver! :D #Specs in sig.
Trial and error thread here.

i'm jealous LOL. i was hoping to do something similar with my ESXi and file server however i needed an actual ehternet port as well. having only one PCIe slot the standard gig nic won
 
Got some basic things setup in our new rack. Everything is a mess and only in testing, ignore the wire mess :).



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Still need a ton of random bits + the electrician to run my UPS power.
Gear is:
Dell IPKVM
2 HP 1800-24g
Dell 860
Dell 15" KB+M
2 Dell R710 (2xQuad+ 48gig, 2x Intel Pro1000 PT)
IBM 1u Quad/12gb
IBM 2u Dual Quad/12gb
34bay SAN (Supermicro Quad, 16gb, 10x 15k 300gb sas, 12x 1tb RE3 WD, LSI HBA'S. 2x Quad port, 2x Dual port, 1x PCI-E SSD)
APC 8000VA
 
spyder,

How does the dell ipkvm work ? Does it just created a webgui that you can loginto and view any machine ? Is there something special to get one setup ?

I have a few things in my rack that i would like to have remote etc etc with out walking up to the unit and using my touch kvm.
 
No, they definitely are not.

IMG00004-20091104-0929.jpg


I think I've posted this in here before, but I'll post it again. That's a Fortune 50 company. Definitely a "professional" network. Large networks are very rarely neat, or easy to troubleshoot, or maintain, etc, etc.

Thats poor cabling i dont care how big/small your company. Obviously theres nobody to check the techs work or who really cares. Just because your a fortune 50/500 company doesnt mean you dont have a shoddy network. Fortune companies are fortune companies for other reasons then their network design... a lot of larger clients actually outsource their wiring to 3rd parties, while their internal staff handle everything else. I know this for a fact as one of my clients is a very large corporation who outsources their wiring. THe IT guys go bezerk though if things are not neat of course, so thats good. They like things neat/organized as well. But still their networks are not that tidy.

Its just like any other department that needs checks/balances but nobody really looks careful at "wiring" hey if it works and the managers dont have downtime they never bother to look.

But what happens when they need to start tracing things? Gonna take a while to sort through the spaghetti isnt it. Not trying to really KNOCK anybody i just wish more people would take more time wiring things up, as when i go in as a 3rd party to troubleshoot something or go in on a takeover, it drives me bonkers when i cant find things.
 
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Bad cell phone pic, but I promise there is a 6509 buried at the bottom left... I am hoping our X-mas factory shutdown will allow me to cleanup some of that spaghetti...:( who knows, I just might find some meatballs in that mess!
 
Did a small network install last night ran 11 wires & installed a Rack Enclosure :)

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Back :
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I wish I could run cables like that. All my walls are solid, I have to come up with other ways of running them. Taking up floors, carpets, skirting boards etc.

Worth it though, even the wife said "our home network is really good"

She loves the fact that I rip all our DVDs Blurays etc and she can just use MediaBrowser to pick them from any room in the house and watch full HD films without any faff.
 
I wish I could run cables like that. All my walls are solid, I have to come up with other ways of running them. Taking up floors, carpets, skirting boards etc.

Worth it though, even the wife said "our home network is really good"

She loves the fact that I rip all our DVDs Blurays etc and she can just use MediaBrowser to pick them from any room in the house and watch full HD films without any faff.

How many floors is your house ? I can help
 
I just moved in a two storey 100 year old house as well. Running network cable to the main floor from the basement has been no problem. The issus is getting it up to that second storey. I have no closets on top of each other either. There is a coax line running up there unused so I may be able to use that to pull some Cat6, but I was pulling on it earlier, and she was pretty snug so I don't know...
 
I just moved in a two storey 100 year old house as well. Running network cable to the main floor from the basement has been no problem. The issus is getting it up to that second storey. I have no closets on top of each other either. There is a coax line running up there unused so I may be able to use that to pull some Cat6, but I was pulling on it earlier, and she was pretty snug so I don't know...

Back in those days they used to strap the cable down :( Guess you have to conceal in the insulation :) i use glow rods for that, and use this tool,
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and this tool,
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I used to conceal wires between 4 floors, from one level up to another :)
 
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Mike, i hope you don't get covered in sauce with that..lol Nice install! Do not forget to post shots after you move in the equipment Dash! it will be Xmas in october :)
 
Mike, i hope you don't get covered in sauce with that..lol Nice install! Do not forget to post shots after you move in the equipment Dash! it will be Xmas in october :)

i have a new 1u server waiting to be turned on it stares at me every day from its manufactures box lol.

i need next moth or so to order my 32gigs ram, & 4 2tb drives for my storage server, another pdu.

replacing my 19" lcds with 24" ones soon too. Still have to build my desk/bench in my office / man land..

house-front.jpg
 
nice, you own that?

I live in a proper dump, 2 up 2 down but here in the UK I would need about $600,000 - $800,000 to get a house like that.
 
wow for that kind of money here you may just be able to get a house like this



(thats actually 2 houses there)
 
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Thats about half a mill here on LI... in say florida its about $200k... living on Long Island sucks... houses cost too much here
 
Dash, can you link to a good cable running kit or those parts?

do you use ebay at all ? Do you have a homedepot near you ?

I got my fish rods / glow sticks there, those are the thin version, the thicker version don't flex to well and not good for this type.

the wetnoodle goes for about 19$ on ebay, thats where i get them.

glow rods are about

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

make sure you get the 3 pack :)

I also have 2 of these, flexbits.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
 
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