Patch cable colors and tagging

[M4tt]

What do you use for tagging patch cables in switches? ..also do you use a color scheme for those cables?

Pretty pictures welcomed

 

[Vanskater]

normaly blue and yellow = standard

green and red = crossover

black = rollover




but you can use masking tape and make a flag at one end and write on it

 

[UMCPWintermute]

White: Phone
Green: Switch <-> End device
Blue: Infrastructure (switch <-> Switch, Routers, etc.)
Black: Console or serial

And then I like to label both ends of the cable saying what devices they're plugged into, including what ports on the switches.

It's a bit of a hassle to do every time you run a lot of cable, but it pays off in the long run.

 

[niccoli]

White = Phone
Blue = Switch to Device
Yellow = Infrastructure
Black = Console or serial

Labeling depends on the location, usually our labels list in an 8 to 12 character list.

Switch running from, port number, patch panel, patch panel number, room running to, wallplate number. Switches go A through Z, patch panels as well. so a label could be: B12A122311

Seems/looks confusing until you get used to the naming scheme. We always have a naming scheme break-out and wire map in the wiring closets as well.

 

[M4tt]

Labeling depends on the location, usually our labels list in an 8 to 12 character list.

Switch running from, port number, patch panel, patch panel number, room running to, wallplate number. Switches go A through Z, patch panels as well. so a label could be: B12A122311

Seems/looks confusing until you get used to the naming scheme. We always have a naming scheme break-out and wire map in the wiring closets as well.

Great idea. What do you use to label the cables? masking tape, true labels, tags?

 

[sulchus]

Purple- Patches for Phone
Green - KVM over IP
Black - Console or serial
Blue - Infrastructure, closets to jacks
Yellow - Patches for Network
Orange - Fiber
Red - Crossover

Every jack on campus is a somewhere between 0000 and 8000 and growing. There is a numbered label on the patch panel and on it's wallplate. If a filled closet needs one more punch down we'll add a 24 port panel and label it with whatever the next set of 24 numbers, so each closet doesn't necessarily go in order besides 24 post sets. The switches in each room room are labeled with a university wide code, the floor they're on, and then a number based on how many switches are in that closet.

A typical location would be AH3-03 port 48 --> jack 5700. Translates into Armstrong Hall, third floor, third switch port 48. That's patched into the panel above it labeled 5700. To find out where 5700 is (room and such) everything is documented in cad maps of the whole campus by floors and jack locations are shown where they are in a room.

I hope that made sense, because it's a really intuitive system that we just got done changing to. The old labeling system sucked.

The fiber rooms and the server room have a different labeling scheme and cable markings, but the vast majority of connections are everywhere else.

 

[-(Xyphox)-]

Great idea. What do you use to label the cables? masking tape, true labels, tags?

I use a Label Maker to make all of mine, can get them just about anywhere, staples is where i got mine

 

[ksanders2006]

Blue: Straight-through, crossover, rollover, etc (we just look at the ends)
Orange: fiber =)