To Patch or not to Patch

[TheGreatDoc]

Good morning everyone!

This morning I woke up thinking about how effective are patch panels and when to put one or connect directly.

What do you think about it?

[Reggle]

If you're going to have cables between racks or rows or racks, you'll want patch panels. Also: for rack closet to user desks it's useful to have a patch panel with a short marking where the cables goes exactly.

[deanwebb]

Label BOTH ENDS of a cable, and you can't go wrong. If the labels have the ports that both ends of the cable plug into, so much the better. Even more better is to include what system is connected to that cable, so you know how important an outage involving that cable might be.

[icecream-guy]

Although it adds another fault point, patch. does make things cleaner.

[TheGreatDoc]

In this case, is the servers patch-panel.

Im moving the servers switch from network rack to servers rack. I'll put a 48port switch on it but not all ports will be used and I really hate to work in production patch panels to add new cables.

Also there is the question of cable colours. By interface, by vlan, by service.... I hate cabling soooooo much

[icecream-guy]

Also there is the question of cable colours. By interface, by vlan, by service.... I hate cabling soooooo much

Use red or yellow cable for 1-way communications.
grey or black for 2-way communications.

[Reggle]

And gold ones towards any Belkin. Just because.

[that1guy15]

I've been in shops that have done it both ways. There are multiple reasons to go either way and it also depends on your team. But for me, in general I go with:
- Direct to Switch if you will never (very rarely) move connection. This mostly applies to DC and server rooms.
- Patch panel for copper/fiber on racks that add/remove devices frequently and dont have a ToR switch.
  -- Id much rather get a ToR switch in the rack but a patch panel is a ton cheaper.
- Always patch IDF/MDF runs to other areas of the building so port and location are labeled.
--So pretty much 100% of the access layer of a enterprise network.
-Intra-rack cabling = no patch panel but use cable management.
--I prefer vertical mgmt w/ custom built cable for exact length but that also depends on the team.

[icecream-guy]

--I prefer vertical mgmt w/ custom built cable for exact length but that also depends on the team.

Are those custom cables lengths measured tip to tip?

[TheGreatDoc]

Use red or yellow cable for 1-way communications.
grey or black for 2-way communications.

Sorry, didnt get what you mean....

[icecream-guy]

Use red or yellow cable for 1-way communications.
grey or black for 2-way communications.

Sorry, didnt get what you mean....

Look up, it flew over your head....... Think about 1 way communication between a source and destination.....  does that work?

[TheGreatDoc]

It may be flying over my head, but never lands on it.

All my connections are 2-way dude, you know how networks works.....  :joke:

No, really, dont understand what you mean, sorry

[Otanx]

It was just a joke. Just like I tell our help desk guys that patch cords must be connected in the correct direction. If a computer stops working turn the patch cable around. This forces them to check that the cable is plugged in instead of being lazy, and not checking. Haven't had to do that in a while.

-Otanx

[DanC]

It was just a joke. Just like I tell our help desk guys that patch cords must be connected in the correct direction. If a computer stops working turn the patch cable around. This forces them to check that the cable is plugged in instead of being lazy, and not checking. Haven't had to do that in a while.

-Otanx

Haha! That's a good one