Re: Data Center Wiring Standards

[John L Lee]

Rick, The organization and standards you are looking for are: BICSI  -  http://www.bicsi.org/ and TIA/EIA 568 et al for structured cabling design for low voltage distribution. The BICSI organization has training and certification for RCDD Registered Communications Distribution Designer A BICSI article that is on there web site about data center design is http://www.bicsi.org/Content/Files/PDF/link2006/Kacperski.pdf. TIA/EIA 568(ab) how ever many they are up to discuss structured cabling design for UTP/STP/fiber/coax including patch cables single and multi pair UTP/STP/fiber  patch panels,  HVAC control, fire system control and security systems. John (ISDN) Lee Rick Kunkel wrote: 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