Vertical & Horizontal Cable wire management for mutli-RU modular chassis switches

[acesea]

Hi, I've got a greenfield project where new cat6 cabling has been pulled from several floors to a room and I need to direct a tech to dress and terminate cat6 cabling to patch panels. I was planning on installing all the gear in an APC 42u rack but the rack we have available doesn't look like it will provide any space at the sides for vertical cable management. Are there any server racks on casters that would be suitable because it'd be nice to be install a couple servers on rails at the bottom? Otherwise it'll be on a 2 or 4 post networking frame.

Looking to get HP Procurve 5400 zl chassis switches installed. Either 5406zl 4u or 5412zl 7u chassis. No 1u 48port switches which we are most familiar working with.

I am looking at how best to organize and manage the cabling to and from the patch panels with vertical and horizontal cable management from Panduit and others to keep cabling tidy to the chassis switches and allow for easy removal of switch blade cards from the chassis.

Any best practices? Cabling to the chassis switch is most obviously going to be coming form the left and right sides to accommodate easy removal of each 24port zl switch blade card for maintenance.

Any preferences to installing the patch panels towards the top of the rack and the switches in the middle? Or vice versa? And what spacing gaps to provide for horizontal cable management panels and any additional gaps for possible future upgrades for different switches and configurations? If we needed to upgrade the switches to something totally different in the future it would be a bonus if the setup was flexbile and mostly accommodative and ready to go without much changes when replacing the Procurve ZL chassis' and installing new different sized switches, chassis or not.

Also thinking since its a server rack cabinet on casters whether it would be effective use of space to use the front and rear posts of the rack to distribute some of the panels and switches but I'm not see how that may make things easier?

Anyone have any recommendations and any pictures you can share with switch chassis setups? I'll be reviewing the 'Network pics thread' in the meantime.

Thanks







Checking out Spyders thread..

Here are some pics I've found so far in the forum...

 

[jeffmoss26]

I would check out Panduit for sure. Somewhere I remember seeing a picture with a really nice setup of their management along with a chassis switch.
Of course I can't find the link but there's also a company that makes a type of harness you can lace all the ports of an ethernet card into for easy removal of modules.