Whats with the patch panels??

S

Supchaka

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
133
I was in an office today that had probably 100 incoming drops they all went into a patch panel, then out into their switches. The wires were a mess for one, but why do people do this? I realize then can easily plug someone from switch to another, but thats an awful lot of cable to run, alot of it had to be out to the max distance too.

Why would they do this instead of running a star? You only have to run one cable between your switches, then to each PC. Not having each and every damn PC run ALL the way into the server room independantly, you still gotta go into a switch or router, so why not sooner than later I figure.
 
Well, in most environments I have worked we only used one switch per floor (a lot of times having 100 connections or more) plus 100 connections is not really a lot considering a single blade from a large Catalyst has 48 ports...
 
Ever try to figure out one cable from another in a mess of wires? Now imagine that each drop is only labeled on the label itself...it is a nightmare to try and trace one wire to another.

You build a new building. With the idea that you will be expanding in the future, you put 2 data drops in each of 200 offices, but only 1 will be used at first. On the patchpanel, you label each and patch the active ones into the switch. If you don't have a patchpanel you have 100 cables unpatched down hanging from the ceiling.

Also, the wiring that is run through walls is of a different quality than the wiring in patch cables. They use unstranded wires and are stiffer than the flexible patch cables. This also means that they are more fragile, so the last thing you want is for that fragile cable to be even slightly mobile or in a traffic area like hanging into a switch where it is going to be easily moved or damaged. If one is damaged, you have to have a whole new run put in.

If you've worked in a large enterprise environment, you would also know how much nicer it is to have all of your switches in as few areas as possible for ease of administration.

What ends up happening is like what we have here in my office...a combination. We have a switch room on each floor where all drops on that floor terminate and are patched into switches. Then fiber is run between the floors to the main server room. So there are individual stars on each floor, which then comprise a larger star going into the core switch.
 
I'll have to agree with TrueBuckeye is saying here.

In a well organized environment though, the mess of wires really isn't a mess. As long as the entry points into the server room are are bundled, run on tracks or something like that.

Generally most places have their Data/Telecom racks near the point of entry, and the cable runs down (or up) the back of the rack, and into the patch panels. This way everything is stored neatly behind the rack. (The racks are usually mounted a few feet off the wall, in case anyone ever needs to get back there)

I just wish my current workplace was so organized :/

We have patch panels. But there is no consistency WHATSOEVER in the naming/numbering. Port 65-D is in my office. Port D65 is across the building. Port 65 is in the conference room. See what I'm getting at?? It's my project to get this place re-wired and organized, too.

shoot me now.
 
Originally posted by KaosDG
I just wish my current workplace was so organized :/

We have patch panels. But there is no consistency WHATSOEVER in the naming/numbering. Port 65-D is in my office. Port D65 is across the building. Port 65 is in the conference room. See what I'm getting at?? It's my project to get this place re-wired and organized, too.

shoot me now.
Click to expand...

bang

Wow...that is going to suck. I hope you have a good toner.
 
Originally posted by TrueBuckeye
bang

Wow...that is going to suck. I hope you have a good toner.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it.

I'm wondering if I should attempt all new cable runs, with new patch panels, or just re-wire the patch panels so they are in order.

As we speak I am using a 110 punch down tool on my forehead. Hey, it's better than re-wiring this crap.
 
I agree totally with what TrueBuckeye has said.

Also, KaosDG, I've cleaned up mess's like yours. What I did was grab one other person and a pair of walkie talkies, and a tone generator and tracer set.
You'll have to do this after hours and unplug the drops from the switches, but we toned out every drop and made a new and unique number system.

In the end we renumbered every single connection. A label maker made the job easy :)
 
After I posted I thought about the security issue of having all your switches spread around, the largest network I was part of was 100 machines and there wasnt anything special going on.

We just had 24 port switches in the ceiling near each department. It was nice in the server room, we had one 16 port switch the servers were on, and the other switches in the building linked into there. About 3 zip ties was all I needed for that setup!

Lol of course up above the drop ceilings wasnt very pretty.
 
Originally posted by valve1138
What I did was grab one other person and a pair of walkie talkies, and a tone generator and tracer set.
You'll have to do this after hours and unplug the drops from the switches, but we toned out every drop and made a new and unique number system.
Click to expand...

When I had to figure out who was on what drop in my building I did it the less polite way. I just walked back to the room with the switch right after lunch, unpluged a wire, waited for someone to find me and say 'I can't get on the internet' or 'I can't log in' or 'Outlook says it can't connect to the server', then wrote down what room they were, lathered, rinsed and repeated. Of course this was easy on our small network, only 35 computers and 1 server.
 
Originally posted by resident_freq
When I had to figure out who was on what drop in my building I did it the less polite way. I just walked back to the room with the switch right after lunch, unpluged a wire, waited for someone to find me and say 'I can't get on the internet' or 'I can't log in' or 'Outlook says it can't connect to the server', then wrote down what room they were, lathered, rinsed and repeated. Of course this was easy on our small network, only 35 computers and 1 server.
Click to expand...

lol, reminds me of a time when at one cleanup job things were such a mess we went around and turned on every netowrk device. Printers, PC's, everything.

If a port on the swithces with a patch cable wasn't lit up, it got unplugged and unpatched.

We had 8 24 port switches to deal with in a stack, made that quick work of the cable clutter :D
 
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