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
Ideally from each core router would go to a two distribution-a switch (Cat 4900 or something similar), from both dist-a switch then go to two bigger distribution (dist-b) switches (cat 6500 etc) Then from each 6500 go to there own patch panels. Then from the two patch panels run a cables to access level (2900's etc) switches in each rack / shelf. This way you have full redundancy in each shelf for your co-located / dedicated customers. My .02 cents -Bill Sehmel -- Bill Sehmel - bsehmel@HopOne.net -- 1-703-288-3081 Systems Administrator, HopOne Internet Corp. DCA2 NOC Bandwidth & full range of carrier/web host colo + networking services: http://www.hopone.net ASN 14361