Request for submissions: messy cabling and other broken things
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs: http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling my favorite (not horrible, but funny): http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling/cables Anonymous submissions can be sent to fnord@fnordsystems.com , equipment labels and faces will be blurred if requested.
Hello... On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 15:12, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs:
Maybe someone here has pictures of the meetme room at one wilshire from the last several years. By far the messiest cabling I have ever seen in any datacenter. (but it's getting better :)
http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling
my favorite (not horrible, but funny): http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling/cables
Anonymous submissions can be sent to fnord@fnordsystems.com , equipment labels and faces will be blurred if requested. -- Christopher McCrory "The guy that keeps the servers running"
chrismcc@pricegrabber.com http://www.pricegrabber.com Let's face it, there's no Hollow Earth, no robots, and no 'mute rays.' And even if there were, waxed paper is no defense. I tried it. Only tinfoil works.
Christopher,
Hello...
Maybe someone here has pictures of the meetme room at one wilshire from the last several years. By far the messiest cabling I have ever seen in any datacenter. (but it's getting better :)
Someone did take some pictures and were posted today ;)
-- Christopher McCrory "The guy that keeps the servers running"
chrismcc@pricegrabber.com http://www.pricegrabber.com
Let's face it, there's no Hollow Earth, no robots, and no 'mute rays.' And even if there were, waxed paper is no defense. I tried it. Only tinfoil works.
Christopher McCrory said:
Hello...
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 15:12, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs:
Maybe someone here has pictures of the meetme room at one wilshire from the last several years. By far the messiest cabling I have ever seen in any datacenter. (but it's getting better :)
Someone in our office (who'll remain nameless) took these yesterday: http://www.tnarg.org/mmr.html -- Grant A. Kirkwood - grant(at)tnarg.org Fingerprint = D337 48C4 4D00 232D 3444 1D5D 27F6 055A BF0C 4AED
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Grant A. Kirkwood wrote:
Someone in our office (who'll remain nameless) took these yesterday:
What does this sign say? http://www.tnarg.org/mmr_pics/100_0118.JPG And are we looking up, down, left, right... I just can't figure out what this mess is: http://www.tnarg.org/mmr_pics/100_0123.JPG Thanks for the chuckles. Charles
-- Grant A. Kirkwood - grant(at)tnarg.org Fingerprint = D337 48C4 4D00 232D 3444 1D5D 27F6 055A BF0C 4AED
Charles Sprickman said:
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, Grant A. Kirkwood wrote:
Someone in our office (who'll remain nameless) took these yesterday:
What does this sign say?
NOTICE WHEN RUNNING FIBER THROUGH THIS UNIT, THERE MUST BE ENOUGH SLACK IN YOUR CABLE TO WRAP HALF WAY AROUND THE BOTTOM OF THIS PULL BOX. IF YOUR CABLE RUNS STRAIGHT ACROSS THE MIDSECTION WITH NO SLACK, THEN IT WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE UNIT AT YOUR EXPENSE. YOUR COOPERATION IS APPRECIATED. MMR MANAGEMENT
And are we looking up, down, left, right... I just can't figure out what this mess is:
Looking up, into one of the smaller fiber trays. :) Grant -- Grant A. Kirkwood - grant(at)tnarg.org Fingerprint = D337 48C4 4D00 232D 3444 1D5D 27F6 055A BF0C 4AED
On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 11:32:44AM -0800, Christopher McCrory wrote:
Maybe someone here has pictures of the meetme room at one wilshire from the last several years. By far the messiest cabling I have ever seen in any datacenter. (but it's getting better :)
Another suggestion, although I'd be surprised to see it...anybody got a shot from under PBI's datacenter floor when it was at 2nd and Folsom in SF (across 2nd from SNFC21)? That was truely a work of art, quite obvious that telco people who cut off plugs and leave cables under the floor when they're done where there for quite a while... John
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, John Kinsella wrote:
Another suggestion, although I'd be surprised to see it...anybody got a shot from under PBI's datacenter floor when it was at 2nd and Folsom in SF (across 2nd from SNFC21)?
Heh, its actually in SF21 now. I got to see it a few months ago, I believe I saw 10 foot+ racks, packed to the ceiling with gear. There were step ladders everywhere...
http://www.tux.org/wb8foz/ It's a building near the Hill. There's a fiber mux in there somewhere. Other switches are hanging from duct tape above... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Someone claiming to be me said:
It's a building near the Hill.
There's a fiber mux in there somewhere. Other switches are hanging from duct tape above...
ooops -- sorry... <http://www.tux.org/wb8foz/66-666> -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
The messy cabling gallery has become a victim of its own success.... Load on the server (P4/2.0, 512MB) was up to 65, making things nearly unusable. I took it down for fear that the URL would get spread to Slashdot or similar places. It'll be back up in a few days, hopefully. David Lesher wrote:
Someone claiming to be me said:
It's a building near the Hill.
There's a fiber mux in there somewhere. Other switches are hanging from duct tape above...
ooops -- sorry...
Now that you've educated the world about messy cabling jobs that should _not_ be done, perhaps you or someone else should now post _CLEAN_ cabling jobs that everyone should follow examples of :-) Thanks for the good pictures btw. Some of them are actually funny hehe On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 03:12:20PM -0800, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs:
http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling
my favorite (not horrible, but funny): http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling/cables
Anonymous submissions can be sent to fnord@fnordsystems.com , equipment labels and faces will be blurred if requested.
-- James Jun (formerly Haesu) Network Operations TowardEX Technologies, Inc. Consulting, IPv4 & IPv6 colocation, web hosting, network design & implementation http://www.towardex.com | james@towardex.com Cell: (978)394-2867 | Office: (978)263-3399 Ext. 170 Fax: (978)263-0033 | AIM: GigabitEthernet0 NOC: http://www.twdx.net | POC: HAESU-ARIN, HDJ1-6BONE
Always liked the work my fellow coworkers at Globix used to do - I don't have any shots of SJC or NYC online (too bad - a few projects I went to alot of trouble on to show the rest how it should be done ;) ), but here's one of our demo panels from LHR: http://thrashyour.com/lhr1-wiringdemo.jpg And yeah, most of what was under the floors in all the DCs looked like that, and yeah I hear for strict cat5 regs that they shouldn't be velcroed together like that. Wire wraps were never used (only velcro), bundles are laid down so that shortest is on the bottom side, longest on the top. John On Tue, Dec 16, 2003 at 05:24:44PM -0500, haesu@towardex.com wrote:
Now that you've educated the world about messy cabling jobs that should _not_ be done, perhaps you or someone else should now post _CLEAN_ cabling jobs that everyone should follow examples of :-)
On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, John Kinsella wrote:
Always liked the work my fellow coworkers at Globix used to do - I don't have any shots of SJC or NYC online (too bad - a few projects I went to alot of trouble on to show the rest how it should be done ;) ), but here's one of our demo panels from LHR:
http://thrashyour.com/lhr1-wiringdemo.jpg
And yeah, most of what was under the floors in all the DCs looked like that, and yeah I hear for strict cat5 regs that they shouldn't be velcroed together like that. Wire wraps were never used (only velcro), bundles are laid down so that shortest is on the bottom side, longest on the top.
Now, we've seen a few pics of "good" cabling as well. However, I'm forced to ask which kind of "good cabling" is possible in a dynamic environment when you plug in/out, change, etc. the cables. This seems to invariably lead to total chaos :-). For example, consider the case of a patch panel of 200 plugs, where you'd have to wire cables to 20 different physical locations (where the switches/routers are)? How do you manage that elegantly, at the patch panel side and the switch/router side? :-) I mean, it's fine if you take 100 cables, and wire them between the patches and the switches (or the racks if you have the patch cross-connect there) in bulk, but consider the case where you have 15 different switches (different subnets), a computer moving in/out of the room in a daily basis etc. You can't just go around wiring like http://thrashyour.com/lhr1-wiringdemo.jpg or http://new.onecall.net/timages/cat5patch.jpg How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-) -- Pekka Savola "You each name yourselves king, yet the Netcore Oy kingdom bleeds." Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings
How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-)
It is not that difficult *if* the money is spent in a short term to make sure that no ugly and silly stuff is crated in a longer(long) term. Strategically pre-running certain parts of the facility with cat5/fiber to minimize the "dynamic" portion of interconnect is a really good way to reduce the mess. Alex
Any good software out there for cable documenting and even routing and for ECO when things are changed? -Henry Alex Yuriev <alex@yuriev.com> wrote:
How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-)
It is not that difficult *if* the money is spent in a short term to make sure that no ugly and silly stuff is crated in a longer(long) term. Strategically pre-running certain parts of the facility with cat5/fiber to minimize the "dynamic" portion of interconnect is a really good way to reduce the mess. Alex
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Henry Linneweh wrote: | Any good software out there for cable documenting and even routing and for | ECO when things are changed? | I've looked at ITRACS (www.itracs.com) and Telsoft's stuff (http://telsoft-solutions.com/cable.html) before. ITT also has LANSense which is based on ITRACS. See http://www.ittnss.com/kb/kb.asp?id=82&catid=86&skbid=82 - -- ========= bep -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (MingW32) iD8DBQE/4KxtE1XcgMgrtyYRAqp9AKClTJ3TqsQSnFYNjLU82CFsDctr8ACdHfOZ tcE+n4uOy0zFFJ09mehw54Q= =EU/l -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Pekka Savola wrote:
Now, we've seen a few pics of "good" cabling as well.
However, I'm forced to ask which kind of "good cabling" is possible in a dynamic environment when you plug in/out, change, etc. the cables. This seems to invariably lead to total chaos :-).
You hire one wiring nazi. Never let them take vacation or sick time, and make sure all changes go through them. If he needs help, you let him hire and train his junior nazis.
How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-)
And keep the engineers out of there! :-)
Pekka Savola wrote:
Now, we've seen a few pics of "good" cabling as well.
However, I'm forced to ask which kind of "good cabling" is possible in a dynamic environment when you plug in/out, change, etc. the cables. This seems to invariably lead to total chaos :-).
Just one opinion..... If you have an operation with some discipline, in an environment where the exercise of discipline is enabled by planning, forethought, and the expenditure of more than the bare minimum needed to look like you are on the air, it is easy. That is somewhat like saying "If you get to the top of Mount Everest, taking pictures of the Himilayas is easy.
On 17.12 19:07, Pekka Savola wrote:
How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-)
My own 25 years of experience boil down to: Try to plan for expansion as well as possible when designing, then periodically start over and completely re-build the messy parts. The period of starting over depends on the pain level of the planned outages this may cause and the general pain caused by the state of things. All clever plans I have seen in this area have not lasted more than about 2-3 years. It seems very difficult to predict where the growth is and how it happens. I admit this is a slightly cynical view but "such is life". What I dread most, are situations where no-one takes the responsibility for starting over when it is really necessary and everybody suffers. Daniel
How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-)
I find that no matter what you do, if there's more than one person touching the cabling, then it ends up a mess, unless you're very strict about cabling policy. Everyone has their pet way of running cat5 in a rack, and each one individually looks nice, but you try to mix them and it looks a mess. My pet hate is people who cable tie each cable run they do, especially on overhead ladders. Every now and again, I end up going around with a pair of wirecutters cutting out all the cableties. It's amazing how many you end up with, even after 3-6 months in a fairly static environment (I wouldn't say we're running cables more than once every week or two). And worse than people who over-use cable ties, are the people who use cableties and then roughly cut the end off at an angle. I've had more cuts from those sharp ends, than anything else in a data centre. When I do it, I cut them all flush, which makes them much more skin friendly. Simon -- Simon Lockhart | Tel: +44 (0)1628 407720 (x(01)37720) | Si fractum Technology Manager | Fax: +44 (0)1628 407701 (x(01)37701) | non sit, noli BBC Internet Ops | Email: Simon.Lockhart@bbc.co.uk | id reficere BBC Technology, Maiden House, Vanwall Road, Maidenhead. SL6 4UB. UK
On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 07:07:13PM +0200, Pekka Savola wrote:
How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-)
You hide the spiders nest with lots of panduit covers? ;) Honestly, I think it comes down to two things: Planning before implementation - you pre-wire your net gear to patch panels before it goes into production; This keeps most hands off the back end stuff except for the occasional test to verify that a patch is working. This same planning goes into a second set of patch panels which you terminate in the racks, that removes another major part of one-off cable pulls. Rack server, crosconnect to top of rack, back to your patch panels, cross connect to network patch panel, you're set. Second part is, as mentioned, have some wiring nazis. I worked with a guy a few years ago who kept spare cat 5 in labeled bins for 3', 6', and 12' lengths for red, blue, green and yellow colors. Each one was wrapped a certain way without using ties so you could just reach in and pull one out - He'd go mad if you just threw a cable back in there. :) I still wrap my spare cables like that without even thinking about it. You get one or two people like that who have pride in their datacenter, and your issues are taken care of. :) John
the most long-term stable cable dress i see is in cookie-cutter pops, where the provider cranks them out fully pre-wired and all the same. you live in a dynamic environment? unplanned change either makes messes or large amounts of rework. there ain't no magic pill. randy
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 John Kinsella wrote: | On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 07:07:13PM +0200, Pekka Savola wrote: | |>How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-) | | | You hide the spiders nest with lots of panduit covers? ;) | | Honestly, I think it comes down to two things: Planning before | implementation - you pre-wire your net gear to patch panels before it | goes into production; This keeps most hands off the back end stuff | except for the occasional test to verify that a patch is working. This | same planning goes into a second set of patch panels which you terminate | in the racks, that removes another major part of one-off cable pulls. | Rack server, crosconnect to top of rack, back to your patch panels, | cross connect to network patch panel, you're set. | I've even found some examples of some of that and posted them at http://www.pinskyfamily.org/dcstuff/ - -- ========= bep -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (MingW32) iD8DBQE/4LQbE1XcgMgrtyYRAjR+AKCpCx+zs/ck+52GzSnbyVruM/r45ACcD4SO u59oMBKiEuEAtkqXWw/qeio= =zd7o -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Pekka Savola wrote: | On Tue, 16 Dec 2003, John Kinsella wrote: | |>Always liked the work my fellow coworkers at Globix used to do - I don't |>have any shots of SJC or NYC online (too bad - a few projects I went to |>alot of trouble on to show the rest how it should be done ;) ), but |>here's one of our demo panels from LHR: |> |>http://thrashyour.com/lhr1-wiringdemo.jpg |> |>And yeah, most of what was under the floors in all the DCs looked like |>that, and yeah I hear for strict cat5 regs that they shouldn't be |>velcroed together like that. Wire wraps were never used (only velcro), |>bundles are laid down so that shortest is on the bottom side, longest |>on the top. | | | Now, we've seen a few pics of "good" cabling as well. | | However, I'm forced to ask which kind of "good cabling" is possible in | a dynamic environment when you plug in/out, change, etc. the cables. | This seems to invariably lead to total chaos :-). | | For example, consider the case of a patch panel of 200 plugs, where | you'd have to wire cables to 20 different physical locations (where | the switches/routers are)? How do you manage that elegantly, at the | patch panel side and the switch/router side? :-) | One of the things we did was to not allow cabling directly to the switches and routers. We would always extend switch and router ports to structured wiring infrastructure and then do patching from structured panel to structured panel. This would insure that clean wiring technique was employed near the gear and that cables would not cross cards making them inaccessible in the event of failure. It also isolated the dynamic portion of the wiring infrastructure to patch fields and away from user cabinets and network gear. | I mean, it's fine if you take 100 cables, and wire them between the | patches and the switches (or the racks if you have the patch | cross-connect there) in bulk, but consider the case where you have 15 | different switches (different subnets), a computer moving in/out of | the room in a daily basis etc. You can't just go around wiring like | http://thrashyour.com/lhr1-wiringdemo.jpg or | http://new.onecall.net/timages/cat5patch.jpg | | How do you do good cabling in dynamic, real environments? :-) | You also have to plan for plenty of cable management. In our patch fields we had cable mgmt at the top, the middle, the bottom, and the left and right sides of each rack. Took extra room and required extra racks, but it helped mitigate sloppy patch jobs. Additionally, we kept a ton of extra patch cords of various lengths around. We had preplanned the necessary lengths and instituted a color coding scheme to denote different services running through the cables. - -- ========= bep -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (MingW32) iD8DBQE/4J+tE1XcgMgrtyYRAhkcAKDaVC3UQX2thJc4sbQSw2o+2D98RACeIT3b Wd2JEKAT56/0BRR4eQsMjZQ= =RPyz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
haesu@towardex.com wrote:
Now that you've educated the world about messy cabling jobs that should _not_ be done, perhaps you or someone else should now post _CLEAN_ cabling jobs that everyone should follow examples of :-)
http://new.onecall.net/timages/dsxcabling.jpg http://new.onecall.net/timages/cat5patch.jpg Just a couple humble suggestions.
Thanks for the good pictures btw. Some of them are actually funny hehe
On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 03:12:20PM -0800, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs:
http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling
my favorite (not horrible, but funny): http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling/cables
Anonymous submissions can be sent to fnord@fnordsystems.com , equipment labels and faces will be blurred if requested.
Isn't it amazing how clean cabling in nearly empty collos and mmrs looks? Alex
Oh... Had to take a potshot, didn't we ? FWIW, we are near filled now, and we managed to "Keep the Faith"... Alex Yuriev wrote:
Isn't it amazing how clean cabling in nearly empty collos and mmrs looks?
The real Key is to let the "s/Soup/Cabling/g" Nazi keep control of the situation... And keep the "Suits" out of it, no matter how much they whine. "Oh, we just need to slap up a temporary..." NEIN! NIX! Das is Verbotten! NO SOUP FOR YOU! ;)
Alex
Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
Now that you've educated the world about messy cabling jobs that should _not_ be done, perhaps you or someone else should now post _CLEAN_ cabling jobs that everyone should follow examples of :-)
Thanks for the good pictures btw. Some of them are actually funny hehe
Look for Terry Kennedy's ny.net.... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
i've started taking pictures of the places i've worked, since I was proud of one...and entertained by another. you can decide which is which: http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Cogent/IMGP0320 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Cogent/IMGP0322 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/main_LAN_rack http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/LAN_2 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/main_rack_front_1 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/main_LAN_back Eric Kuhnke said:
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs:
http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling
my favorite (not horrible, but funny): http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling/cables
Anonymous submissions can be sent to fnord@fnordsystems.com , equipment labels and faces will be blurred if requested.
Sorry this is a bit blurred being from my phone but this is recent from telehouse london, the area under the floor is about 2ft6 deep http://www.thedogsbollocks.co.uk/pictures/opalpops/P7090001.JPG On Mon, 22 Dec 2003, Russel Callen wrote:
i've started taking pictures of the places i've worked, since I was proud of one...and entertained by another. you can decide which is which:
http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Cogent/IMGP0320 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Cogent/IMGP0322
http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/main_LAN_rack http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/LAN_2 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/main_rack_front_1 http://gallery.arxys.net/gallery/Rivien/main_LAN_back
Eric Kuhnke said:
Sometimes illustrating the way a job should *not* be done is a powerful educational tool. I have collected a gallery of messy and ridiculous cabling jobs:
http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling
my favorite (not horrible, but funny): http://gallery.colofinder.net/shameful-cabling/cables
Anonymous submissions can be sent to fnord@fnordsystems.com , equipment labels and faces will be blurred if requested.
participants (21)
-
Alex Yuriev -
Bruce Pinsky -
Charles Sprickman -
Christopher McCrory -
Daniel Karrenberg -
David Lesher -
Eric Kuhnke -
Grant A. Kirkwood -
haesu＠towardex.com -
Henry Linneweh -
John Kinsella -
Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr. -
Pekka Savola -
Randy Bush -
Richard Irving -
Robert A. Hayden -
Russel Callen -
SG -
Simon Lockhart -
Stephen J. Wilcox -
Tom (UnitedLayer)