I have read in the book Cabling: The Complete Guide to Network Wiring that wiring closets should not have a suspended ceiling. In a few Google searches, I see this concept repeated. I have not been able to find a good source on the reasoning of this. Not a "it's up to the local code" kind of reason, but a true explanation of the concepts behind it.
Thanks
I've always wondered why there are the two different wiring standards for Cat5 UTP cabling. The only technical difference between the two is the green and orange pair are swapped, which accomplishes the exact same thing as far as wiring goes (as long as the terminations are using the correct pin-outs).
Is there some historical reason that we have both standards? Is there a technical reason? Should I require my wiring to be one standard or the other? Or it just one of those strange and annoying things you have to deal with for no (readily apparent) reason?
We have a new office that was punched down with Ethernet in every office and every cubicle. The electrician didn't mark the ports on the patch panel or the wall ports, so I don't know where say port 1 on the patch panel goes in the office.
I've heard of people using a tone generator to figure out where the cables are but I'm not sure what that entails. I was also thinking of looking up ARP entries on our switches to find out what port is getting what MAC address and then cross referencing it with a list of MAC addresses on all of the PCs in the office. This sounds unreliable though.
Is there a quick and easy way to label these ports?
So, I have inherited a mess of a server room.
Rack 1: 5x 48 port patch panels; 140 in use | 3x 48 port switches
Rack 2: 4x 48 port patch panels; 120 in use | 3x 48 port switches
Rack 3: 3x 48 port patch panels; 95 in use | 3x 48 port switches
Rack 4: used for border routers, and VOIP equipment. also has 2x 48 port switches
Rack 5: 7x 48 port patch panels; 170 in use | 1x 48 port switch
Rack 6: 0x 48 port patch panels; 0 in use | 1x 48 port switch
Note that this is a production environment. I cannot just unplug everything and start from scratch, as there is a total of 32 hours of downtime over the weekend and thats it.
VLANS are a mess as well, we have 9 different groups of PCs, and only 4 VLANS for them.
The first step would be to get all the VLANs correctly setup and configured IMO.
Past this, what is going to be the best way to get this wiring mess simplified? Right now there is no rhyme or reason to how it is wired, there could be a cable going from a rack 1 patch panel to a rack 5 switch, or a rack 3 patch panel to a rack 1 switch, etc. Toss in the VOIP power dist. units, and you could have it going rack 1 patch panel -> voip power @ rack 5 -> rack 2 switch.
My only thought so far would be to get a bunch of switches setup (example: 4x 48 ports for Rack 1) and move all the ports in use on rack one to those switches. Then repeat the process with more switches + any now empty ones.
Any other ideas on methods here?
Does anyone have a link for recommended network wiring for office space? Runs per wall plate, wall plates per room, that sort of thing.