The Beginning
As the new guy it isn’t uncommon to be thrown at tedious and laborious, but necessary tasks. One of these tasks happens to be the untangling of a spaghetti mess of a network rack. Although it was before my time at Linemaster, I am sure the rack once looked manageable… maybe. As time progresses and network changes are made, network racks, unfortunately, start to look disastrous.
The past few months my company went through with a large network upgrade. We purchased new storage, implemented higher bandwidth, and resubnetted our entire network. These three changes alone would be more than enough to make a mess of the network rack. Let me be the first to say, the first time I saw the network rack I knew it would eventually be my responsibility to clean it up. That statement may have a negative connotation, but in reality, I was kind of looking forward to a fresh start. Maybe I’m a sick person.
I spent a few hours researching the best way to tackle this project. Many websites suggest segmenting the rack and doing portions at a time or recommending color coding cables to know what ethernet cable pertains to. I got ideas from other network technicians and developed my own plan. Fortunately, Linemaster already had the cords color coded, but a few cables needed updating – no big deal.
The idea of segmenting the panel made sense to me. I figured if segmented the entire patch panel into eights that as I progressed through each segment that it would eventually become easier. I knew the beginning would be the hardest part of the project, but as I untangled cables they would give me more space to work with. It also gave a sense of progression.
Well, here I go… I will update with progress soon.
Update 1:
The right side finished! I will go back and touch up this section once I complete the left side.
Update 2: Unfortunately, this will never be completed, by me anyways. I am no longer employed by Linemaster. 🙂