[AusNOG] "Best practice" - guidelines, standards etc?

[Alan Maher]

That is not (nor has ever been) a requirement in NZ.
Any fool with side cutters and punch down tool can wire their own home,
office or spaceship using a guide off the internet for 
phone/data/satellite etc.
It is only where the Telco demarcation point exists that determines any 
standard
or checking.
Hence, many of the circus style events that I have listed (I could add 
many more)
but there you go. Non mains voltage stuff is pretty much a free for all 
here.
"Standards" as such, are now being driven through the certification by 
suppliers such
as Krone, Molnex et al.
I once spent a slightly bleary eyed day in discussion in Melbourne on 
how to manage
Telco connections, having just spent a late night untangling the 
shambles created
in a local office by the "Clown with the punch down tool".(Obviously 
colour-blind)
And I wasn't even able to recover sufficient copper for beer.
But, after comparing notes with my Aussie compatriots, they were kind enough
to buy me one, or two.
That eased the pain.

Cheers
Alan

On 11/06/2013 9:21 p.m., Ramsay, Paul wrote:
> I would suggest using a registered cabler who will adhere to the ACA 
> Cabling Rules
>
> http://www.acrs.com.au/
>
> Cheers
> Paul
>
> On 11/06/2013, at 5:45 PM, "Alan Maher" <alanmaher at gmail.com 
> <mailto:alanmaher at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> I can sympathise with this scenario, having seen it only too often over
>> the years.
>> From the early morning call to establish why the network is down, and 
>> then to
>> wander around trying to establish which of the overnight cleaners 
>> "accidentally"
>> knocked out a co-ax terminator from the wall outlet in a token ring 
>> set up.
>> To the MD who thought that co-ax outlet might be an aerial input for 
>> his new
>> 4.5" portable tv so he could watch the cricket.
>> To the many companies whose server set up just "growed like topsy" 
>> and live and dead
>> equipment lived alongside the biggest pile of spaghetti in the world.
>> Where modems and patch connections were all laying around the floor 
>> in a spare
>> office recently vacated by the photo copier.
>> Where offices were connected by Cat 5 punched through a hole in the 
>> suspended ceiling
>> and dragged around in all directions (including through the A/C 
>> ducting) by the tame
>> sparky.
>> Being called in by the BIG suppliers, as the client refused to pay 
>> their outrageous, inflated fees
>> to tidy the mess up, and they in turn refused to guarantee their big 
>> iron unless the mess was sorted.
>> And of course, there was a Mexican standoff re payment for said Big Iron.
>> To the A/C guys who discovered the problem was all the "crazy" blues 
>> wires that were covering the
>> the inlet on their A/C unit- and simply cut them all off.
>> To the large corporation with a head office/warehouse scenario who 
>> seemed to have around 200
>> outlets, but at a rough count , some 500 cables coming into a big 
>> mess on the floor.
>> Apparently, when the tame sparky ran a new cable, and it didn't work, 
>> they just called him back to
>> run another one.
>> A quick visit showed said tame sparky had cable tied all his data 
>> cables to warehouse to the 3inch
>> thick, 3 phase, mains cable to the warehouse.
>> Yes, it all worked well (sometimes), until such time as the warehouse 
>> plugged in all their electric fork hoists to
>> be re-charged.
>> And my favourite is still- "Can't you just put in one of those raised 
>> floors like the big guys have
>> and cover it all up?"
>>
>> Yes, I am showing my age, but most of it is common sense.
>> Sorting out the mess afterwards can take a bit of time, but it is 
>> mostly a question of following
>> a plan (any plan will do, so long as it can be documented and explained).
>> Colour coding cables helps, and nothing beats a label printer to 
>> attach labels to the cables
>> so that everything is simple- input-output etc.
>> The key word is "Structured cabling"- google it, and you will find 
>> untold resources and opinions.
>> The rest is just plain hard work and untangling spaghetti.
>> Having a sense of humour, and an account at the scrap metal place for 
>> beer money obtained
>> from all the surplus copper helps.
>>
>> Have fun.
>>
>> Alan Maher
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11/06/2013 12:56 p.m., Ross Wheeler wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all.
>>>
>>> I've been asked to assist with the redesign of a medium-sized 
>>> business's IT infrastructure and am looking for any actual standards 
>>> or guidelines relevant to Australia. The current site is quite a 
>>> mess, ad-hoc additions and changes over many years and multiple 
>>> people in charge.
>>>
>>> Particular issues would include such things as OH&S requirements, 
>>> best-practice for server/comms/cable racks, server room 
>>> considerations against most risks etc.
>>>
>>> Photos of some "well thought out" installations and racks would be 
>>> beneficial.
>>>
>>> To be clear, this is not a multi-million dollar datacentre. It's an 
>>> entity of a couple of hundred staff with perhaps 2 or 3 racks of 
>>> servers and comms gear, probably one additional enclosure for cable 
>>> termination, patch etc.
>>>
>>> They want to depart from the old "spaghetti everywhere" environment 
>>> to something more managable. Suspended floors and rack doors to 
>>> simply cover the mess up (but leave the underlying problems) are not 
>>> where they want to be. They're sick of downtime and network 
>>> instability because the wrong cable has been unplugged, or in 
>>> accessing one cable another has been dislodged. Of avoidable 
>>> downtime because nobody can find or follow anything to fix or work 
>>> around a problem, etc.
>>>
>>> Anyone got anything they can share?
>>>
>>> TIA,
>>> RossW
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> AusNOG mailing list
>>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net <mailto:AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net>
>>> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>>
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