[AusNOG] Electronic MDF Record Keeping

[timothy b]

Folks,

For what it's worth, in a previous life I have used iTRAC's in an Ethernet fibre/copper environment which made life very easy when it came to reporting what was connected where and to manage the day-to-day requirements for troubleshooting physical connection issues.  However, I don't know if it has a product that would suit your particular needs.  It took some effort to implement but exponentially reduced the time it took to resolve issues.  Happy to provide a contact off-list.

Timothy Bogie



Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:16:28 +0000
From: tom at snnap.net
To: juan at fatuous.org
CC: AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Electronic MDF Record Keeping

Could you offer some alternative simple methods for reporting changes? Something that can be done in the field with minimal effort I am thinking of.
Such as:

SMS details of change to x numberemail details of change to x at y.comPhone x number to advise of changes
All of which dont really require much effort from the tech, so they cant really complain that they didn't have time, or it was too difficult or what not? And you get a centralised method to process and record changes.

But still, probably nothing will beat a good old fashion audit.

On 28 March 2013 02:19, Juan Zenos <juan at fatuous.org> wrote:

Hi Chris, it's an excellent point. And at sites with high turnover of 
links, and copper mains often being the cheaper option, what good is 
pencil and an eraser when the paper in the book has rubbed through to 
the other side?


I think a spreadsheet is sufficient for the majority of krone/110 
style vertical termination blocks and fiber termination points, but the 
difficult part is getting human beings to update it. In some cases, like
 when you have operators from 36 different subcontractors representing 7
 different telcos working on the MDF on a weekly basis, it is 
impossible. Sorry, I know that doesn't help much.


If you're looking for a spreadsheet template, you'd best start with the krone 1000 pair record book, krone product # 6462 3 010-03.
 I know it sounds unhelpful but it's the way it has been done for 
decades. Don't throw out that F-set just yet, you're gonna need it :)


Regards,

Juan




On 28 March 2013 12:28, Chris Lee <chris at datachaos.com.au> wrote:


Looking through the Warrnambool Exchange investigation report has just got me thinking how we'd recover in the event of fire in an MDF / IDF throughout our infrastructure... we have several MDF's around and like most we have paper based record books (and I realise some of these are probably well out of date anyway in terms of services being cancelled).



Does anyone keep electronic records of their MDF / IDF infrastructure, and if so what particular software or do you just use an excel spreadsheet perhaps, and if so does anyone have a template they might be willing to share ? 



Thanks,Chris

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