[AusNOG] Improving rack density with different cable management

[Paul Gear]

Hi all,

As usual, this was a case of "ask a vaguely coherent question on AusNOG, 
get a dozen great answers".  Thanks to everyone who responded, both on- 
and off-list.

To summarise the results, in order of popularity:

 1. Panduit vertical cable management, e.g.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/wkadtc8us5sxdql/20140527_155329.jpg
 2. No cable management at all - use the shortest possible cables, and
    intersperse patching and switching, a-la http://i.imgur.com/IiUiaDx.jpg
 3. APC equivalent of the Panduit system

I'm quite a fan of the simplicity of option #2, but I'm not convinced it 
will work in this application, so I'd like to explore options #1 & #3.  
Do any suppliers keep examples of this sort of thing in stock, or can 
anyone recommend reference sites in the Brisbane area who have current 
Panduit & APC rack models installed and would be willing to give us a 
short tour?

Thanks,
Paul

On 05/27/2014 03:36 PM, Paul Gear wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Most of our sites have fairly simple cable management using 
> traditional cable management like this: 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/nc7bmgs7j85laeq/20140527_145239.jpg
>
> This is easy to work with in most cases where we don't have high port 
> counts.  However, once you push 48 Cat6 cables into them they can get 
> a bit tight.
>
> We have some new sites which are coming online that require up to 288 
> ports per floor, and these will not fit in the single rack provided 
> for the floor if we use traditional cable management, once all the 
> patching, switching, and UPS requirements are taken into account.  We 
> will still have 750-800 mm wide racks, so I was hoping to find 
> something that could be mounted at the side of the rack and protrude 
> towards the front, so that we could use all the rack frontage for 
> either patch panels or switch ports.  Some larger chassis switches 
> seem to have this sort of thing built in, e.g. 
> http://product-images.www8-hp.com/digmedialib/prodimg/lowres/c03131047.png
>
> Searching Google suggests that there are plenty of options which look 
> OK for low-density deployment, e.g. 
> http://www.fibersavvy.com/store/i/is.aspx?path=/Shared/images/21_Cable%20Management/PP4-3197-1U_04.jpg&lr=t&bw=550&w=550&bh=550&h=550 
> but putting up to 48 Cat6 cables on that would not work, in my 
> opinion.  What I was hoping to find is something that would allow 
> cables to be laid in horizontally, more like the L-shaped lower part 
> of our existing Krone cable management, but a little longer and a 
> little wider (say, 70-90mm deep and 30mm wide), and possibly with a 
> number of different channels in it to separate different groups of 
> cables.
>
> Does anyone know of such a system?  Are there other options which 
> would allow us to cram in better Cat6 port densities?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Paul

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